"Vehicle Specific" Antifreeze/Coolant vs the Generic

Are you saying the Ford spec coolant in question was not used in any 2018 model?

Just answer yes or no please.

billford wrote: ↑ Are you saying the Ford spec coolant in question was not used in any 2018 model?

Ford published WSS-M97B57-A1 in February 2019 so it likely wasn’t available in a jug at the dealership until sometime in mid to late 2019. It’s not a question of model year but production date.

A model year vehicle that was assembled in 2017 likely would not have been factory filled with it but a vehicle assembled in 2018 may have been depending on testing and production schedules. Regardless, you wouldn’t know either way: you would be making your determination based on the owners manual. To put it another way: even if Ford factory filled the spec in 2016, 2017, and 2018 models since the spec wasn’t published until early 2019 what happened if you needed the coolant at the dealership and the correct spec wasn’t on the market yet? They would have used the available previous spec.

Since you still refuse to state your model and year what I was trying to say is assuming your vehicle was assembled in 2018 and called for WSS-M97B57-A1 which was readily available in 2019 but Ford introduced WSS-M97B57-A2 in 2020 and today you require coolant as of March 2020 Ford has indicated either blend spec would suffice and not void your warranty. So you’re at Walmart and you pick up a jug of OET and only see the superseded WSS-M97B57-A1 which you know isn’t the latest spec but Ford has given their blessing until they announce otherwise.

Why is your model and year a secret?

Who's wrong and who's right I cannot say, but I will say that @100Pacer has been the least attacking poster in this thread. Most professional keeping his calm instead of the name calling, belittlement, and least condescending in this thread.

100Pacer wrote: ↑ Ford published WSS-M97B57-A1 in February 2019 so it likely wasn’t available in a jug at the dealership until sometime in mid to late 2019. It’s not a question of model year but production date.

A model year vehicle that was assembled in 2017 likely would not have been factory filled with it but a vehicle assembled in 2018 may have been depending on testing and production schedules. Regardless, you wouldn’t know either way: you would be making your determination based on the owners manual. To put it another way: even if Ford factory filled the spec in 2016, 2017, and 2018 models since the spec wasn’t published until early 2019 what happened if you needed the coolant at the dealership and the correct spec wasn’t on the market yet? They would have used the available previous spec.

Since you still refuse to state your model and year what I was trying to say is assuming your vehicle was assembled in 2018 and called for WSS-M97B57-A1 which was readily available in 2019 but Ford introduced WSS-M97B57-A2 in 2020 and today you require coolant as of March 2020 Ford has indicated either blend spec would suffice and not void your warranty. So you’re at Walmart and you pick up a jug of OET and only see the superseded WSS-M97B57-A1 which you know isn’t the latest spec but Ford has given their blessing until they announce otherwise.

Why is your model and year a secret?

I don't own a ford, just work on them.

The coolant in question was available for sale in mid 2018 on the dealer shelf, with a part number and the proper spec.

https://www.motorcraft.com/content/dam/ ... 202020.pdf

Ford’s position on all makes all models. OP I believe your brand is Chrysler but individual spec rather than blanket coverage seems to be the long term approach. @Gibsons seems to address your original intent with this thread. If Ford didn’t recommend “all makes all models” it’s certainly worth considering.

@billford the document was published in November 2019 but it would appear yes indeed Ford poured the WSS-M97B57-A1 in specific models starting as early as 2016-2019 model year F-650 and F-750 (real world testing?). Otherwise as of November 2019 they advise and reference WSS-M97B51-A1 “in Ford vehicles.”

I believe this validates your position that as the blend came online more and more models were factory filled with WSS-M97B57-A1 as engineers transitioned during 2017 and 2018; however, dealers like still had only WSS-M97B51-A1 until Ford was satisfied and published the new spec in February 2019.

billford wrote: ↑ I don't own a ford, just work on them.

The coolant in question was available for sale in mid 2018 on the dealer shelf, with a part number and the proper spec.

