I HAVE A 2004 W/ONLY ~12000 MILES AND EVERY NOW AND THAN IN THE MORNING MY ANTIFREEZE LIGHT WARNING LIGHT TURNS ON AND GOES AWAY AFTER A COUPLE OF SECONDS. I TRY CHECKIN THE LEVEL OF THE ANTIFREEZE BUT A I DONT FIND A MAX LINE...


ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED THNX IN ADVANCE

 

the bottle on the 04 should be the same as 05 (mine) so it should have a min and max line, about 1 inch apart. Try searching around, I have seen it posted by others about a coolant light that goes on and off, i dont remeber what it was caused by, just that the light would go on and off, but the level was fine.

I will tell you that its not a bad idea (and really not that expensive or hard) to change/flush out your cooling system once every year. Esp if you live where you get extream hot/cold temps.

The safe bet is to use a mix from 60:40 (DISTILLED WATER / Coolant) or 50:50 (DISTILLED WATER / Coolant) Also you can try those coolant addatives like Water Wetter, Dish Soap, ICE, ect.

If you want to test the system, fill the overflow bottle all the way to the cap with DISTILLED WATER, the system will push out any extra once its warmed up, so you wont hurt anything (other than any animals that might drink waht comes out, so do it in your driveway or something and clean it up.

Hope that helps.

 

THANX FOR THE INFO KYLIQUID NOW I NOW HOW TO EXPLAIN MY NEIGHBOOR THAT HER CATS DIE IN AN ACCIDENT NOT ON PURPOSE JUST KITTING

NO THANX MAYBE I'LL ADD SOME OSARKA WATER THAT IS DISTILLED WATER RIGHT A WATER BOTTLE.... PLS TELL ME IF IM WRONG

 

as long as its distilled water it will be fine.

 

You need DISTILLED water, not bottled spring water. Distilled water can be found in gallon jugs in most grocery or drug stores. Read the label.

BTW, please turn off your caps key. All caps signifies yelling.

 

I used prestone pre-mix. Don't use spring water, it is also known as mineral water. Distilled is also known as non-mineral water, meaning purified. It says non-mineral water right in the owners manual! Also, make sure you use the correct type of anti-freeze, you can use whatever brand as long as it's ethylene-glycol.

The dealer wanted $80 to flush and change my coolant. Intead I did it myself. Note, I already had the non-mineral water, and it takes about a bottle and a half of anti-freeze/coolant. I think each bottle is two gallons but I'd have to recheck.

2 bottles of Prestone 50/50: $15
1 hour rental of a "bay" at the auto hobby shop on base: $3
Breakfast at Ihop: $9.80
Spending a half hour to stick it to the stealereship: priceless

 

The 50/50 pre-mix stuff is great for its ease of use.

I use 60/40 (water/anti-freez) cause water transfers heat better than the anti-freez.

I also add a bottle of watter wetter from REDLINE.

I have used an older auto meter gauge to check the temps....it treads into the radiator drain cap. I did this test on the miata and it showed about 190 for the 50/50 mix, 185 for the 60/40 mix and 180 for the 60/40 with watter wetter. SO I would guess its near the same 10* drop on the RX8.

I flush/refil the system on the cars every year, never seen any hit of rust/corosion in any of the cars.

 

Be careful using the 50/50 premix. If you flush the cooling system with water prior to filling with the premix, the final ratio of water to coolant will be considerably lower than 50/50. You can never get all the water out of the system after flushing it so whatever is left in the system will dilute whatever you refill it with.

 

I made sure the car was angled toward the drain plug, so I got most of it out. Since I live in a hot area, there's supposed to be more water anyway. If I could, I'd use a filter, maybe a brita... HAHA

With the 50/50 premix and adding de-mineralized water I can get a final mix of 60/40. The next time I do it I'm going to add the watter wetter, I've heard good things about it, but never tried it.

 

There are mixed feeling in the automotive world about coolant addatives :

Some (like me) feel that they are useful, and a good added protection for the cooling system. Others think they might do more harm than good, and there are storys and facts to support both sides.

I think they do help, I use Watter Wetter from REDLINE (clear bottle, pink fluid) 1 bottle treats most cooling systems. There are others such as ICE and various other brands, they all do the same basic thing, have better heat transfer propertys than the glycol antifreez, have addatives to help prolong the life of the gaskets, seals, hoses and pumps in the cooling system, and they lower the surface tension of water, so it transfers heat better.

You can get a similar effect by adding some Dawn (or similar) dish soap to the coolant in the system. It doesnt foam up like you think it might, I did this in my miata for a year, as a test, got pretty similar results as the other coolant addatives, it does the same thing (lowers the surface tension) but in the end, id rather spend the 6 bucks and get something made JUST FOR the cooling system.