This 'mechanic' is all washed up. Being trained in Germany and France hardly
makes him any more an expert than someone trained in West-By-God-Virginia.
Pure coolant has very poor heat transfer properties. Pure luck that he
hasn't cooked an engine doing this. Water is the problem? Nope! Try a very
poorly engineered design for a head gasket, that's the problem! FWIW, I have
a customer with 210K on original heads AND gaskets, regular coolant changes
with proper mix, driven most of it's life as a commuter van, 150 miles per
day.

Karl Mullendore
Westy Ventures
1987 Westfalia Syncro 1.9TD

----- Original Message -----

> I have a mechanic who does this on the side....he was trained in
> Germany and France.  He says you need to use 100% coolant.  He has done
> this for yrs and never any problem with heads.  I told him coolant
> directions say 70 or 50% water with coolant.  He advised me to NOT
> follow these directions and only use full coolant as it's the water
> that causes the problem.  Also he has a different perspective on air
> bubbles.  Dealer and other VW mechanics say to raise front end 12
> inches when doing coolant change.  According to this guy...that is
> wrong!  He says you need to raise back of vw...reason being that air
> bubbles rise to top...that way the bubbles will rise...bleeder value is
> in back and that way you can get air bubbles out.  He's been doing this
> for years and again...never has had problems with air bubbles..
>
> Anyone ever heard his perspective before?