No colant useage in Wife's Toyota ????

[Tundraz]

Just wanted to know if i should worry about this or contact Toyota about this, or is this Normal?

This is my Wife's commuting car , she drives it to new York 3-4 days a week- 6-800 miles roundtrip, vehicles has 120'000 miles but it hasnt used one drop of coolant since we bought it new in 2004, i mean after all this mileage and highway driving should'nt it atleast burn off some of the coolant? Should i worry about it or call Toyota?
It is the Pink long life coolant that Toyota uses in some of thier vehicles, What's your opinion.

Toyota Rav4, 4AZFe engine , manual trans 5 spd. ,
120'000 miles

Thanks for your response,

Tundraz

 

[pidster]

Would you prefer it if your car needed repairs?

 

[Herz]

Originally Posted By: pidster
Would you prefer it if your car needed repairs?


+1

 

[wirelessF]

Do you think coolant loss is normal? When it goes though the tailpipe it's bad news.

 

[Bryan_Tran]

yeah it ain't broke. don't fix it. just replace per manual specs.

 

[Tundraz]

So is it normal? Every other car i have owned use up some coolant and require a little refilling on the reservoir once in a while, i mean the coolant level hasnt moved at all, its in the same spot it were when we bought it in Feb 2004, strange ah? Makes you wonder if things are ok inside the engine?

Thanks, Tundraz

 

[Bryan_Tran]

you must own a lot of american cars then

yeah my toyota and honda don't use coolant. coolant loss is indicative of a leak or blown head gasket.

 

[mechanicx]

I'm surprised a tad of coolant didn't evaporate out of the reservior eventually. It doesn't have a pressurized reservior does it, older toyota's usually don't? It's actually desirable to not use any coolant. Even american cars a lot of times don't use any coolant over several years.

 

[prax]

That's good for 120k miles. Some of us are losing a bit with the pink stuff. https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/what-is-normal-coolant-loss.115274/

I bought the pink coolant for $20 at the dealership. :| 50K service intervals is pathetic for such an expensive fluid.

What model year is it? How full is the tank when the engine's cold?

 

[Gary Allan]

Originally Posted By: Tundraz
So is it normal? Every other car i have owned use up some coolant and require a little refilling on the reservoir once in a while, i mean the coolant level hasnt moved at all, its in the same spot it were when we bought it in Feb 2004, strange ah? Makes you wonder if things are ok inside the engine?

Thanks, Tundraz


This should have required service by 120k ..or so I would imagine. The lack of heating:cooling cycles would probably add much life to all components and the fluid, but it's surely due by miles and/or years.

Don't just gauge it by the overflow tank (not knowing how your cooling system is configured. You may in fact have a pressurized coolant tank). Inspect it occasionally by checking under the cap.

This is to prevent the classic vulnerability that can be expressed as (if defined as noise):

Sure is quiet out there.
Yeah, too quiet.

It's lulling you into a false sense of security ..well, I guess it's not ..really. You still think something's wrong.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Originally Posted By: Tundraz
So is it normal? Every other car i have owned use up some coolant and require a little refilling on the reservoir once in a while, i mean the coolant level hasnt moved at all, its in the same spot it were when we bought it in Feb 2004, strange ah? Makes you wonder if things are ok inside the engine?

Thanks, Tundraz


This should have required service by 120k ..or so I would imagine. The lack of heating:cooling cycles would probably add much life to all components and the fluid, but it's surely due by miles and/or years.

Don't just gauge it by the overflow tank (not knowing how your cooling system is configured. You may in fact have a pressurized coolant tank). Inspect it occasionally by checking under the cap.

This is to prevent the classic vulnerability that can be expressed as (if defined as noise):

Sure is quiet out there.
Yeah, too quiet.

It's lulling you into a false sense of security ..well, I guess it's not ..really. You still think something's wrong.


This is a good point. for all we know it could have the cap on the radiator and the radiator is half empty even though the reservior is full. Or heck the reservior is just being check by glancing at it from the outside and it's just the stained residue line that's being seen and the level is not being actually checked lol.

