What do you think of COOLANT DRAINS/REFILLS ???

[mareakin]

The official Toyota Maintenance Schedule brochure recommends a "COOLANT CHANGE" at either 90,000 miles or 10 years. I suppose a COOLANT CHANGE means a coolant cleaning and flushing.

Anyways, My car is a 2007 Corolla and has 43,000 miles on it now. I've never done any Coolant maintenance. I live in an Apartment and do not have ready access to a water hose--there's also the issue that I will be working on this on the public steets=not a good idea to get water/coolant all over the place.

For these reasons, doing a DRAIN/REFILL (using my oil pan to catch the old coolant from radiator) suits me better.

I looked up the HAYNES manual and official Toyota factory service manual for hints about coolant changes and there was no mention of BLEEDING AIR BUBBLES. So I suppose for this car, air bubbles are not an issue.

So, the question is, what do you think of this coolant maintenance strategy?? Just doing a drain/refill every 5,000 miles or every 10,000 miles. I understand that only half of the coolant will be replaced. But since I'm pouring in NEW Toyota SUPER LONG LIFE coolant to replenish the old supply, this should work well, no? ?? ? ?

Chime in.

thx.

 

[Chris142]

Drain it every 2 years or so. No need to do it every 5-10K unless thats all you drive in 2 years.

 

[donny939]

i just did my coolant, if you dont have access to a hose then just drain it and use a couple gallons of milk jugs and then dump the new stuff in

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Chris142
Drain it every 2 years or so. No need to do it every 5-10K unless thats all you drive in 2 years.


+1

Just drain the radiator and replace with Toyota coolant every 2 years.

 

[Bill in Utah]

I just did mine in the 05 Corolla around 150k on the factory fill.

Went with Peak Global lifetime since its avail in straight coolant.

The factory fill is good until 100k or 6 years (there is a sticker on the hood) and then follow the manual.

Bill

 

[Steve S]

There is a block drain and a radiator drain? Drain both and refill with proper coolant.

 

[1993_VG30E_GXE]

As you drain it out the bottom of the rad, a small portion (maybe a liter) will be trapped in the block still. You get that out by filling the rad again through the top with tap water. Put the cap loosely on so air can get out, turn the car on, wait until you feel warm upper hose, then turn off car and drain again. Repeat this a couple times until the water is completely clear.

Then add appropriate amount of coolant through filler cap with apropriate ratio of distilled water, as well as concentrate to match what will be in the block (some tap water).

Also add appropriate amount into puke tub.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
There is a block drain and a radiator drain? Drain both and refill with proper coolant.


That's what I say too. If you can jack up and down the car safely, then open the block drain. If I recall right, the Toyota block drain has like a spickot in the middle and is not really any more messy than opening the radiator drain. It's about the only reasonable and timely way to get most of the coolant out without a coolant exchanger. I suppose just draining and refilling the radiator is better than nothing though.

 

[Patman]

I think that if you drain and refill the coolant often enough, you never need to do a complete flushing of the system. I find that to be a pain, I don't understand how I'm supposed to collect all the fluid that comes out when doing a complete flush, I'd end up with gallons and gallons of the stuff.

When I did the coolant in my Corvette a couple of years ago, it had never been done before (to the best of my knowledge) and the car was 10 years old. So I simply drained and refilled the rad three different times on three different days over the course of about a week. I figured that got rid of at least 95% of the old stuff. And from now on I'll just do a drain and refill of the rad once every couple of years.

I've also done the same thing on my wife's 2000 Civic since we bought it new.

 

[tonycarguy]

Originally Posted By: Patman
So I simply drained and refilled the rad three different times on three different days over the course of about a week. I figured that got rid of at least 95% of the old stuff. And from now on I'll just do a drain and refill of the rad once every couple of years.


3 drain & refills won't be enough to get rid of >95% of existing coolant. It's closer to 75%-80%.

It would have been better and less expensive to drain & refill with distilled water 5 times, then refill with 90/10 coolant/water. This is enough to replace >90% of the existing coolant

 

[JohnBrowning]

I have inthe past drained and refilled every spring. I just get a gallon which is enough to do my rad and reservoir on my 2003 Camry. Now I will probably go to ever other year. I think it is fine doing it this way. The Ultra Long Life Stuff Pink is premixed so no water needed. On top of that if you change it say every two years you never allow it to go bad or build up anything so no need to flush! It is really a win win for the owner to change it every 2 years for example as opposed to waiting for it to go bad and need to flush it.

