Drew,
My father’s daily driver is a 1992 Toyota Previa with 65,000 miles. It still has the original radiator cap, thermostat, radiator, and radiator hoses. The recommended coolant for this van is ethylene glycol, 50/50, carrying a replacement interval of 2-3-yr/30k miles.
Evidently, this van is quite a low-mileage vehicle for its age, and up until several years ago, was a garage queen used on a few long trips every year. As a result, the first coolant change for this vehicle was done after six years and 12,000 miles
, and the second coolant change was done after twelve years and 45,000 miles.
Last month, two years and 20,000 miles since the last coolant change, I discovered the old coolant to be of a dark brown color with lots of sediment floating around. The school shop currently has a RobinAir 75700 Coolant Exchanger on loan, so I hooked up the machine to the upper radiator hose and flushed more than seven gallons of tap water through the 12 qt system to remove all of the old coolant.
I then added one full qt container of Prestone Super Radiator Cleaner and topped up the system, and allowed my father to drive the van for about one week and six to eight hours of total operating time. At the end of this cleaning cycle, the cleaning mixture was of a light to medium brown.
Back into the shop went the van, and the coolant exchanger was utilized once again to flush five gallons of water through. Then idled the van for 15 minutes, and began to exchange another five gallons through, but noticed the water was clear and continued to stay clear after running through 1.5 gallons…so I merely stopped, unhooked the machine, then proceeded to drain the radiator (8 qt capacity).
In went 6.5 quarts of Prestone All Makes All Models coolant and more tap water. After a few days, I topped up with water to the maximum mark. The coolant still has some sediment floating around in it, but only a touch. Color is still a very, very pale green.
Sorry, can’t give you any long-term results, but I’ll keep you posted if any new developments are to occur. I just considered myself lucky that the week long acid flush didn’t cause any leaks in this neglected system. No leaks as of right now either...