Tesla Branded g48 coolant?!!!!

[cashcow]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Gallons-Genuine-Tesla-Blue-Color-Antifreeze-Coolant-G-48/323660582939?hash=item4b5bac901b:g:yGYAAOSw-V1cRmN4:rk:3f:0

"3 Gallons of Genuine Tesla G-48 coolant. Free shipping in the lower 48. No shipping to AK or HI"

90 bucks!

The only other coolant I found to specifically mention TESLA G-48 coolant is the zerex brand

Zerex G-48 Blue Concentrate Antifreeze

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/ZRX861583

26 bucks at napa and 22 bucks at oreilly

https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/b/zerex-2766/chemicals---fluids-16461/antifreeze-16506/engine-coolant-antifreeze---vehicle-specific-13547/df3a6469dc0a/zerex-1-gallon-blue-50-50-antifreeze/g485050/2496991

amazon has the zerex at 30 bucks

https://www.amazon.com/Zerex-875537-G-48-Gallon-Pack/dp/B0762YVMSF



https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=613531

Originally posted by FowVay:
Try this link, both specifications are available. Personally I prefer the G-48 (OEM BMW fluid) to both the G-30 (OEM VW G-12) and G-05 (OEM Mercedes, Chrysler, Ford).

https://www.valvoline-technology.com/data/VALV/ValvExtSecurity.nsf/fsZerex?OpenFrameSet

The G-30 is basically the same as DexCool.

The G-05 has more reserve alkalinity than the G-48 and has replaced G-48 as factory fill for Mercedes. They both originate with BASF in Germany in the Glysantin line:

http://www.basf.de/en/produkte/chemikalien/spezial/glysantin/productrange/?id=G0qgQ5i2wbsf1i6

The G-48 is nitrite-free, which means unlike G-05 it can�t be used with wet sleeves. G-05 has a smidgeon more silicate than G-48.

And its availability in North America is thin, indeed. Valvoline suggests using G-05 to replace it.

ebay is 22 + 13 shipping

I can't find it in autozone or pepboys....


any other alternatives?

 

[jimbo69ny]

I did a bit of research into this a while back. Another member here warned people of the dangers of using the wrong coolant. I honestly couldn’t find any reason why you can’t use either of the following....

I have a lot of experience with solar hot water systems. With those systems we use a food grade coolant. Many local codes require it to be food grade in case it ever contacted drinking water. The food grade version uses Propylene Glycol.

The Tesla, Toyota, Nissan fluid uses Ethylene and Diethylene Glycol.

They both can be used with aluminum, pex, heater hose, plastic, copper with no issues. The only difference that I could find was that the food grade glycol didn’t transfer heat quite as well as the other stuff. It’s still great and still works though. I can get a 5 gallon bucket of it from my local plumbing supply company for $50. It’s called No-Freez from Utility Wonder

 

[asavage]

A lot of fluids will transfer heat fine. What's important is the additive package, for corrosion control.

For something that, under normal circumstances, you only replace every 50k miles, I'm not going to bargain-hunt.

 

[jimbo69ny]

Neither one is going to corrode. You don’t have to bargain hunt but you can be an aware consumer. These two fluids are one molecule different. One is safe to drink the other is not. The only difference. They both do the same exact job.

 

[asavage]

Do you know the silicate and nitrite loading of your food-grade coolant, and how it compares to G-48?

I love propylene glycol, but it's not the fluid that comprises the entire spec of G-48.

 

[cashcow]

Do you know the silicate and nitrite loading of your food-grade coolant, and how it compares to G-48?

I love propylene glycol, but it's not the fluid that comprises the entire spec of G-48.

Hi Asavage,

Thanks for the input. Can you elaborate on the silicate and nitrite loading? I can see where you are going with the not looking for a bargain.. however, it sounds like the zerex can be used with the RAV4 EV since it mentions it can be used with the Tesla. What do you think on that? Or do you think I have to pick up the tesla branded one?

thanks!

 

[davewill]

Personally, I think you'd have to have a screw loose to consider putting a non-automotive tested product in your car just to save a few bucks.

 

[asavage]

Sorry, I haven't been online in a couple of days.

Coolant both transfers heat from one place to another and prevents corrosion from chemical decomposition and electrolysis (and, in certain ICEs, from micro-cavitation events). It also has to function as a lubricant to pump seal(s).

Plain water transfers heat fairly well, but it completely fails to protect against corrosion, mineral build-up, and gradual acidification from gasket etc. leakage in ICEs. It also freezes at far too high a temperature, and is not the best sliding seal lubricant.

Mfgrs have figured out how to formulate a mix of additives to water to optimize a coolant that will also damp down some of those issues. For a long time, automotive coolant was a one-size-fits-all product, and you could pick from anyone's automotive coolant and it would likely work well enough.

