coolant maintenance on car

Run your heater too so the coolant flowing through that is flushed out too.

Replacing Engine Coolant. Read Part 1 linked in the article as well.

Make sure you use the coolant specified by the auto manufacturer - best to purchase it from a dealership to insure that; coolant is way to cheap to take a chance on not using the correct product formulated/specified for your vehicle.

I bought the coolant specific to my car's make so I should be fine. Extra $10 compared to Penzoil and like brands but I feel much more comfortable.

I follow the same advice that Crawdude linked.


Original coolant good for about 7 years new from factory. After that change every 3 years.

No need to "flush" with distilled water unless something special bad has happened. Draining as much as you can and adding new on top of old is fine. The caveat is to use the OEM coolant so you're not playing chemist. The wrong mix of coolants could sludge up or start eating at metals. OEM usually isn't much more than quality off the self stuff.

Different cars will have different bleeding requirements but all my cars have self bled. Just run it for a bit and top off reservoir.

Keeping fresh coolant and with the right PH and additives will help keep from replacing radiators and heater cores ($$) among other things.

Depends on the car. Just did our highlander and there is an air release in the manifold or something at the top of the motor you have to purge. I would look up specific instructions for the specific car. Used zerex for Asian vehicles.

I have an Altima so every video I've watched has said to let it bleed for about 15 minutes of running on idle.

1. Drain reservoir and remove drain plug.
2. Add Coolant System Cleaner (check which is compatible with your vehicle/old coolant/etc.)
3. Fill back up with water from hose pipe, no need to waste your distilled water.

5. Set AC controls to heat setting to make sure heater core valve stays open, if your vehicle has one.

4. Follow directions on cleaning stuff, some say drive it for a day, idle it for x minutes, etc.
5. Drain System.
Alternate 5. You can also fill it up with hose pipe water, leave hosepipe running in the degas bottle, open drain on radiator, start and idle engine (idle only), to get a better flush of the cleaner/system.
6. Fill back up with hose pipe, run until thermostat opens.
7. Drain, fill back up with distilled water.
8. Run again until Thermostat opens
9. Drain
10. Add # of non-dilute gallons of coolant to make 50/50 based on your vehicle's capacity.
11. Top off with distilled water.
12. Run up to temperature to help burp the system.
13. Set AC back to normal.
14. Enjoy

Change your thermostat while you are at it. As others have said, change hoses. If you do change the thermostat. Remove the old one before you do the clean/flush and you won't have to wait for it to open on each flush. Don't forget to install the new thermostat/hoses after step 9.

Wait until spring if you are in a place that is already freezing.

To get rid of the antifreez get a cheep bag of litter dump it in the litter and toss it in the trash

$70 for two gallons of Nissan coolant. This is royally absurd. I think I'll just drain one time and fill back up.

quote:

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Coolant is now like a once every 100,000 mile thing.

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Before Dad retired from Citgo and all through essentially my 1st 30-ish years he kept us well stocked with antifreeze/coolant (as well as most other petroleum products they produced) such that I grew up with ANNUAL drain/refill. I still had some in the storage shed that got stolen by the thieving vandals that destroyed the old house.

I have never purchased antifreeze/coolant and only once in my life bought brake fluid.