Porsche 996 what coolant to use?

[MontyC]

I have a 1998 996 I tested the antifreeze today and it reads like theres none in it, so I want to drain the system and change the coolant. Do I have to use porsches own brand or is there an alternative?

[thegoose]

Besides getting the right coolant (which you need to do, the spec may be in the manual) you'll need to know what you're doing (and possibly have special equipment) to refill it without air-locks. Specialists usually use a system pressuriser when refilling.

[clubsportguy]

MontyC said:

I have a 1998 996 I tested the antifreeze today and it reads like theres none in it, so I want to drain the system and change the coolant. Do I have to use porsches own brand or is there an alternative?

Use the Porsche anti freeze about 18-20 litres should do !!

[Hilux2400]

If you haven't got any antifreeze in it would be a good idea to get some in before we get bad weather. I had a similar problem with a car I bought last December.

Do the following:

Park the car nose down when it's cold.

Remove the filler cap on the header tank and syphon out its contents which is about 3/4 litres.

Fill the header tank with neat antifreeze up to the max mark.

Run the vehicle and allow it to cool.

Repeat this about three times and you will get about 12 litres of neat antifreeze into the system.

Each time you do it you will of course lose some mixed coolant, but you will be replacing it with neat antifeeze.

Each time before you do this check the consistency of the coolant with a hydrometer.

This will get you out of a hole in the short term until you have a chance to give it a complete refill.

What freezes a car is the rush of cold air into the rads when cold. The wind chill factor is very high on cold mornings. This causes the rads to freeze and this blocks up the rads and causes the engine to overheat.

H

[MontyC]

I wanted to do a full system drain as im not sure what coolant was used before. And have heard you must not mix coolants but from what I read it sounds like airlocks in the sytstem are common and there is a bleeding procedure, also being a tiptronic they have a seperate valve so I need to pull out a fuse. I did call a porsche specialist but they said its a 4h job and they have to remove the front bumper to get to the rads which seems a little extreme.

[Richard Hamilton]

The original coolant in the car is an OAT (organic acid technology) coolant, so in theory any OAT would do. Comma G30 Xstream is compatible (supposedly Porsche-approved, according to the literature).

Using a silicate-based coolant to top up can cause a brown sludgy mess, and gums up the system, so you want to avoid that type.