Recently (let's say, the past twenty years), coolant formulations have diversified for new engine design requirements. Some engine mfgrs have begun using new or unusual metallurgy or mixes of metals, elastomers, and plastics with different coolant requirements. You may have noticed that coolant no longer comes only in green now, but yellow (Ford, etc.), blue (European models), red (Toyota, etc.), pink (some GM), orange. It's not all color-branding, these colors do (sometimes) have a purpose.

It's not that you can't use one type of coolant in any old engine, but that one coolant may not protect any particular engine design as well as the additive formulation that the OEM specified.

G-48 is a specific formulation. Tesla specs it, and I assume chose that formulation -- and not another -- for a reason. I am not a materials engineer, and I have limited insight into what data Tesla's engineers used to determine that G-48 is the best formulation for use in my Teslas, and I've made enough expensive mistakes to have learned this particular lesson.

Having said that, I would have little reservation using one mfgr's G-48 coolant over another's.
(I seem to recall one issue with GM engines in the '90s when using the wrong coolant and intake manifold gasket degradation, leaking coolant into the intake?)

[later, after some light reading]

Typical green-colored coolants used to use nitrites to coat parts for corrosion protection, but this seems to not work as well with aluminum alloy brazing flux (or something like that). Organic Acid Technology coolants seek to provide this protection without use of nitrites. OAT coolants are not green (is what I'm reading).

G-48 seems to be hybrid organic acid technology (HOAT), with low silicate, low pH and phosphate/nitrite free.

Limiting my reading on this, a decent summary of some of the many recent coolants has been put together by Valvoline. I see I may have some of my colors<->mfgrs mixed up, above.

tl;dr
Horses for courses; one size does not fit all.

 

[asavage]

Personally, I think you'd have to have a screw loose to consider putting a non-automotive tested product in your car just to save a few bucks.

To be fair, I doubt that the reduced cost is all of Jim's motivation.

Propylene gycol is a lot less toxic than ethylene glycol; it seems to work as a coolant additive very well, but is more expensive.

Ethylene glycol does still kill & sicken a lot of animals every year. I used to buy propylene-based coolant just for the low-toxicity. I used AMSOil's low-toxicity passenger car coolant. It's an OAT (contains no phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, silicate, borate, amine). But because I can't find a G-48 formulation that uses propylene glycol, I would not be using that AMSOil coolant if I was replacing the coolant in my Tesla or RAV4EV.

I have not found an automotive-grade propylene glycol based coolant that was less expensive than generic G-48 (though one might well be cheaper than an OEM G-48!).

 

[jimbo69ny]

Personally, I think you'd have to have a screw loose to consider putting a non-automotive tested product in your car just to save a few bucks.

To be fair, I doubt that the reduced cost is all of Jim's motivation.

Propylene gycol is a lot less toxic than ethylene glycol; it seems to work as a coolant additive very well, but is more expensive.

Ethylene glycol does still kill & sicken a lot of animals every year. I used to buy propylene-based coolant just for the low-toxicity. I used AMSOil's low-toxicity passenger car coolant. It's an OAT (contains no phosphate, nitrate, nitrite, silicate, borate, amine). But because I can't find a G-48 formulation that uses propylene glycol, I would not be using that AMSOil coolant if I was replacing the coolant in my Tesla or RAV4EV.

I have not found an automotive-grade propylene glycol based coolant that was less expensive than generic G-48 (though one might well be cheaper than an OEM G-48!).

Well said! Exactly. I didnt use it because it was cheaper. I just have a bunch of it from solar hot water jobs. The parts in both the car, and solar hot water are similar. Plastic, aluminum, and rubber. Solar hot water systems actually use a circulator pump that is cast steel and I have never seen one rusted.

Feel free to spend lots of money and time hunting down tesla fluid however there are other options that will work and are essentially identical. No need to be a purist.

 

[Promedic]

I use BASF Glysantin G48, but I don´t know if it`s availible in the USA.

 

[fred_dot_u]

I've read quite a few posts that appear with the search g48 coolant, but none of them address the concentration. A local auto parts shop has the stuff, described as fifty-fifty but another shop of the same name has the full strength coolant.

Which one should be used in the HV battery reservoir? The DU reservoir is sitting at the top of the marks, while the HV pack is far too low.

 

[asavage]

Generically, the difference between pre-mix and concentrate is convenience: with concentrate, you do your own mix-down, and you have to source your own DI water (I use distilled, because I stock it for other purposes, and it's readily available, but if you like DeIonized water, it can be had).

