Changing Coolant

[iwantatta]

Was wondering if i could get some help on changing the coolant. Car has about 29k on it and i'm not sure the coolant has ever been changed so i'm changing it.

Is the drain plug easy to get to?
Should i do a flush as well? How do i go about doing this? I've heard there is some kind of T-fitting that can be used with a garden hose.

I'm just planning to use the regular 50/50 mix of water and "Green" stuff. Any other advice would be appreciated as this is the first time i've ever changed the coolant on this car.

To be honest i've been debating whether to take it in and have somebody do it. I've changed coolant on my other cars but i've never flushed it properly.

 

[joejakegrace]

I did my 17k car last month (the first time it had ever been changed).

The plug is a plastic/nylong plug in the lower right corner (pax side) of the radiator. I had to carefully jack my car up to get a recepticle under it (actually jacked the car up just enough to put a couple of 2x6s under each front tire). Pop the radiator and overflow cap, unscrew the plug and glug, glug, glug....

Mine came out surprisingly clean - actually, no crud whatsoever. I debated draining the coolant from the block but, if I can help it, I prefer not to take that plug out. So i flushed the radiator with a hose (into the cap/out the bottom, until clean) - then I filled it with water and ran the car up to temp with the heater on and repeated the drain procedure. Water came out pretty clean. Then I filled with 50/50 of the best stuff I could get.

Done.

 

[joejakegrace]

Oh, and personal experience - only take a TTA to someone a) when you absolutely NEED to; b) when you absolutely can't fix it yourself; c) when you can sit there and watch them the whole time; and d) when you're prepared to have them do something stupid.

I've had a guy work on mine that was a "master" GN/TTA mechanic for this area for years. Put the car on his computer and said "running great, a little varnish in the injectors is all" - He was right but he missed that the assist line to the turbo was OFF. I put new line on and fixed the fitting and it runs 1000x better.

Also, my car showed the screw ups of mechanics past (crunches to the intercooler duct/frame from improper lifting/driving onto lifts, etc.)

These cars are pretty unique - Absent engine rebuilds or really tough diagnostics, not much a typical tech can do that you can't do better with a little homework.

 

[iwantatta]

Thanks for your advice. I'm going to work on it. The reasons you mentioned are why i fear taking it in.

But i was unsure of how to flush the coolant out. I thought maybe you needed somekind of special tools to do it properly.

If i can do it the way you described, i'll just do it myself. Thanks.