 

[Tundraz]

Good points guys, no its not a stain its the actual fluid level since 2004, i shook the rservoir to make sure its the actual fluid, its at the same point since 2004- a little bit above the half mark.

Why i'm concerned is that the fluid level in the reservoir remains the same wether the engine is cold or hot and there is no bubbles or froth in the liquid like its working through the engine , it just sits there flat. But i will take your advice and open up the radiator and look inside to see what the level looks like inside.
Also there is no fluctuations in the temperature gauge since it were new in 2004 , you start it up , you drive it , the needle goes to the exact halfway mark and stays there it doesnt matter if you are on the highway , local bumper to bumper traffic or wether the AC is on the needle goes to the halfway mark and stays there, if the fluid level were off in the radiator shouldnt i see a difference at the temp gauge?
Maybe i'm worried about nothing , but i'll find out when i open up the radiator tommorrow, the radiator has never been open since we bought it in 2004.

Thanks for the good advice.
Tundraz

 

[Gary Allan]

Some OEM's set up the gauge to read center span unless there's a real serious over heat occurring. That was to reduce the number of complaints by customers.

 

[Tundraz]

Ah ahhh, so thats what that is about?

Tundraz

 

[ARB1977]

Why worry? My Tacoma is in the same boat. Sounds like you have yourself a engine thats happy.

 

[JustinH]

My saturn hasn't used a drop of coolant either. The only time I have had a car that used any coolant was when a pressurized cap in my f150 stopped holding pressure, and we would lose just a little bit of coolant.

After all those miles, I would really worry about the waterpump pushing all that dirty coolant around.

 

[PT1]

My Toyotas all use about 2-3 oz of coolant in 100k and that is all. UOA's show none in the oil. So what is all the fuss? Simply do a couple of drain fills on the radiator with the plastic drain plugs and keep going. I do find the Toyota pink coolant to be pretty good stuff. Never any sludge or rust. I exchange at 100k or 4 years.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

My yaris doesn't use any over about 2 years - prob the first car that didnt. The overflow bottle level DOES change hot to cold and yours should too. Sound like a cap and/or level issue. I would get a new cap and make sure the reservior is at the cold fill line. Check the rad cold - it should be at the top. We lost the water pump on our 05 rav 4 at 60K on LL coolant, I think toyota has a coolant lube/conditioner additive to help here.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: Tundraz
So is it normal? Every other car i have owned use up some coolant and require a little refilling on the reservoir once in a while, i mean the coolant level hasnt moved at all, its in the same spot it were when we bought it in Feb 2004, strange ah? Makes you wonder if things are ok inside the engine?

Thanks, Tundraz


Perfectly normal for modern cooling systems, esp. the ones with pressurized overflow tanks. Not even any vapor gets out the radiator cap as it used to do with non-pressurized overflow tanks. I don't think I *ever* added a drop of coolant between flushes on wifey's old 93 LH car either (take that, moron who made the "you must own a bunch of American cars" crack!)

Even with a non-pressurized overflow bottle (such as my Jeep and wifey's current PT Cruiser have) there is very, very little loss through evap. I haven't added any coolant to the Jeep in 2 years, and only about 1/2 cup to the PT in 47k miles. It was the old overflow-less systems that had a lot of evaporative loss.

Now, even with ALL that said... it *is* possible to be losing coolant and not ever have it show up on the overflow bottle but *only* if there's a leak in the hose between the radiator and overflow tank, OR if there's a large enough leak that air gets drawn into the cooling system as the engine cools off after shutdown before coolant can get drawn back from the overflow tank. But both of those scenarios generally lead to a visible pool of coolant, or overheating due to low coolant.

 

[97f150]

Originally Posted By: prax
That's good for 120k miles. Some of us are losing a bit with the pink stuff. https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/what-is-normal-coolant-loss.115274/

I bought the pink coolant for $20 at the dealership. :| 50K service intervals is pathetic for such an expensive fluid.

What model year is it? How full is the tank when the engine's cold?


Both my Dodge and Ford use the pink stuff. Dodge and Ford dealer want $20 a gallon, Napa has the same stuff called Zerex G-05 for $10 a gallon.