Hey all,

Long time no speak on here,but once more I am in need of expertise.

My STR has been laid up a few months as I haven't been doing much driving over winter. I decided to recommission her this week; the MOT is up the end of the month, so I thought I would start with a trip down to my local garage and an MOT - at the least to find if there we any unspotted issues I should be addressing, and also because I wanted to get her up on the ramps and have a scan around underneath myself. Whilst underneath I found a small coolant leak dripping. Nothing major, put it on my list, I thought.

Went to pick up the car today and there were a few fails, nothing major - headlight adjusters etc. I get her home and start to address the coolant leak. First stop is to lift the cap to see what she's dropped and to my horror - its a horrible brown. further inspection reveals blue residue all around the rim and around the rim of the tank. My guess is one of their techs who saw the leak with me has conscientiously checked and topped it before doing the emissions test. Now I replaced that tank myself, and did the refill after, so I know for a fact she's had pure orange in there before that. There's also a brand new sticker saying what colour to put in!! So my questions are, before I go back to the garage tomorrow to scream blue murder:

Is there *any* flavour of green/blue antifreeze they could pass off as being compatible with the STR?

What, if any, are the long term consequences of the mix? Bear in mind she'll have driven 2 miles and probably sat idling for 20 mins for emissions and that's it.

I will clearly be asking them to remedy the problem, I will request repeated full flushes and refill with the proper orange juice. Is there anything else I should be asking for? Does anything need disassembling and cleaning?



I am not a happy bunny just now!

 

Colour cannot be used to determine compatibility/non-combatibility of two different fluids. Get the spec of the fluid the garage used and compare it with that listed in your owners manual. This assumes what was already in the car complies with the jag spec.

 

The stuff already in there does, because I put it there.