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I have a 2.0 TDI 184. It is now out of manufacturer warranty, so I took it to a specialists instead of a Seat dealer for a service this year.
They removed the silica bag from my reservoir, and advised they have had a lot of cars in for repairs where the bags have split and blocked components.
They removed the silica bag from my reservoir, and advised they have had a lot of cars in for repairs where the bags have split and blocked components.
I think the plan is, if you want to remove it, is to use a pair of long tweezers and ease it out.
I find it strange that @Norbert has just bought a new Cupra and it does not have it fitted, and my daughter bought a new May19 Cupra and it has one fitted.
I think that I need to "force" her to contact SEAT UK and ask why her car has one and now later cars don't have one - okay maybe only a few sack/bags open up and then will cause trouble, but if any of us has a car and ends up with a opened Silicate sack/bag outside warranty, all SEAT will do is ask for maybe £700 to sort their problem out, and that will hurt and annoy, will it not?
I find it strange that @Norbert has just bought a new Cupra and it does not have it fitted, and my daughter bought a new May19 Cupra and it has one fitted.
I think that I need to "force" her to contact SEAT UK and ask why her car has one and now later cars don't have one - okay maybe only a few sack/bags open up and then will cause trouble, but if any of us has a car and ends up with a opened Silicate sack/bag outside warranty, all SEAT will do is ask for maybe £700 to sort their problem out, and that will hurt and annoy, will it not?
It could be only an issue with some engines and the issue with the coolant seems to be due to high engine temperatures, - but the engine and anticipated use of my daughter's May19 Cupra and your later Cupra will be the same, so why does one have a silicate "top up" bag and the other doesn't? That is what I need to find out!
Vw do/did always find new things and later they realise that idea rubbish.
I think no point to talk with seat they unprofessional and don’t care anything.
Maybe good independent can advice keep it or remove it.
I'd just like to establish the true reason why VW Group started and then stopped fitting them into some models/versions of their cars, then I would be able to work out what best suits my way of using/maintaining a VW Group car, that is all, currently or as up to this point in time, no one has reported finding this out.
I believe that the bags started getting fitted when VW declared the coolant as "lifetime coolant"
I don't believe they quote a change out period on any car with the bag fitted.
Personally - I decided to remove mine and I will change my coolant at three yearly intervals like I used to with other cars/bikes.
Same here. Mine was registered in July when I had it delivered but it arrived mega early at my dealers in May 19 so will be the same spec. I assume this is a warranty job though if they burst so I'm not too worried. And if the new cars are coming with G13 without these bags it looks like they have an updated fluid. So hopefully at the next service they'll replace it? Or is that putting too much faith in SEAT haha.
It would have been nice to have this long life servicing thing explained and given the choice. I didn't have it explained and bought the first 2 service pack to then find out I didn't actually need it as my milage is so low and my car was manufactured/prepared to the long life service option. I'm still not entirely sure what the differences are between the 2.
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I’d say that if you’re only covering a low annual mileage, then time and distance servicing is probably better for your car rather than long life servicing, so purchasing a two-service pack for the first two (annual) services wasn’t a waste of money IMO.
VW have an explanation on their website of the two different service regimes - time and distance and flexible/long life (I couldn’t find this on the Seat website) - see below. I have a VW service pack for my (VW) car, so the car gets serviced the sooner of every 10k miles or 12 months. I’m also a low mileage driver - I only cover approx 6k miles per year.
From VW’s website;
Fixed Service (Time and Distance)
We recommend this service if you are likely to drive less than 10,0001miles in a year, and if you tend to drive in the following way:
Mainly city centre driving, short journeys with frequent cold starts
High engine loading activities, e.g. frequent hill climbs, driving with your vehicle fully loaded and towing
Uneconomical driving using high rpms with heavy acceleration and heavy braking.
Flexible Service Regime (LongLife Service)
We recommend this service if you are likely to drive more than 25 miles a day, and if you tend to drive in the following way:
Regular long distance driving
Driving at a constant speed with minimum vehicle and engine loading, and minimal towing
Economical driving
This Flexible regime has been made possible due to the development of new Volkswagen engines with the latest technically advanced longlife oil. These engines use built-in sensors that continually monitor the oil quality, making it possible to enjoy reliable and confident motoring for up to a maximum of 18,000* miles or 24 months (whichever occurs first).
For some reason that I can't quite remember, maybe concern about the G12 coolant in my Feb 2011 Audi S4, I bought a box of coolant test stirips from an American supplier, these test strips made by CoolTrak, check for %age of coolant conc and so give a freezing temperature range, the other function is to give a coolant ph indication. I have used them on all my cars and on newly opened G13 mixed in a range of %ages and the results do seem to come out close enough for me. Obviously the ph starts off "good" and very slowly moves towards being slightly acidic - though maybe G13 as it has less silicates in it when compared with G12, G12+ and maybe even G12++.
Now you could say "why bother just change the coolant every maybe 6>8 years and get on with life", but at least on my Audi S4 changing coolant as a DIYer can be tricky as many areas need to get air removed including supercharger heat exchangers. Also my mileage in that car is extremely low as we use my wife's Polo unless going on longer trips.
