Volvo buys lots of coolant, both for its requirements as a manufacturer, and for sale in it's parts departments.

So, when Volvo goes to a coolant vendor and says "we're going to need 500,000 gallons of coolant this year," needless to say, Volvo has some pull with this vendor. So Volvo has some of it's cooling system engineers sit down with some of the vendor's chemical engineers and they talk.

The Volvo engineers say," we use XXXX aluminum in our block, which we know it is suseptable to chlorine. Do you have any chlorine in your formulation?" So the vendor says, "Yes. We use it to protect against high-temperature precipitation of lead. But for this order, we can substitue argon, which is equally good at preventing the precipitation of lead. A bit more expensive, but will that work for you?"

And the Volvo engineers say. "Fine. We do not know of any incompatabilities with argon."

Then the chemical engineers say, "I see that you are using a polycarbonate water pump seal. We can add 1-2polyUnpronouncium to the coolant and that will prevent long-term embrittlment of the pump seal."

So the Volvo engineers say, "Yes. We've heard about 1-2polyUnpronouncium and we were going to ask you about that."

etc., etc., etc.




Now, here is the conversation that occurs when you go to pick up anti-freeze at your local K-Mart.

"What da ya want."

"I'm looking for some antifreeze for my 1996 Volvo 850."

"Here."





I'm not sure if I've gotten my point across . . .