Coolant Change
 

How often should coolant be changed?
It it crtical to change on time or just more so in winter?
Is the coolant the same for bikes as cars?

2 years is pretty typical. If it's dirty when you drain it then it was left too long.
Use a 50/50 mix of a standard glycol based antifreeze with distilled water.

FWIW I'd recommend using a ready-to-use premium grade (5 year) type coolant from a car manufacturer. No water to be added.

I use a "red" coolant from Toyota (red for Japanese built engines, green for European built engines). It comes in 5 lts (around £13) or they do 1 lt bottles, probably more sensible if just for the bike.

VW/Audi also do a very good coolant which was developed specifically due to a problem with some engine variants in Europe (Germany).

These coolants are fine for 5 years (life of the corrosion inhibitors), other coolants I'd change at 3 or 4 years tops. It's very little cost and pretty easy to do, so why not?

If you do use a 50/50 mix type, get some distilled/de-ionised water (i.e. battery top-up water) to avoid scaling from hard tap-water.

The green / blue stuff is normally glycol based and has a life of around 2 years - the pink stuff is organic acid technology and is classed as "long life" - but has a life of around 5 years. The two are not good bed partners as they tend to annoy each others anti corrosion additives, ( and can cancel them out ) so avoid mixing them - you can however, drain and refill with either ( flush recommended if changing from one to the other )

50:50 will give best corrosion protection and cooling - water is the best coolant, but has no anti corrosion properties, and if you used 100% anti freeze, you'd get great anti corrosion but not very good cooling.

Cheers

Banana

yes.

Just to be clear though, the stuff I was referring to (e.g. Toyota red) is ready to use as supplied. i.e. it has the water/coolant mix already sorted out, presumably done to ensure the quality of the water used with no undesirable contaminants.

Most of the stuff you buy over the counter is ready mixed anyway so you just pour it in when you need a top up - water is cheaper than antifreeze as well so it's cheaper to sell you 1/2 litre of water with your 1/2 litre of antifreeze ( although it's now called winter and summer coolant :D )

Banana

My bike is nearly 2 1/2 years old, might change it soon, poss after the summer or if i have nothing to do this wend i will do it.