Three Types of Coolants Your Shop Should Have

Along with fuel, water, motor oil, and battery power, each vehicle needs coolant to run properly. Just as there is a variety of gasoline formulas and motor oil mixtures in the market, so do coolants come in several variants that can be roughly classified according to the technology used to make them.

IATs (Inorganic Acid Technology) are bright-green coolants primarily designed for vehicles built in the 1920s and the late 1990s. IAT coolants are fairly simple to use and contain enough silicates and phosphate corrosion inhibitors to keep a car running for 30,000 miles. That said, they are largely superseded by more modern coolant formulas in terms of performance.

These days, most motorists use either Organic Acid Technology (OAT) or Hybrid Organic Acid Technology (HOAT) coolants for their vehicles. OATs don’t contain traces of silicate and phosphate, which help them last longer than IATs. In fact, OATs only need to be flushed every 150,000 miles. However, OATs can corrode the metal components of vehicles over time, prompting more proactive maintenance on the part of vehicle owners.

HOATs don’t pose this problem, though, because they’re made with special additives that reduce corrosion and improve vehicle performance. The only downside is that they’re more suited to imported European and Japanese vehicles.