cj80cruiser
Senior Member
I was just quoted $129 plus tax at the local dealership for a coolant flush. Anybody had this done recently at the dealership? How much?
Dealership coolant flush
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Sherwood4Runner
New member
I haven't had it done there before but that price sounds right to me. The other local places near me that aren't dealerships charge about 80-100.
cj80cruiser
Senior Member
I noticed sum orange in my fluid....previous owner used green so it's easy to see verses if I had red coolant. I'm definitely getn it swapped back over to red.
This could be rust or this could be mud. I don't see how mud would have gotten in my radiator since it wasn't even close to being deep enough to get in my overflow reservoir. I've checked my coolant every other week or so and never noticed anything other than pure green until today.
This could be rust or this could be mud. I don't see how mud would have gotten in my radiator since it wasn't even close to being deep enough to get in my overflow reservoir. I've checked my coolant every other week or so and never noticed anything other than pure green until today.
Nelsonmd
New member
Could it be stopleak? Have you changed your coolant before? A friend used stopleak and when I looked in her overflow reservoir, it looked like diarrhea.
cj80cruiser
Senior Member
LOL, thats bad but no I didn't use stop leak. it does kinda look like diarhea though and that overflow bottle was pretty disgusting.
I'll be changing this radiator out soon.
CobraSpdRH
New member
What is the going rate for just the coolant from Toyota? To do a couple drain and fills I would imagine you'd need 2 jugs? Just trying to get a gauge of what my time is worth for this project as well.
cj80cruiser
Senior Member
I decided against switching over to red and against letting the dealership do it. I just put the $129 toward a new radiator and gona do it myself. I never got as far as checking the toyota red coolant as my research lead me to believe its just better to keep it green than to change over now.
3.4l with rear heater holds a little less than 2.5 gallons which I got that info from the FAQs on ih8mud. I'm going to flush with hose until all the crap is out, then drain and fill with distilled water until I feel most of the hose water is out, and then put around a 50/50 mix back in.
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StreetKill831
New member
Get a couple gallons of distilled water if you still want to "flush" it after you install the new one. The dealership would actually hook a hose to the input and run water through it while the engine is running with the outlet open so that it is actually being flushed out.
Just run it with distilled water until it reaches temp and then drain it, obviously waiting for the water to cool.
Just run it with distilled water until it reaches temp and then drain it, obviously waiting for the water to cool.
cj80cruiser
Senior Member
Thats exactly what I'm going to do.
I thought about it all night and decided not to be lazy and do it myself and put the money toward a new radiator.
cj80cruiser
Senior Member
Is there any money to be made off the old radiator? like say recycling, core refund, anything whether its 50 cents or $20 I'd like to know.
TheDurk
Elite Member
For an economical alternative to Toyota Red or Pink, try Zerex Asian Formula. It's a phosphated HOAT coolant, chemically the same as Toyota Pink, for half the price. Available at NAPA, Amazon and others. Although if you keep your change interval to 30k or less, modern green stuff is probably fine.
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Sherwood4Runner
New member
From what I know you CAN use the garden hose to flush everything but you want to use distilled water for the 50/50 mix.
Ron Helmuth
Senior Member
opinions vary on this-depends on the Ph levels of your water. Distilled water is cheap insurance-about 67cents a gallon here at grocery stores.
Our water here in Denver metro area is quite hard-where I live it's also very calcified-contains a lot of calcium. I would not hesitate to flush at first with tap water, but then how can you truly be sure that it is all "out"? So use distilled for the final fill/mix with the coolant.
Run just distilled water for a day or two if you like, then do another purge and see what all comes out. Then do a final mix of 50/50.
We run distilled water all the time in our (leaky after shutoff) 89 MR2. Toyota Red was not even invented back in 89. I get tired of putting in any pricey antifreeze just to see it drip back out. We have moderate temps for the most part here, take said advice with a pinch of skepticism for your application.
cj80cruiser
Senior Member
Just to cover my butt here, how do you make sure all the air is out??? I assume you just keep adding water while it runs and wait for the thermostat to open then fill back up. Is that pretty much standard procedure?
