Hi, After spending a lot of money and geting my Foird Focus sorted and taking her from norway to the UK and back again. She ran perfectly, however one problem did raise its head and that only became a problem when i stopped in sweden overnight and with temps of minus 20 that night.

I checked the fluids before the 500 mile drive home to complete the journey of 3000 miles and found that ice had formed in the expansion tank. It was soft ice and broke up very easy.

One of the repairs carried out was changing the generator and they had to remove the tank which meant topping up the water and antifreeze.

Tested concentration of antifreeze and found it to be ok. So why would there ice in the header tank?

As far as I'm aware, some different brands / types of coolant / antifreeze have different '' freezing '' points - so some will '' freeze '' at a higher / lower temperature than others.

Some Fords need O.A.T. coolant too

Maybe Scandinavian countries such as those you travelled through use a different concentration too ? - as we rarely see temperatures that low in the U.K.

Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm not - but that's all i can think of as water freezes normally at 32f / 0c & it's only the addition of coolant / antifreeze that prevents that natural process

I live in Norway and the anti freeze thats in the car should give a protection down to minus 37. Never had this problem in the 5 yrs i lived here. Garage confirmed they topped up the anti freeze and tested and confirmed level was correct.