Antifreeze for an SUV

["Tony Sims" <simstony@domain.elided>]

I think I have learned something about how to elicit a response on this
digest.  I made the mistake of posting a question the other day related to my
Alfa.  But I do have an SUV, and judging from the interest we all seem to have
in those, I apparently need to adjust my query.  Let's try this...

Hi Digest,
My "expertise" in antifreeze is limited to "there's green stuff and orange
stuff".  Maybe even other colors I haven't seen...  I know there are different
chemicals at work here, what should I be putting in my 1988 vintage 2.6 liter
Montero SUV to best protect the various metals in the engine and radiator?

Also, how best should I be punished for the unforgivable sin of owning a
vehicle that can tow a boat or a utility trailer full of car parts, carry 4
people and their gear safely into the Oregon boonies (otherwise known as my
parent's home in Harney County), take my wife and I to the mountains for
skiing or snowshoeing, haul our camping gear and get us far enough into the
woods that it's noticeably different than setting up a tent in my back yard?
Perhaps I should punish myself by spending more time on the Montero board,
where the participants are open minded, more than willing to offer help and
advice for any vehicle-related question, where many people admit to never
taking their SUV's off road and are not chastised for it, and where I have
never seen a flame or a grumpy never-ending thread about Alfas and the idiots
who drive them.

Might as well get all my ranting out in one shot -- bad drivers are not
created by the vehicle they drive.  I'll grant that many people driving big
SUV's don't appear to grasp that they're in a truck, but this bit of ignorance
is part and parcel of the system that put them behind the wheel.  Our country
spawns bad drivers with a bad (too easy) process for granting driving
privileges.  Take away all the SUV's in the USA and you'll still have just as
many bad drivers.  I've done a lot of driving in Europe and Asia, a little in
Mexico and Brazil, and I see more dumb stunts in my little corner of the world
that I've seen anywhere else.

If you want to thin the herd of road-going boneheads a bit, don't get rid of
SUV's -- get rid of airbags and let natural selection start working again.  I
have to believe the segment of the population that is too dumb to use
seatbelts must have a pretty good overlap with the bad drivers.

Tony Sims
Portland, OR
88 Montero
92 Jetta
74 weird noisy I-talian car

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