Redline Water Wetter

["Chao, Harvey" <harvey.chao@xxxxxxxx>]

In Digest 137 curt replied as follows:

>Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 11:57:53 -0700
>From: pbiernac@domain.elided
>Subject: <MISC> Red Line Water Wetter

>n BMW Digest v09.n135 Peter Biernacki <pbiernac@domain.elided>
>wrote:

>> ... RedLine's Water Wetter product 
>> ... According to the product's literature adding Water Wetter to a 
>> mixture of 50%/50% antifreeze & water will result in temperature 
>> reduction of about 8 degrees F.  

>Not exactly.

>In a normally operating cooling system the thermostat controls the
>coolant temperature by passing more or less of the flow through the 
>radiator for cooling.  As long as the radiator is able to remove
>heat at the rate it's added by the engine, the temperature stays
>fairly constant.  Water Wetter will not change that.

>If the engine adds heat faster than the radiator can remove it, the 
>thermostat opens fully and becomes irrelevant, and the temperature 
>rises.  In this overheated condition Water Wetter can reduce the 
>temperature by improving the efficiency of heat transfer between 
>coolant and metal.  This may help, but it doesn't solve the inadequacy 
>of the cooling system.

>By the same reasoning using a cooler thermostat does not make an
>overheated engine run cooler; it merely makes the thermostat become
>ineffective sooner.

>Curt Ingraham
>'72 2002tii
>Oakland, California


Absolutely !!  In my recent return trip from LA with temperatures of 108
going up the Grapevine on I-5, with the a/c running - I was carefully ( you
can BET!!!) watching the engine temperature.  I am running 50/50 Prestone
long life with Water Wetter.  Although I had to replace the radiator last
summer, I have always been just a bit suspicious that the stock cooling
system in 528e is just a bit minimal in capacity ( between the '83 I once
had and the '86 I now have, BMW appears to have added a fan shroud - why
else if they didn't have cooling problems?).  As I recall, under the
conditions of high ambient temperatures, a/c and going up grade that climbs
about 4000 feet in under 10 miles, the temperature gauge needle only climbed
from the left hand edge of the center icon to the right hand edge, and
during the drive up the rest of the central valley at 105-6 temperatures, it
stayed no higher than straight up and down.  My best estimate is that the
water wetter helps heat transfer: engine metal to coolant to radiator metal
to air.  Before I changed the radiator last year (that turned out to be 2/3
totally clogged), my car was running warm.  I added Water Wetter and did see
that it ran perhaps a needle or two widths cooler, (until I got caught in
traffic).

For What It's Worth

Harvey

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