Time was - there was just antifreeze. And it was good. Then someone got the idea of providing it mixed 50/50 so you didn’t have to guess how much to add. And it was good.
Then - maybe 25 years ago some guy at some auto manufacturer remarked, “Hey, our engines and radiators are different then all the other half-a-billion cars that went before us. We need a different coolant”. Talk about opening the flood gates. Today there are, at least, the following types:
North American orange
North American gold
North American purple
European violet
European blue
European pink
Asian red/pink
Asian blue
Asian green
European teal and pink (Prestone)
Universal (Ah hah!)
Universal platinum
Toyota red (maybe the same as Asian red?)
BMW and Mercedes sells their own that is twice as expensive.
Jaguar, bless their hearts, sells coolant for one hunert n twenny nine bucks per gallon!
Bugatti seems to use a regularly priced coolant although it takes 10 gallons. The ultra powerful pump circulates the entire 10 gallons through the engine and three radiators every 3 seconds. My Scion engine probably does not have enough horsepower to do that!
I’ve heard that mixing certain antifreezes together can cause problems, like causing the antifreeze to thicken. But since hardly anyone realizes that there are different kinds of antifreeze, I’m not sure how true that is. I would guess that people add random antifreeze all the time without regards to the type already in the system. It doesn’t seem to be causing massive radiator failures. Maybe it’s just certain, unusual combinations that have the problem.
It’s the 21st Century. How many vehicle owners do anything with their own coolant? IME, it’s almost always outsourced to a mechanic during service. Or else completely neglected until the car is so old you just want to trade it in.
In general practice, there probably wouldn’t be much opportunity for someone to muck this up.
I’ve owned multiple BMWs (and I’m in middle of fixing a coolant leak as I write this); their oem coolant seems to be their mostly for dealers to mark up. I’ve had no problems using Euro blue for multiple cars.
As for people buying the wrong one, I really doubt that happens. It’s pretty clearly marked what country’s coolant is on the bottle, and part store clerks seem used to checking people. I flushed my sister’s Honda and was questioned about the coolant since I pulled up in a BMW.
I was always under the impression different automotive fluids were different colors so you could immediately tell what was wrong with your vehicle based on the color of the puddle underneath it. Now if you see a blue puddle, you don’t know if your brakes are leaking or your blue antifreeze is the culprit. That is a step backwards in my opinion.
This why it can be hard to find Super Blue Racing brake fluid. The fear was that people will fill up their brake reservor with windshield washer fluid. Super Blue was illegal for a time in the US because brake fluid was to be clear or amber in color. It seems to be available on line now again.
I used to change out the brake fluid in my car each year, one year amber, bleed it out and replace with blue the next year.
The antifreeze thing is because GM went to Dex-Cool orange and you did not want to mix it with the green. Now most antifreeze you buy will say that it is Dex compatable, so it no longer really matters.