I can dar say that I will never have a coolant related problem.My main concern is to keep the block in good shape so I can rebuild it down the road for SCCA racing at the local level.

 

[rpn453]

I do a simple drain and refill every 30k miles. I'd do it more often or more thoroughly if the coolant didn't look clean coming out, but it always has.

I use a separate pan - a big Rubbermaid container - for this, to avoid mixing oil and coolant. I guess this wouldn't apply if you clean the pan, but that seems like messy work.

 

[Bill in Utah]

My 150k coolant looked clean and clear coming out.

Acids and such are clear also.

Like oil, color is not a real good indicator.

Take care, Bill

 

[JakeR22]

Originally Posted By: tonycarguy
Originally Posted By: Patman
So I simply drained and refilled the rad three different times on three different days over the course of about a week. I figured that got rid of at least 95% of the old stuff. And from now on I'll just do a drain and refill of the rad once every couple of years.


3 drain & refills won't be enough to get rid of >95% of existing coolant. It's closer to 75%-80%.

It would have been better and less expensive to drain & refill with distilled water 5 times, then refill with 90/10 coolant/water. This is enough to replace >90% of the existing coolant





Why 90/10? Isn't that a little strong?

 

[mechtech2]

If there are no problems, a simple drain and refill is what I'd do.
Flushing often causes problems, and is a big pain to do right.
Really, why flush a good system?
AT 50-70k, drain and refill it.

 

[H2GURU]

There's way more cars in the junkyard from lack of coolant maintenance than oil changes!

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: H2GURU
There's way more cars in the junkyard from lack of coolant maintenance than oil changes!


I'd agree with you there.

You overheat a modern engine and no matter what oil you have in it you are prob going to have some "issues".

We had one of our work Tundras overheat just idling (hose broke while the operator of the vehicle was out measuring) and it finally quit.

New engine will be put in it. Everything got toasted.

Bill

 

[tonycarguy]

Originally Posted By: JakeR22
Originally Posted By: tonycarguy
Originally Posted By: Patman
So I simply drained and refilled the rad three different times on three different days over the course of about a week. I figured that got rid of at least 95% of the old stuff. And from now on I'll just do a drain and refill of the rad once every couple of years.


3 drain & refills won't be enough to get rid of >95% of existing coolant. It's closer to 75%-80%.

It would have been better and less expensive to drain & refill with distilled water 5 times, then refill with 90/10 coolant/water. This is enough to replace >90% of the existing coolant


Why 90/10? Isn't that a little strong?


After you drain and refill 5 times with distilled water, the existing coolant is about 90% water. So you need to fill it with 90/10 coolant to arrive at a 50/50 mix

 

[mechanicx]

I've recently posted my view on this in the coolant forum. What I don't get is the argument that radiator drain and refills are easier or less waste than draining the block, or using a flush-T on an engine with inaccessible block drains.

If you have easy to get to block drains then you just drain the radiator and then drain the block. You now have most all the old coolant out (some debate that you do not but I don't see where you would have muched trapped. the upper radiator hose, heater core?) Now you just reinstall the drains and refill with premix 50/50 like is necessary with Asian coolants or get FS and add half capacity antifreze and half water. Or if you want, refill with water first and maybe run the engine hot and drain the radiator and block again.

Where is the excessive mess over mulitiple radiator drain and refills?

Now if you can't easily get to block drains or if the engine so happens not to have them then you have more of a problem of draining the engine. A T-flush once installed will quickly and easily flush the whole sytem out. I admit there may be a mess with that. Or you could take the T-stat out, temporarily reinstall the T-stat housing and unhook the radiator top hose and flush the radiator out with a water hose with the engine running and catch the upper hoses flush into a bucket maybe. No mess. Or maybe unhook the heater outlet hose from the engine and run engine and catch the flush. I never tried that really so not sure. You will probably be stuck with tap water in the engine but that's many times not a big issue.

The point is there are different way to go about it for different cars even if you're not using a coolant exchanger besides just radiator drain and refills. You're going to need about 4 consecutive radiator drain and refills to get over 90% of the old coolant out. That seems like a lot of waste flush and time to me. Why use only one approach?

 

[Colt45ws]

On my car I can get to one block drain but the other is inside an engine mount. I just flushed it 2 or 3 times with distilled then filled with 100% to half of the total capacity. It did come out a little strong, like 60%. Ive been working on bringing that back down.