I drained the coolant in the Z4 today and was just pouring into it a new bottle of pre-mix coolant and near the bottom of the jug I started getting these lumps of jelly. It's the same color as the coolant. I already know that this is not typical, but is it dangerous? Do I need to re-drain? If so, it's pretty late and I want to go to bed soon-- can I leave the car mostly empty of coolant overnight while it freezes outside?
This is the Peak brand that i picked up from walmart. Looks like this:
Well they don't have a discernible date on them but they have been marked down to $6.50 in stores for a while now, so who knows why.
I would reach out to the mfgr directly.
The level of coolant won't make any difference to safety with storage in freezing temps, only the coolant's freezing point will - you wouldn't want any amount of pure water in there below freezing for instance.
Alright. I went out and picked up a couple jugs of stuff on the shelf tonight (for considerably more than $6.50, I'm sad to say) and will run it through the system. My concern for not having pure water anywhere in it means I want to get the thing full of the good stuff. All summer as I've been chasing down leaks I've just added distilled water since it keeps magic-ing away the coolant.
I remember seeing clear stuff, like broken glass, come out of a jug of cheapo antifreeze once. Glad it wasnt my car involved.
