Coolant Flush How many Green(Unknown) to Pink
 

I have Green coolant. I had bought a gallon of Porsche coolant a year back and it was pink. My research suggests I am either on the original coolant (Green before Pink) or somewhere before me someone switched to Non-Porsche
I have been topping off only with distilled so my 50/50 is off by now.
I will be flushing and going to Porsche Pink.
I have U-View tool so that's covered
How many flushes will clean.
I originally thought:
1 - tap water only flush
2 - Distilled water only flush
3 - Fill 50/50 Pink stuff/Distilled
Now I don't think introducing tap water into the system is a good idea even though I would flush with distilled after:
Is this sufficient ?
1 - Distilled only flush
2 - Fill 50/50 Pink stuff/Distilled

When I replaced my water pump, I did a flush of the system with distilled water twice
Go to Wallyworld, it under a buck a gallon.

I would flush only with distilled water. It doesn't seem like a great idea to introduce more foreign particles from tap water into a system you are trying to flush. When I replaced my WP and Thermostat, I flushed with 8-10 gallons of distilled water. The system is about 5 gallons, so that is about 2 full flushes. I would check the color of the water, you may decide extra flushes make sense.

If you are really concerned about flushing as much as possible out, you could drain from multiple points, instead of from just the coolant drain plug. That would entail accessing the front radiator hoses, in addition to just the drain plug.

You can't drain the entire system from just the drain plug, you have to disconnect several hoses
search for DIYs, plenty of them around

One good thing about using tap water is you can forcibly flow lots of liquid through until it comes out completely clean, and do it in various directions from various inlets/outlets. There is just no way I can see that being done with gallon containers of water.

But then again, the area I live in gets water from a surface watershed (and not pumping it from underground wells/aquifers), so the water here has far fewer deposits than probably many other areas. Hard water deposits after washing don't seem to usually happen around here, and water heater descaling is also completely unnecessary to ever get done here, because there is just never any scale build up in the first place that needs removing.

I didn't flush with water when I changed from the green to pink stuff, I just refilled the system with new coolant and called it a day.
The big hoses under the tunnel were disconnected at the engine and the drain plug removed. I then raised the front of the car to drain the rads and lines and got out 19 of the about 20 litres of old coolant in the car and used a Uview to fill again with the pink stuff.
I guess this means I'm going to Porsche maintenance hell, right?

Not necessarily, haha

The point is to not mix different types/brands of coolant, because mixed coolant tends to gel and cause all kinds of problems. I realized over the summer going back through my service receipts, that a mechanic I visited when I first got my 986 topped it up with non-OEM coolant (I didn't know any better at the time). Cue several years of mysterious coolant related minor issues, even after flushing the system. Of course, I am just speculating.

That said, if you are going from Porsche green to Porsche pink, there may not be that kind of reaction. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about green and pink coolant can chime in, but I doubt Porsche would make the switch and recommend green be replaced by pink if it would case any issues. :cheers:

Porsche's original green coolant is completely compatible with the pink colored replacement they introduced in 2003.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you also need to switch the ignition on and crank the heat to get the heater core to flush?

No, the heater core is always at full flow, the in car temperature control is via a flap which limits air flow over the heater core.

The Porsche fluid is BASF Glysantin G40. Just in case you won't like to buy directly from Porsche: G40® | Glysantin®

Or in detall:
Brand since year: | VW norm: | BASF norm: | Color:
Porsche since 1996 | G12+ | G30 | redviolett
Porsche since 1997 | G12++ | G40 | redviolett

Regards, Markus