Soap in the rad

[tinoproductions]

Had a (female) friend fill up the washer fluid on her Q3 and she actually filled up the rad reservoir. It was mainly water with some (unspecified amount) of fairy liquid in there.
I had a look and it is way past the max so I will drain some tonight. Not sure if it's worth draining the whole system?!
The car is 2 months old so it would be a shame to wreck it.

Leave it or drain it?!

[Greengecko]

Depends how much is unspecified and if it was neat

[smartphone hater]

Did she start it? If not just drain the reservoir by pulling the bottom hose off it.

If she did start it I have no idea if it will harm anything or not, although if it were me I'd probably start it & let it run for a while to see if it foamed up or anything.

[tinoproductions]

smartphone hater said:

Did she start it? If not just drain the reservoir by pulling the bottom hose off it.

If she did start it I have no idea if it will harm anything or not, although if it were me I'd probably start it & let it run for a while to see if it foamed up or anything.

She did drive around already with it.
I guess the worst than can happen is it will foam up and escape via the top of the reservoir.

As she was telling me the story I thought she was going to say she put water in the oil filler. Phew!

[smartphone hater]

Thinking about it fairy loses it's bubbles anyway after a few minutes so I personally cant see it doing any damage, & it's not as though she's put 5 litres of neat fairy in there. It seems like a lot of work to flush it all out, hose to flush the engine & rad then 20 quids worth of new antifreeze.

Cue someone coming along & saying it will eat all your seals, hoses, head gasket etc.

[Hair Flick]

smartphone hater said:

Thinking about it fairy loses it's bubbles anyway after a few minutes so I personally cant see it doing any damage, & it's not as though she's put 5 litres of neat fairy in there. It seems like a lot of work to flush it all out, hose to flush the engine & rad then 20 quids worth of new antifreeze.

Cue someone coming along & saying it will eat all your seals, hoses, head gasket etc.

Thinking about it, its a 2 month old car that's just had unspecified fluid into the coolant system. Its a cheap/easy job to drain and flush and probably save the car or just let it foam out and hope no damage done?

I'd personally flush it for the cost is worth the peace of mind.

[Locke]

Just drain it until it's back on max, a bit of fairy isn't going to cause the cooling system to stop operating properly in my opinion. There will still be enough coolant in the water.

[jamoor]

just drain and flush a couple of times imo.

[dowahdiddyman]

Drain and flush, it`s sods law that if not something else will go wrong and then Audi have the `get out of jail free` card that all manufacturers look for over warranty claims.

[Funkateer]

Washing up liquid contains salt. I'd be inclined to drain and replace the coolant if it were my vehicle.

[beko1987]

I was planning to do this to clean the coolant system out on the ZX when I get round to it, with some added dissolved washing powder. Drive for 40 miles then drain, flush and re-fill properly.

At least she will have a clean coolant system. Couldn't you drain the radiator down, re-fill, drive for a day and repeat? It would dilute it down enough at least.

[ikarl]

The question should be, will the fairy liquid have an adverse effect on the cooling properties of the water/coolant?

as it's probably an unknown, I would suggest getting it flushed out. Would be pretty bad if the engine did get wrecked and then wasn't fixed by warranty etc

[skyrover]

the heater core should be nice and clean after that

[GroundEffect]

Has she ran the engine? A normal service fill (to get coolant around the entire circuit) requires the engine running at ~2000rpm. If she hasn't, the soapy suds will just be in the degas return line before the engine inlet/thermostat housing. Take that off and drain it out.

I highly doubt it's actually made it to the radiator.

ikarl said:

The question should be, will the fairy liquid have an adverse effect on the cooling properties of the water/coolant?

as it's probably an unknown, I would suggest getting it flushed out. Would be pretty bad if the engine did get wrecked and then wasn't fixed by warranty etc

I doubt it has the same low-temp performance as Glycol/OAT and I really doubt it has the same anti-boiling properties either (50/50 glycol has a boiling point of 108C @ 1atm).

[VinceM]

Drain the lot, bubbles in the coolant can cause cavity corrosion and as others have said Fairy liquid also has salt in it. For the sake of £20/£30 it's worth draining/flushing and refilling with the correct coolant.

I'm not sure why the coolant would need topping up anyway unless this car has a leak!

[vrsmxtb]

Why on earth was she putting fairy liquid in her screenwash more to the point? It cleans her dishes so must be good to clean the windscreen??

[g3org3y]

tinoproductions said:

Had a (female) friend fill up the washer fluid on her Q3

Unsurprising stereotypes are unsurprising.

[LADANIVA]

^+1

[fartIN'ajar]

vrsmxtb said:

Why on earth was she putting fairy liquid in her screenwash more to the point? It cleans her dishes so must be good to clean the windscreen??

I'm thinking this aswell. A friend of mine did this and all it did was squirt foam in random directions instead of washing the windscreen, doh.

[Captain Muppet]

vrsmxtb said:

Why on earth was she putting fairy liquid in her screenwash more to the point? It cleans her dishes so must be good to clean the windscreen??

That logic seems to work.