Distilled Water in Alum Rad ok?

boxmod

boxmod

Driver
OK so here is my confusion. If you look up using 100% water in your cooling system, and using distilled water for that its supposed to be good or bad for aluminum radiators? I've always heard distilled is better to not rust stuff... but what about this shit...

Lots of internet articles say "I would only use distilled water" or "Distilled is the way to go" or "If you don't use distilled, hard water/mineral deposits can clog up the system or corrode it."

Others say "Distilled water is lacking certin minerals, and the radiator has those minerals. Putting the distilled water in there will make it 'suck out' the minerals it needs to balance its own pH and therefore deteriorate the radiator"

Responses to that are "I don't buy it", "I've never had a probem with my aluminum radiator and distilled water"...

Now the real confusion is that on the back of Royal Purples "Purple ICE" for the water additive, it says DO NOT use Distilled water if you are planning to run 100% water and Purple ICE. -it gave a number to call so i did and the guy told me the same thing about sucking minerals from the radiator and to use 'drinking water' instead.

So who is right and WTF.
 
Distilled water is what your supposed to use since it contains no crap in it at all. But fuck, at BMW we put water into the cars straight out the faucet. You just need a little rad fluid to lube the pump, the water doesn't matter for the radiator itself.
 
use regular city water/well water and a water wetter or purple ice i would recamend water wetter its stops the corosion your concerned about i have to do it tonight as well
 
Idk where people are getting the distilled water will wreck your aluminum radiator. Many companies use all aluminum tanks and lines to hold distilled water.
 
jason.....live on the edge bro. Dont look so far into things, just do shit and hope it works. Its so much more fun that way.
 
if you're using purple ice or redline water wetter, regular water is fine

if you're running 100% water, i'd use distilled. but i can tell you from 1st hand experience that both purple ice and water wetter reduced my water temps significantly.
 
email from griffin radiators, when I sent their engineering contact the same question...

Griffin Radiator said:
Hi Jason,

We have always recommended using distilled water.Also if you check out your FSM I am sure the manufacturer say's the same. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards
Benji Durham
Click to expand...
 
ok well the only reason I was concerned was because I had already put in distilled water then read on the purple ICE bottle about not running distilled. I just didn't want to have to unneccessarily redo it.
 
nah i called them and it was distilled in aluminum issue, not the purple ice.... at least according to them.
 
this is probably why but generally distilled water is what is always recommend because it wont leave hard spots or cause calcium deposits in your cooling system.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-distilled-water.htm said:
There is some evidence that distilled water does absorb carbon dioxide when exposed to air, and this could conceivably lower the pH to a more acidic level.
Click to expand...
 
I only use melted comet ice in my radiator but that's b/c space minerals leave super cooling deposits which promote efficiency beyond current interstellar standards.
 
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