That’s a useful document - good find. See my post above but according to the document you provided, it’s dated August 2018 and revised in February 2019 (logical - when the new spec at the time was published as previously mentioned). What’s fascinating is your document confirms as of production date 2018 (July 2018 for the F-650 and F-750) but the document I posted seems to indicate Ford was testing real life 2016 and forward F-650 and F-750 with the spec. Regardless I don’t have visibility back in time but I don’t believe this spec was available yet at the dealer as of publication date or revision date. Likely a few months after as mentioned.

100Pacer wrote: ↑ That’s a useful document - good find. See my post above but according to the document you provided, it’s dated August 2018 and revised in February 2019 (logical - when the new spec at the time was published as previously mentioned). What’s fascinating is your document confirms as of production date 2018 (July 2018 for the F-650 and F-750) but the document I posted seems to indicate Ford was testing real life 2016 and forward F-650 and F-750 with the spec. Regardless I don’t have visibility back in time but I don’t believe this spec was available yet at the dealer as of publication date or revision date. Likely a few months after as mentioned.

The coolant was available for sale at publication time in mid 2018, pre covid. Body builder modifiers bought it by the skids from the dealer. Source? Me.

The link you posted: https://standards.globalspec.com/std/14 ... -m97b57-a2, history shows a date of May 18 2018 with the spec, yet you kept saying 2020.

Point being is that there was plenty to time for recochem to update their website so people don't use wrong coolant in some vehicles. I haven't seen anything with the new spec on store shelves except for the dealer.

Dont believe everything you read, especially from recochem.

billford wrote: ↑ According to your links, the new spec came out mid 2018, pre covid. Plenty to time to update websites. The coolant websites are dated 2020 or 2021.

I went to CT yesterday, they have the recochem oem brand, but don't have the new spec either on the shelf or on their instore website.

I ended up going to the dealer and getting the proper coolant with the proper spec. Should have went there first instead of going through the posts here.

So, what was the difference in price between a jug from the dealer vs CT? Interested to know the cost differential.

CanadianLurker wrote: ↑ So, what was the difference in price between a jug from the dealer vs CT? Interested to know the cost differential.

Dealer retail is $30.03. If you have a fleet account, friends of staff, loyal customer, subtract 10-20%.
As of this date, CT does not sell ford yellow coolant with spec m97b57 on the shelf or website.

billford wrote: ↑ Dealer retail is $30.03. If you have a fleet account, friends of staff, loyal customer, subtract 10-20%.
As of this date, CT does not sell ford yellow coolant with spec m97b57 on the shelf or website.

I scanned online and CT sells the “OEM” jugs for $32.99, the more generic ones for $21.99, and the budget ones are around $16.99 to $18.99. And unless you’re certain that the budget ones are good for your particular vehicle it doesn’t make sense to me to risk your cooling system’s health to save $10 unless you’re driving an outright beater.

So, basically, if you want to be certain that you’ll get stuff that meets spec then go to the dealer. If you want a good price then don’t rule out the dealer which may actually be cheaper.

100Pacer wrote: ↑ As per:

https://www.motorcraft.com/content/dam/ ... nglish.pdf

OET brand:

For “A” spec yellow:

https://www.owi.com/retail/brands/peak- ... les---gold

https://asset.productmarketingcloud.com ... a3d228cfa8

For “D” spec orange:

https://www.owi.com/retail/brands/peak- ... s---orange

https://asset.productmarketingcloud.com ... 68fbb36660

OEM brand:

For “A” spec yellow:

https://oemeasymatch.com/products/oem-e ... e-coolant/

For “D” spec orange:

https://oemeasymatch.com/products/oem-e ... e-coolant/

Your last 2 links dont work anymore, "Error establishing a database connection", Nov 16.
Hopefully recochem is fixing their screwups.

I'm done.

CanadianConsumerYEG wrote: ↑ I'm done.

So the OEM brand at CT is the same stuff sold at Honda dealerships or not?

cheapmeister wrote: ↑ So the OEM brand at CT is the same stuff sold at Honda dealerships or not?

No. 'OEM' at CT is a trademarked 'Brand'. It's not the same stuff sold at dealerships.

Can you get away with using it and won't have issues? Most likely. But the Honda OEM jug of coolant I bought from the dealership parts dept also costs less than the one sold at CT. I'd rather just go with the Honda OEM.

