Truck with brown coolant. It’s mixed green and red. Is this ok?

I don't know about the differences in coolant among the various colors. I know there are different colors, I think one requires water and the other won't tolerate water. I think the concern is more for the owner, not the driver. I would send a text message or email to the company asking if it's ok to keep going and then take a pic of the reply so you have proof the company made the decision in case it causes problems later. I understand you have had a conversation with the shop and they said it's ok. I want you to have proof of that OK. I would only worry you have sufficient amount of coolant. You want all potentially bad decisions to be made by the company and you keep proof in the form of text messages, Qualcom messages, email, or pics of the messages just in case they decide to blame you for the decision made by someone else.

 

I had a truck like that once. I was working for a fly-by night company when that occurred. The owner had put green in the reservoir and then I turned around put the red in there. You can use yellow too, since that's universal. It really isn't that big of a deal. The truck will still do what it's supposed to do. I ran that truck like normal and over time I just replaced the coolant to the proper color Now, if you're still uneasy about it, you'll need to buy about 10 jugs or so of red coolant, drain it out of your truck, and refill it. Just make sure you have something to catch the drained coolant in.

 

Coolant colour doesn't mean much these days. Its compatibility you need to worry about.

 

Are you sure it's not Orange in a tinted tank? Originally the differences were in the kinds of materials it would be in contact with. Aluminum versus cast iron.

 

Used to turn into jello if mixed. A lot of them now claim they‘re compatible. I wouldn’t mix it myself. But whatever the Boss says.

 

The big one now is mixing OAT coolant with the old extended life stuff. Those won't mix without turning to sludge (so I've been told by the engineers at a couple of the manufacturers).

 

That happened to me at my company. Oil was getting into the coolant. Can't remember what caused it, but it was pretty gross and you could smell it getting hot at times. Seems like it was a fairly big repair. Do you ever get a wiff of anything strange when driving?

 

Don’t drive any further that you may want to walk. It will blow up eventually