Tosol and antifreeze, our car's technical fluids

When buying a car imported from abroad, a lot of car owners make mistakes that come up quite often and are worth avoiding. Even a five-year-old foreign car, whether European, American or Japanese, can be put out of action by clumsy upkeep and failure to follow a few simple rules — which really goes to show how much of a car's reliability and long, trouble-free service life depends on you. And if poor care of a recently bought car ends up meaning you need Toyota, Ford or Mercedes repairs, there's no reason to be surprised. Plain carelessness could well be the cause of a breakdown like that.

Cars brought in from abroad often break down over something as simple as technical fluids. Many people just top up the fluid and think their maintenance duty is done. But that's not the case, of course, because that's exactly the moment where the serious mistake gets made. Just by topping up the fluid, you can easily end up mixing tosol and antifreeze, which can very quickly let you know about your mistake with an overheating engine. If the manufacturer recommends using antifreeze for a given car, that's exactly what you should use, not tosol or, worse still, windscreen washer fluid.

The example of mixing tosol with antifreeze isn't at all far-fetched — owners who buy a car and top up fluids at random without checking often end up at a service station within a matter of days. Never rely on a seller's word about fluid changes. Trust only yourself, and change the oil and technical fluids yourself.

Service centres often see cars with fairly low mileage that already need a guaranteed engine overhaul, caused by overheating, and the cause here is often nothing to do with whether the Toyota, Mercedes, Ford or Lexus parts used are genuine or from another manufacturer. A defect in the cooling system is a frequent cause of overheating, and that's exactly what needs fixing so you can go on enjoying driving your favourite car. Be careful when choosing what might seem like such minor components at first glance, like tosol, antifreeze or oil — how long your car lasts depends a great deal on these fluids. Be a responsible car owner, follow the traffic rules, and keep up with your car's care on time.