ELC Coolant Switch

[Don and Kim]

Getting prepared to flush and fill the antifreeze in our coach(06 National w/C7 Cat). I called Freightliner today and asked if my coach initially was filled w/ extended life coolant and I was told no and not to switch to it because it would foul the coolant level sensor. Curious if anyone has switched to ELC in their Freightliner chassis ?

[Pusherman]

My experience is that FL will only recommend what came with the coach from FL. Coolant would be Fleetguard w/ SCA's. It's rated for 5 years / 100k miles if you check the SCA's every 6 months.

Interesting if you research this, the ELC is (I believe) the same as the Fleetguard w/ SCA's.

Lot's of info out there and it's confusing at best. There's OAT coolant, and ELC coolant for diesels.

For me and my customers I always recommend what came with it from the factory. For FL's that's Fleetguard SCA's ELC.

P.S. My coach is now at 5 years of young age and I'm draining and refilling with Fleetguard w/ SCA's.

[Pigman1]

I got sick and tired of finding the test strips, keeping them in temperature controlled conditions and messing with the SCA additives about a year ago. We went with Final Charge Global OAT before we left for Alaska last summer. This antifreeze will go for 300,000 miles and with the addition of an extender at the 300,000 mile point, it will go another 300,000 miles.

I called the Freightliner Help line for info on exactly how to drain and flush the system, and they were most helpful. No words about any potential problems with the extended life antifreeze. We have a bit over 11,000 miles on it (Delaware to Alaska and return) and not a single problem.

The Final Charge Global OAT is a bit hard to find, but I got the 7 gallons of concentrate I needed and the Extender at an O'Reilly Auto Parts store in Albuquerque. I flushed the system 3 times with distilled water and mixed the concentrate with equal parts of distilled water for the final fill. I definitely wouldn't go back to the old Fleet Charge with the SCA's and strips.

Final Charge Antifreeze - Heavy Duty Links

[Gary RVRoamer]

Did you call Freightliner factory service or a dealer? I would give the factory support guys a lot more credence than any dealer.

I talked with Freightliner Servce in Gafney about changing to OAT coolant and they gave no warning against doing so. Just said the system would have to be flushed if changing coolant type, and I would have to bring my own OAT coolant because they didn't have it.

[Don and Kim]

I had called FTL HELP and spoke to Marcus. He said to continue to use the regular coolant and in our application it lasts for 5 yrs. I still would like to switch the extended life af. Sounds like no one is having problems w/the extended life. I guess the biggest job is making sure it gets a complete flush to get the old stuff out.
Don