Need more proof? 'OEM' By Recochem only has a single "Asian Pink" Coolant for Toyota/Lexus/Scion. Meanwhile, the actual OEM coolant by Toyota has 2 types, Long Life Coolant (Red) for pre 2004, and Super Long Life Coolant (Pink) for 2004+. They are both incompatible with each other.

CanadianConsumerYEG wrote: ↑ No. 'OEM' at CT is a trademarked 'Brand'. It's not the same stuff sold at dealerships.

Can you get away with using it and won't have issues? Most likely. But the Honda OEM jug of coolant I bought from the dealership parts dept also costs less than the one sold at CT. I'd rather just go with the Honda OEM.

Need more proof? 'OEM' By Recochem only has a single "Asian Pink" Coolant for Toyota/Lexus/Scion. Meanwhile, the actual OEM coolant by Toyota has 2 types, Long Life Coolant (Red) for pre 2004, and Super Long Life Coolant (Pink) for 2004+. They are both incompatible with each other.

I am surprised the coolant from Honda costs less than the CT stuff. I thought Honda would have jacked up the price this year because of inflation. I also didn't know that about Toyota coolant.

Buy whatever is one sale at Walmart and change it every 2 years.

You'll be fine.

Notsojdmgc4 wrote: ↑ Buy whatever is one sale at Walmart and change it every 2 years.

You'll be fine.

That's wasteful and not very bright since the cheapest one and the dealer stuff is less than 100% difference in price while the change intervals differ 300-500% in favour of the dealer stuff.

kkostadinof wrote: ↑ That's wasteful and not very bright since the cheapest one and the dealer stuff is less than 100% difference in price while the change intervals differ 300-500% in favour of the dealer stuff.

Yeah...and then wonder why you have clogged heater cores....

100Pacer wrote: ↑ That’s a useful document - good find. See my post above but according to the document you provided, it’s dated August 2018 and revised in February 2019 (logical - when the new spec at the time was published as previously mentioned). What’s fascinating is your document confirms as of production date 2018 (July 2018 for the F-650 and F-750) but the document I posted seems to indicate Ford was testing real life 2016 and forward F-650 and F-750 with the spec. Regardless I don’t have visibility back in time but I don’t believe this spec was available yet at the dealer as of publication date or revision date. Likely a few months after as mentioned.

I don't know why I'm wading into a debate from two years ago, but since someone brought this thread back to life anyways, why not. The Ford spec for yellow coolant likely does pre-date the introduction of Motorcraft Yellow coolant to dealers.

The Orange coolant was causing some heater core issues on certain models, most notably on the Transit, and Ford directed dealers in a TSB to flush the Orange coolant and replace it with Prestone Cor-Guard (yes, the "all makes all models" stuff in the yellow bottle) on affected vehicles. WSS-M97B57-A1/A2 was the specification created by Ford to align with this recommendation.

Obviously once Ford started shipping Motorcraft Yellow they revised the TSB to recommend it in place of the Prestone stuff. Factory fill for some models was revised from Orange to Yellow beginning late-2018 model year, other models transitioned over in MY 2019 or MY 2020, and once that was done they discontinued Orange altogether and recommended the use of Yellow in vehicles originally spec'ed for Orange

Because of this history, many believe Motorcraft Yellow to be the same product as Prestone Cor-Guard (and Prestone does list the Ford spec on the Product Safety Data Sheets, but not on the marketing materials). The difference between the A1 and A2 specifications is A1 is concentrated and A2 is pre-diluted, A2 is not a newer version of the A1 spec.

The old Motorcraft Gold coolant used up until 2010 or so was a G05 coolant - so completely different product. But on the broader topic of this thread, I saw that Recochem is recommending their G05 knock-off (OEM Gold) for use in cars spec'ed for new Motorcraft Yellow - which I would definitely not recommend as they are substantially different products (to the point Motorcraft has not discontinued Gold like they discontinued Green and Orange in favour of new Yellow). All the more reason to stick with the real stuff.

Notsojdmgc4 wrote: ↑ Yeah...and then wonder why you have clogged heater cores....

No, I don't wonder because it doesn't happen LOL
Have been 6 years with the same coolant - no issues at all.