Distilled Water?
 

I’ve been using distilled water in my cars and trucks for years and lately I read here that some people say to use bottled water instead. What is the best, Distilled or Bottled water?

Distilled water tends to be bottled. Reverse-osmosis filtered water would be fine too.

Do not use bottled drinking water. That's no better than tap water.

Distilled, de-ionized, reverse osmosis, fuel-cell by-product, condensate, etc

The idea is to have lots of H2O and as little minerals, salts, ions, etc.

For batterys yes.. For Coolant regular tap water.

Why not in the coolant also?
From what I've been told, distilled water leaves less deposit build up throughout the engine and in the radiator.

You sure?

I've read and done otherwise.

But I can't swear to it.

Well, distilled or deionized water will absorb metal ions and deterioration of the metal. That is why metal tubing is almost never used on Reverse Osmosis sytems etc.
Deionized water is exactly that - water that has essentially been stripped of all of its ions. Water likes to be balanced in its natural state, however, and this means that it adds ions to itself to achieve that goal. Therefore, DI water grabs ions from everything it touches that can be dissolved or absorbed. It is about a close as you can get to a Universal Solvent. In your case, it will extract metals from all of the brass fittings you have, and will also pull carbon dioxide from the air - you get the drift.

Yes. That is interesting. Thank you.

I completely agree that it is a highly reactive solvent.

I thought that after 20 years of accumulation, a closed system, the DI water would quickly come to equilibrium with the prior deposits, etc.

I'd see your concern much more if it was a continuous influx of DI with the enriched water exiting.

I don't know for sure, never done a detailed analysis, you could be right, but I wonder...

Mix the water with antifreeze, and you have no problem.

The problem is that many typical antifreezes are not electrolytes, they don't dissociate into ions. Same is true of many typical surfactants.

Water, highly polar, really wants some ions around.

I kinda thought the DI was put in to ensure that deposits could not form because there was no mineral source from the water (main reason) and second to partially leach existing deposits (secondary and much smaller).

But until you do the experiment or encounter someone you trust who has done it I'll just have to think and listen and read and see what I can learn.

The rate of metal/mineral dissolution into DI is going to be orders of magnitude slower than the rate of mineral deposition from tap water. DI is a powerful solvent, but it's not exactly hexafluoric acid. :D

Also, whereas tap water will leave mineral deposits that can clog up your radiator, anything dissolved into DI is likely to stay in solution and go with it when you flush the coolant.

I don't even know what hexafluoric acid is - but it sounds frightening! :D

I thought DI was the way to go but I hate making a declarative statement when I haven't checked everything.

Oops, I meant hydrofluoric, not hexafluoric. It's so reactive it can dissolve glass, and is used in etching glass. Often found as an ingredient in brake cleaner, and one of the reasons that substance is so horribly toxic. Nasty stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid

Low tec question
 

I. Presume it's safe to use AC condensate in a old engine.
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