Scott L. and others,
I was wrong in assuming that Valvoline's Zerex and their Glysantin G 05 were the same products. Since Lexington is the headquarters for Valvoline, I called them to ask where I could buy their Glysantin G 05. Lo and behold it can only be purchased at your Mercedes dealer. At around $13/gal.Wow!
The stuff must have magical powers.
I asked the Rep. I talked to why it wasn't sold in regular auto stores like the P-green stuff and other brands of antifreeze. He wasn' sure about that, but he thought it might have something to do with the agreement Valvoline made with BASF over the trade mark of Glysantin G 05.
A question I would like to ask anybody to answer is this:If Prestone is so detrimental to all automobile engines,why is it (Prestone) the leading brand of antifreeze sold in the US. The P-green stuff has been around since 1927. Surely, if the green stuff is as bad as Scott would have us believe, It would have destroyed so many engines in its 34 years on the market, that no one in their mind would want to even be near the stuff.
All car engines are made of the same materials; cast iron,steel high lead solder copper,aluminium, brass and low lead solder and also use plastic and hoses in the cooling system. The P-green stuff is formulated to provide optimum protection for these materials and also protect against rust and crrosion rust. What more do you want than that. And at half the price.
This post is getting to be too long, but I would like to tell of one experence I had with Mercedes antifreeze.
In the fall of 1993 we bought a 1983 300SD from an elderly couple in Cincinnati. They used it mainly to drive to their Fla. winter home in the Tampa area. They bought the car new and had it serviced at the prescribed intervals at the MB dealer.It had 130,000 m. on the odometer. It had MB antifreeze in the cooling system.I did not change it because the car had been serviced nine months before we bought it. All fluids were changed. In the summer of 1994
the upper connection for the radiator broke off.I gave no thought about the antifreeze causing the breakage. I figured it was heat and age. The worst enemy of plastic is heat. And of course age. I installed a new Behr radiator($245), filled it up with a 50/50 mix of the P-green stuff and haven't had any coolant related problems. That's been almost seven years ago.
Scott, if you can only buy the Valvoline (Mercedes) antifreeze at the dealer and maybe some mail order houses, I wonder how many MB owners who don't have their MBs serviced by the Mercedes dealer are driving their cars with that P-green stuff in their radiators.
Scott,you continue using Valvoline's Glysantin G 05 in your Mercedes, and I'll continue using the P-green stuff in mine(I've used it for fifty +years- thirty-four in Mercedes). This way we both can be happy-and friends.
Bill Lewallen Lexington,Ky. Home of Valvoline's Glysantin G 05 antifreeze.