Good morning Fellas
I have a 2000 Jaguar XJ8 and need to add engine coolant. There are some instructions on the cover near the radiator cap that reads "use only long life engine coolant colored orange ref WSS-M97B44-D. Is it ok for me to add Prestone Entended Life antifreeze? I could not get the cap off the bottle to see what color it is!
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Prestone Extended life is orange. I like to use that stuff myself.
Read the print on the Prestone jug carefully. It should say what vehciles it’s good to use on and what vehicles it’s NOT ok to use on.
That is a Ford (Motorcraft) product:
Orange-colored engine coolant meeting Ford specification WSS-M97B44-D (Motorcraft Specialty Orange Engine Coolant with
Bittering Agent, VC-3)
I would stick with the specified coolant for reasons that I have posted recently. When you check the jug or the manufacturers’ web sites, you should see that the product “meets” WSS-M97B44-D requirements.
If the referenced coolant specification (WSS-M97B44-D) is not on the bottle, don’t use it. Prestone should tell you exactly what specs their fluid meets. If you want to check further, got to http://www.prestone.com/ and noodle around.
There are two Prestone Extended Life products, one is orange (grey bottle) and the other is yellow (yellow bottle). Other than the color, both are the identical. They are HOAT antifreezes and you can use either of them. If you are only a little low and the mixture is pretty close to the 50:50 ratio, you could use distilled water. If you are close to needing a cooling system drain and refill, then I’d suggest that you use the Prestone or Zerex or Peak Long Life antifreezes. Just be sure to drain both the block and the radiator.
The WSS-M97B44-D spec is a US legal compliance requirement more than anything to do with Jaguar coolant specs. The bittering agent is a requirement of the Antifreeze Bittering Act - the bittering additive is to stop people from drinking it…you wouldn’t believe it would you.
So unless you have the occasional rabid urge to drink your Jags antfreeze, you could just use the Prestone Extended Life, it tastes better anyway. You could buy a jar of olives with the money you save on the Jaguar stuff.
Most people don’t intentionally drink antifreeze. They are murdered with it! The green antifreeze does taste sweet. It is very poisonous. Since it is sweet, it doesn’t taste “bad”, like most poisons.
And, spilled antifreeze is frequently lapped up by animals because it tastes sweet. Adding a bittering agent to it prevents animals from ingesting a fatal dose of antifreeze. Now if we could just keep Chinese toothpaste containing antifreeze off the market, we would all be a bit safer.
It’s a little more to her than just the bitter in agent because most jaguars from 2000 & on used aluminum in their engines they require Organic Acid and Silicate Free coolant/antifreeze. Pentosin offers Pentofrost SF. It’s not cheap but it is concentrated and 50-50 covers most everyone. You can go as low as 30% water but you only get a few degrees more protection.
The only other comparable would be Peak OET European 50/50. (“Original Equipment” I don’t understand why everyone has to throw in the word “technology”) It meets the Ford spec and even has jaguar approval on the front label.
Any other antifreeze/coolant that meets the Ford spec is OAT and silicate free would do. If you take a jaguar someplace to be serviced most likely not a dealer because they’re so damn expensive make sure you pay attention to what they use and specify what you need!
My first three jaguars were older and not aluminum so it didn’t matter. Sears did a coolant flush on one of them and everything was great. However I took a 2009 XF which started overheating on the way home because they were careless and damaged the coolant recovery system. I had to fight with her district manager to get them to cover replacing the coolant recovery bottle and hose as well as the cost of new coolant. They wouldn’t cover towing 50 miles to the closest Sears I used so I did the work myself.
Imagine my surprise after beginning to drain the engine that the original orange OAT coolant was still in the engine block! So they just drained the coolant bottle and maybe part of the radiator and added they’re all purpose (Yellow or green I don’t remember which one it was.)
So besides damaging my car they also did not flush the system which is what I was paying them to do. I don’t think you have to go to someone that specializes in Jags that wants to charge you a ridiculous amount; a Key West European auto mechanic quoted $200 for an oil change and I don’t even think the Jaguar dealership charges that much!
You just just revived a 13yo thread.
The problem you have is with Sears. They’ve had multiple lawsuits in multiple states over the years for their unethical repair practices.
I stopped doing my own antifreeze exchange because of the environmental damage. I have well water and too easy for the antifreeze to contaminate my well. So now I take it to a place that has an exchange system like this. AND knows how to use it.
Place I use is an independent garage and he has many different types of antifreeze in stock at all times. He won’t use the generic…He’s seen too many problems using that stuff in the past 5 years.
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