Longlife servicing and buying a service package with a new car:- VW Group's plan I think was to advise the selling dealer to change the service warning function from Variable to Fixed servicing and so cars with a prepaid service package would get a service every year - unless the owner had made it clear that would be running higher than average annual mileage.
I'm not sure that every dealership did things as VW Group had intended, my Audi S4 was bought used by me at just over 2 years old with extremely low mileage each year - and was still set on variable servicing, I left it on that while it was still under extended Audi warranty though I changed the oil and filter at the "inbetween" years- now out of warranty I've changed the service reminder to fixed miles/time. My wife's 2015 VW Polo was bought new with a prepaid 3 year service plan, it was delivered set on fixed miles/time servicing so had a "small/minor" service one year followed by a "large/major" service the next year - etc etc.
Awesome, looks I didn't waste my money! Cheers for the info. Don't know why SEAT didn't explain this when buying the car. Pretty sure my car is setup for long life though as the service indicator has well over a year remaining. Hoping they can change this when I take it in for its first service.
"Porsche recommends Glysantin® G40® (alternatively: freeze protection in accordance with G12++/VW TL 774 G) or Glysantin® G65® (alternatively: freeze protection in accordance with G12evo/VW TL 774 LJ). These freeze protection agents can be mixed."
So it seems that G12evo conforms to VW TL 774 LJ, and it seems that this has been factory fill coolant since 2018 and it has been said that you can't believe what is printed on the coolant reservoir as the changes to what is printed on these coolant reservoir only happen when stocks run out - which I'm not sure if I believe. I still have not found any solid reasons for "Mit Silikat" or not other than "only some VINs" involved without a good reason.
Maybe a bit strange that Porsche mention G12++ and G12evo and no mention of G13!
Edit:- also from VW's Self Study Program 514 page 31:
"Coolant Expansion Tank with Silicate Repository
The coolant expansion tank contains a silicate repository. Silicate is used to protect the aluminum components in the coolant
system from corrosion. There are silicates in the G13 coolant, but they are used up over time if the engine is subject to high
thermal loads.
To compensate for the silicate consumption, silicate is taken from the repository and added to the coolant. The silicate
repository provides additional protection against corrosion for the aluminum components in the coolant system over the entire
lifespan of the engine."
Maybe more an issue for engines that will in service, get worked very hard?
Second Edit:- my main purpose of stuffing these two copied scripts into this thread was just to keep everything connected with this together - I still need to find out why some cars do and don't have these silicate bags in their coolant reservoirs, in particular why a May19 Leon Cupra has this and a perhaps Sep19 Leon Cupra does not (@Norbert correct me if your car's reg date is wrong).
So it seems that G12evo conforms to VW TL 774 LJ, and it seems that this has been factory fill coolant since 2018 and it has been said that you can't believe what is printed on the coolant reservoir as the changes to what is printed on these coolant reservoir only happen when stocks run out - which I'm not sure if I believe. I still have not found any solid reasons for "Mit Silikat" or not other than "only some VINs" involved without a good reason.
Maybe a bit strange that Porsche mention G12++ and G12evo and no mention of G13!
Edit:- also from VW's Self Study Program 514 page 31:
"Coolant Expansion Tank with Silicate Repository
The coolant expansion tank contains a silicate repository. Silicate is used to protect the aluminum components in the coolant
system from corrosion. There are silicates in the G13 coolant, but they are used up over time if the engine is subject to high
thermal loads.
To compensate for the silicate consumption, silicate is taken from the repository and added to the coolant. The silicate
repository provides additional protection against corrosion for the aluminum components in the coolant system over the entire
lifespan of the engine."
Maybe more an issue for engines that will in service, get worked very hard?
Second Edit:- my main purpose of stuffing these two copied scripts into this thread was just to keep everything connected with this together - I still need to find out why some cars do and don't have these silicate bags in their coolant reservoirs, in particular why a May19 Leon Cupra has this and a perhaps Sep19 Leon Cupra does not (@Norbert correct me if your car's reg date is wrong).
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Is it easy to see the bag in the reservoir? I just went off what the tank said. Like you said, it maybe that I don't have a bag of silicate in there and the tank was used just to use up old supplies.
I've forgotten if you have said in the past if your car has "Mit Silikat" printed on the coolant reservoir or not, if it has seeing as you bought it new, it should have a silicate sack/bag in that reservoir - if you remove the cap and look inside you should see two long wire prongs for the coolant level monitoring, and in there maybe only half covered by coolant should be the silicate sack/bag - that sack/bag will be whitish though maybe a bit pinkish from the pinkish coolant.
Edit:- from what I've read, it is cars filled at factory with G13 that need these sacks/bags of silicate in them, it seems cars with the newer G12evo will not need them, though theory is so far, only cars with a certain VIN range will have G12evo in them, which seems strange unless it was only used initially at certain car plants, so far "who knows"!
Ok. Mine, May 19, has Mit Silikat/G13 on the reservoir but I'm going to check inside anyway.
I still need to confirm that my daughter's May19 Leon Cupra has G13 - I'd think that it will be.
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