Is water a substitute for a coolant!

[faizalabdul]

Hey guys

Few days back i saw one mechanic filling water inside the coolant in one of his client's car. Which made me wonder if water is actually a substitute of coolant or those mechanics were making a fool of the client. Please write your suggestions!

[bhushandxb]

No ways..

I think that mechanic made fool of his client. Water can never be a substitute of coolant even if the water is very cold. And anyways, if you put the cold water as a coolant, in few hours it will become hot and rather will create more problem in the engine.

[roggers]

I was also made a fool like that once. I gave my Peugeot 308 to a local garage and asked him why the engine is overheating. he said he has to more coolant in the engine. And i saw him putting cold water in place of coolant. And when I asked him he said, its a substitute to coolant only and it wont harm the engine. I happily went back home. After some days, i went on a long drive in a sunny weather when suddenly i experienced smoke coming out of my car. And then somehow i took my car to the service center and ended up paying more money as there was lot of damage in the engine because of the hot temperature inside. He warned me and said "Never put water considering it as a coolant in the engine". I learned my lesson that day, and I suppose that guy will face a similar problem after some days.

[farhaad]

Well, water is actually better than coolant as a cooling agent and one can actually run car on water without any problem.

However, coolant has higher boiling point (110+) than water (90-100) so when car is little low on water it heats up faster and water reduce faster due to less boiling point and cause all the trouble by over heating the car. Second reason to prefer coolant is its anti rust property that makes radiator rust free and doesn't clog the radiator cores after sometime, if you drive car with water only then in six months time car radiator will be blocked due to rust.

As a mixing with coolant, or just topping up in case of emergency, or using full water in case of emergency is acceptable but you need to flush whole water and top up with coolant as soon as possible in next few days or within week time.