The dumbest thing I did this week...

I would of left it.

what is SWMBO?

I doubt it would have hurt anything at all - there's a few gallons of antifreeze in there, a pint of wiper fluid won't hurt it. Still, don't you hate doing that crap? I changed my truck's oil, and instead of opening the oilpan plug, I removed the transmission plug - that sucked.

She Who Must Be Obeyed = wife or girlfriend

Disagree completely. Wiper fluid sometimes contains ammonia, which isn't going to do the cooling system one bit of good. And virtually all wiper fluids contain some sort of detergent -- you sure as heck don't need that foaming up inside the cooling jacket.

What's worse is when you dump antifreeze in the washer bottle. Had a guy do that to one of the trucks at the last place I worked. Makes for a hell of a mess on a buggy windshield.

Had a friend who did that to his car in the middle of winter. It sprayed all over his windshield but was so thick that his wipers couldn't get it all off, he barely made it home without running into something. Had to flush out the bottle with a hose to get rid of it, wasted the price of a whole gallon of engine antifreeze when he should have used a 99 cent bottle of windshield washer antifreeze.

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I'd be concerned that methanol, with its low boiling point and high flammability is in my radiator at high pressure. Who knows what pressure you might end up building if you left it in there. And if like me you're gonna leave it in there 10 years, you might want to put in the right stuff!

-Dean

No, I have never done anything like that before. I mean, confusing power brake fluid with power steering fluid is natural enough, I am sure we have all done that; but I can't imagine being dumb enough to put windshield fluid in the coolant! Amazing.

US on PBS for context...

thread subject has been tried here before, but let's

He didn't confuse the liquids! He got the wrong filler cap. That's very very easy to do.

I will step up to the plate. Kinda hard to top this for stupid:

Last year I couldn't wake up the log splitter from its winter nap. Lotsa pulling, priming etc. Pulled plug - real bad. Off to town for new plug. Installed. More pulling, priming, cussing. Finally bit the bullet, hooked up and towed it to the town small engine place. While unhooking I looked down and saw the plug wire lieing innocently on the block alongside the plug. Bad part was hooking it up, giving one pull, and looking up to see the mech watching me. Since I had called ahead and told him my problem all I couild do was enjoy the sneer.

Harry K

thread subject has been tried here before, but let's

And, given the spirit of Jeff's post and some of Haller's, hardly an appropriate response... :(

I dismantled a tape cassette player once which was not turning the capstan. Once I had it in a hundred parts on the table, I realize the pause button was pressed in! I doubt if anyone could beat that!

Happens all the time. Similar to feeling better while just sitting in the doctor's waiting room.

But the first use of the full wording I recall seeing was in H. Rider Haggard's novel "She":

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Well, I suspect the radiator cap pressure release system would take care of any pressure buildup.

As for flamability, I'm old enough to remember when the only antifreezes we used were alcohol/water ones.

I still felt that rectifying my stupid error immediately was "the right thing to do".

Jeff

Jeff

Sure it was; it just went over your head.

Is Buick included with Chevy where You have to use the exact type of coolant(red stuff) to keep the long warranty valid? Dunno how old the car in question is or if that warranty goes with a car or is only for orig owner.. I bought My current truck(96 4x4 Silverado ext cab) with 30,000 miles on it but used the called-for coolant anyway,just for "good measure"..It has 165,000 miles now and 0 probs from cooling sys. Dean