Walmart Coolant

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Out here in the states, distilled water is cheap and readily available - especially at refueling stations for that specific purpose.

 

Wow. Can I have a source on that? Normally water pumped to consumers thru pipes are chlorined in the EU to avoid germ growth - also with a lowered ph to avoid deposits. And for coolants glycol is naturally added only to avoid freezing since we can have -20° winter days up here in the nordics.

Dealer and interweb told me G13 is recommended for any Prius since gen2..

 

Distilled water is defined as pure water molecules. It’s not up to your neighbor to redefine

Any contaminants including chlorine or fluoride makes it by defintion not distilled. These are the other molecules or elements that will get stuck in filters or in the case of coolants, the block. It’s the boring truth of chemistry.
Distilled water - Wikipedia

 

That tap water might be very close to distilled water when it arrives at the city's water system, but it will be significantly chlorinated when it goes out in the pipes. Note that neither of the two MSDS links which were posted earlier list any chlorine or chlorinated compounds. The Prestone did have some sodium in it.

The Toyota coolant is essentially just ethylene glycol, a little water, something to make it taste terrible, some pink dye, and a small amount of mystery ingredients. The Prestone looks pretty similar to Toyota's brew, but with the glycol component(s) diluted by 1/2 or so.

 

High voltage, non-conductive?

At first I thought that this might be an AI hallucination but apparently it really is a thing for EV coolants. Seems unlikely that anybody is actually running coolant over charged HV conductors but as a safety measure, in case of a leak, it makes sense.

Electrical Conductivity in Vehicle Coolants

In short, the manufacturer tries to eliminate ions from the coolant so that it has a much higher resistance than typical coolants. (Because fewer charge carriers. Pure water has a very high resistance but conducts well once it picks up some ions.) That is out of the bottle. After it has been in the car long enough it might pick up enough metals and such to achieve a conductance considered too high for safety in an EV. Which suggests another factor determining "when to change the coolant" in an EV. Pretty sure none of the existing test strips have a measurement for "conductance" though. And the limits discussed in the link above are so low it doesn't seem likely that just sticking the tips of both ohmmeter probes into the coolant would be able to get an accurate measurement. Which is not the same thing as the corrosion test using a DC measurement between the coolant and ground:

 

IMHO; difficult to get the right balance if you flush the system and can only get premix. You'll need concentrate to correctly balance glycol levels in harsh winter conditions. No big deal if you live near the coast or southern states, where the weather is much milder.
Seems like a lot of 'shoe leather' to save a few bucks; but thanks for the verification and insights.

 

Well, 50% water. Except up here on the balmy west coast of the Great White North, where it's 45% water, courtesy of Toyota Canada. Curious if Alaska gets the 55/45 mix too. Or North Dakota for that matter.

I'd concur regarding coolant "flush", and yeah, it's mostly just a misnomer. If not, it's bad news, both for trying to subsequently achieve a 50/50 balance (basically impossible without resorting to a full-strength alternative, say Long Life Coolant, without the adjective "Super"), AND: what the heck to do with the flushed water/glycol mix, run it down the street, to the storm drain and streams?

I just did both coolant circuits, will take the old stuff to our dealership for responsible disposal (I hope). Ditto for some drained brake fluid.

 

Legally it probably depends on the locale. In California we are supposed to place it in containers and take it to a toxic waste pickup site.

I can't think of a simple and cheap way to separate glycol from water, which would at least reduce the volume greatly for fluids from a flush after a drain. Distillation would work, and while it is simple, it is anything but cheap. For the original glycol/water mix it wouldn't make much sense to try to separate it since it would only change the volume by about a factor of 2.

 

Exactly, at with a simple drain there’s not much to deal with, just the original volume. But when some jokers hooked up a garden hose…

 

Pretty sure the coolant in Post 12 and also Pentofrost A4 are 100% direct replacements for the Toyota Super Long Life Coolant (pink coolant)

Also pretty sure this thread needs to get some type of award for making one of the most simple things about a Prius into Super Long overcomplicated.............