Personally, I buy and use concentrate, but pre-mix is more convenient (at a slight increase in cost). One thing you can't do with pre-mix is adjust concentration richer, which is something I used to frequently need to do when I flushed cooling systems, because all the old coolant (or flush water) does not leave the cooling system. With repeated fill/run/flush cycles, I could obtain a clear waste stream, but not a completely dry system. In that situation, being able to use a 40/60 (or whatever) water/coolant mix could get the overall system back to approximately 50/50.

The reason for 50/50? Less concentrate throws off the additive mix, and a weak mix can also raise the freezing point (and lower the boiling point), two of the goals of coolant in ICEs. Too much concentrate decreases pumping efficiency and heat transfer (among other things).

---

Tony Williams has stated that coolant test strips that test the pH of the coolant can be used to determine coolant suitability, but I do not agree; that test methodology is valid for ICEs because they have specific coolant degradation patterns, which include accelerated pH decrease, primarily due to extensive dissimilar metals, thermal cycling well above what we have in our systems, and most importantly: pH decrease due to combustion gases leakage into the cooling system, which moves the pH down into the acidic range very effectively (same issue with pH in ICE lubricating oils, BTW, and the reason behind testing used engine oil for residual alkalinity . . . but I digress; Google "oil TBN" for more info.).

EV coolant isn't subject to the same stresses as ICE coolant, and test procedures should be different too. Personally, the stuff is cheap, and if the dealer doesn't gouge too much, I don't sweat it. I got my last coolant changes "free" due to warranty DU replacement @ 60k and warranty battery replacement @ 93k. I just turned over 106k, and I'm nowhere near 5 years since the battery change, so I'm OK for a while yet, and I've cheated and obtained a (hacked) Tesla Powertrain Diagnostic setup, so I can let it open the various valves and run the pumps while I change the coolant myself. It wasn't cheap, and is probably not worth the expense & hassle for most people, who just want to drive their car.

---

I can't let this one slide . . .

Neither one is going to corrode. You don’t have to bargain hunt but you can be an aware consumer. These two fluids are one molecule different. One is safe to drink the other is not. The only difference. They both do the same exact job.

One molecule different doesn't seem like much to you? Water (H20) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) have pretty different characteristics, too

Arguing that "only one molecule different" makes something essentially equivalent for any particular use is groundless.

 

[fred_dot_u]

Thank you for the timely reply. As part of the charger diagnosis, I discovered that the battery coolant reservoir was below Low. Your answer allowed me the confidence to purchase the 50/50 stuff moments ago and bring the levels to normal. The diagnosis revealed a pump related error and this may provide for a more certain resolution to that specific problem. It's not THE answer to the charging trouble, but may be the answer to the panic-inducing message on the dash while underway.

The problem with my wife's car is still under diagnosis, no certain solution/problem identified, but this minor incident also had me checking my Rav4EV to discover an equally low level.

 

[Johan]

Tony Williams has stated that coolant test strips that test the pH of the coolant can be used to determine coolant suitability, but I do not agree; that test methodology is valid for ICEs because they have specific coolant degradation patterns, which include accelerated pH decrease, primarily due to extensive dissimilar metals, thermal cycling well above what we have in our systems, and most importantly: pH decrease due to combustion gases leakage into the cooling system, which moves the pH down into the acidic range very effectively (same issue with pH in ICE lubricating oils, BTW, and the reason behind testing used engine oil for residual alkalinity . . . but I digress; Google "oil TBN" for more info.).

EV coolant isn't subject to the same stresses as ICE coolant, and test procedures should be different too. Personally, the stuff is cheap, and if the dealer doesn't gouge too much, I don't sweat it. I got my last coolant changes "free" due to warranty DU replacement @ 60k and warranty battery replacement @ 93k. I just turned over 106k, and I'm nowhere near 5 years since the battery change, so I'm OK for a while yet, and I've cheated and obtained a (hacked) Tesla Powertrain Diagnostic setup, so I can let it open the various valves and run the pumps while I change the coolant myself. It wasn't cheap, and is probably not worth the expense & hassle for most people, who just want to drive their car.

About additives: Take silicate, to start with. Silicate additives protect (somewhat) against corrosion by (temporarily) "coating metal surfaces" according to coolant manufacturers. Sounds good, right...but wait: Does this also happen at room temperature or does it need "internal-combustion-engine-level" temperatures to trigger this deposition behavior? Batteries get max 55°C when fast charging according to user a report on TMC. Is there a youtube video of website showing that coating actually takes place at such low temperatures? Silicate-based additives are prominently showcased as (temporary) head-gasket crack fillers, crystallyzing only at high temperatures while the water locally evaporates into the cylinder. So at this point I am not yet convinced that any of the additives perform the same as in ICE systems. Besides, many additives are "proprierary", and if not, the chemical formula can be pretty exotic, see for example the text surrounding the coolant lawsuit on Wikipedia, making it difficult to verify.