Tech Tip: SuperTech "Asian Vehicle" coolant sucks.

[AKADriver]

No surprise, most store brand automotive fluids are just made by some other major supplier. Often this works out in your favor. Store brand synthetic oils are generally quite good, most are rebadges of the same Warren Manufacturing oil.

Which is why I felt it necessary to note that as of 2022, Super Tech "Asian Blue/Green/Red" coolants suck. Not only does it not meet the factory long life specs, which most of us no longer care about, BUT it contains a potentially damaging additive.

All S13, S14, Z32 came with Nissan L248SP coolant, which is dark green; it's an "OAT" coolant and basically equivalent to Toyota red, Mazda FL22 (also dark green). It has four ingredients:

- Ethylene Glycol
- Diethylene Glycol
- Water
- Sodium Benzoate

A lot of aftermarket companies have stepped up to make equivalent coolants. Pentofrost A1/A2, Zerex Asian Green/Red, Peak Asian Green/Red, these are all great. Perfectly fine.

The Super Tech coolants are NOT equivalent. Instead of replicating the formula of OEM coolants, they basically took their "universal" coolant and dyed it. Which would be fine, I guess, if the universal coolant was just the old school light green stuff. But it's not! It contains an additive called 2-ethylhexanoic acid or 2eha. Also known as... DEXCOOL.

2eha works quite well as a corrosion inhibitor, unfortunately it's also incompatible with many gasket materials (anything made of plastic or silicone type material), especially if there's any oxygen whatsoever in the cooling system. So, say you've got an air pocket in your upper water neck, passing through your intake manifold gasket... that's now a failure point.

I didn't notice this until after I bought some, so buyer beware.

Also be careful when buying "conventional green" coolant as many manufacturers have added 2eha to them, presumably to prevent people who dump this stuff in their 2000s era GM/Mopar/etc beaters from having problems with the high levels of silicates/borates in true conventional light green coolant. If you use that stuff go for the ones that say "for pre-1989 vehicles" rather then "for all makes and models".

[burnsauto]

Thanks for the heads up!

[tuzzio]

I should check what I have in the garage. I don't ever recall buying any "asian" blend stuff. Usually just buy whatever 50/50 is on sale.

[AKADriver]

It seems to be Prestone that likes to use 2eha in everything where it doesn't belong including "all makes and models" coolant, and they supply a lot of the generics like Super Tech. True old school bright green stuff without 2eha is of course fine in our cars as long as you don't expect it to sit in the engine for 10 years/100k miles like you can with the factory coolant.

[jedi03]

ive been told since i was a kid to stay away from supertech products...supposedly used to have parafin in the oil, didnt know who the parent companies were.

But have you, in your research, been able to determine why the companies are putting 2eha in the coolant now? Has it replaced a chemical or just new development and low cost?

[eShifty]

Appreciate the heads up! Very informative.

[AKADriver]

Originally Posted by jedi03

ive been told since i was a kid to stay away from supertech products...supposedly used to have parafin in the oil, didnt know who the parent companies were.

But have you, in your research, been able to determine why the companies are putting 2eha in the coolant now? Has it replaced a chemical or just new development and low cost?

Super Tech synthetic oil is fine, as I said in the first post it's the same Warren Manufacturing oil sold by lots of other store brands like Kirkland Signature and Amazon Basics. I don't know about the conventional though.

I can only guess it's just cheaper to make "all makes and models" coolant, with 2eha, and then dye it all the colors. It's only Prestone and store brands supplied by Prestone doing this apparently. Peak and Zerex don't.