I went to the dealership yesterday to get coolant flush. They said they don't do a flush but the parts department said to get a water hose, open drain at bottom of radiator, take top cap off radiator, crank engine, and fill radiator as it is being pumped through until fluid runs clear. Will this work and do a good job?
First of all, never go to that dealership again. Serach for it, there are many write ups on how to do it the proper way. I've done mine several times. It's quite easy.
Just to highlight the different atmosphere here in California, a friend of mine was changing a radiator hose in the front of his driveway on his Honda. He was being pretty conscientious, but happened to spill 1 or 2 cups of green coolant and it ran into the gutter.
Within 10 minutes, a cop happened to drive by, saw the 'carnage', pulled over and gave him some kind of environmental ticket for dumping hazardous waste into the street! For real.
Oh, and there are much better ways to do what you want. Just can't think of any right now!
I looked at the FAQ about coolant change but got lost in the maze. The one the toyota dealership suggested sounded simple and made sense to me. I'm not saying you're wrong but I'd like to know what's wrong with this way?
There are more efficient ways to do it. I used the Prestone flush kit that you can get from any where for very cheap. It walks to through the process. It also flushes your entire system better.
After you drain your radiator from the white plug on the bottem DS. There is a coolant drain bolt on the DS of the engine block. Look right above your DS front wheel. I thinks it's a 15 mm but not sure. You need some extensions to get to it. Make sure you drain that as well.
After flushing with tap water make sure you flush again with distilled water. Then make a 50/50 coolant and distilled mix. That's basically how I did mine. It's not much harder but is more complete.
I find it strange that the dealership wouldn't do it. Hope this helps.
Further, though it may be obvious. be sure to run your front and *rear* heater on high while flushing, otherwise you may not get all the old coolant out from those hoses. There was a post on here recently where some guy had the dealer do the flush and they neglected to run the rear heat; he ended up w/ a nice christmas mix in his radiator (red/green).
No pic, but if you look in from the driver side wheel well, pulling back the flap that may be there, the plug is pretty obvious ... it's about 1/3 way down from where the block meets the head, about 40% back from the front of the block, and IIRC it's the only 14mm bolt that you can even see/get to in that vicinity.
My local toyota dealership has performed a coolant flush on my 80 before. Agree with cmadness and find another dealership or do it yourself. Good luck.
Do your own flush if you want it done right. A shop will never take the time to make sure all of the old coolant is out which is really important if you are changing colors (red->green, green->red).
The issues with what the parts guys said are:
-he didn't mention the block drain plug, you want to open that up and dump out what ever coolant is in there
-he didn't mention turning on BOTH heaters, you want to open these up to get the coolant out of them.
read through the FAQ, that is what I did and my flush went fine. I am anal so I flushed like 3 time with tap water, then 3 times with distilled, then filled up with toyota red. Probably completely unnecessary but I was bored.
Are yall using the prestone engine flush kit, draining the block, both heaters on, all with the truck running?
It was the parts department that told me to drain this way not the service side. But they said they don't have flush equipment cause for the most part Toyota doesn't recommend a flush.
I know they were talking about the transmission and I think the coolant. Also said Toyota doesn't recommend a power steering fluid change either atleast a full change. Parts department said do Turkey baster, drive awhile, and do again.
