Saturday, April 9, 2011

DIY Saturday: How to Do a Coolant Flush

The cooling system of your vehicle also deteriorates over time, especially the quality of the coolant used in its radiator and cooling assembly. It is because of this that periodic coolant flush and refill is important. Otherwise, when you continuously use the coolant even after its quality has already deteriorated, it won’t provide your vehicle with proper cooling and you may encounter engine overheating.

Luckily, you need not wait for something like this to happen. Doing a coolant flush is easy and you can accomplish this all by yourself. Here’s how:

  1. Prepare everything that you will need: pan for the used coolant, new coolant, and radiator flush.
  2. Remember not to do this work if your engine is still hot.
  3. Position the coolant receptacle or pan below the radiator drain plug and then remove the plug to drain the coolant from the radiator.
  4. Replace the plug and then open your radiator cap to fill your radiator with the radiator flush solution. Replace the cap and tighten it.
  5. Start your vehicle and allow it to run until it reaches the right temp (refer on the gauge on your dash) – if there is an indicated number of minutes needed to run your engine as indicated in the radiator flush label, follow it.
  6. Turn your vehicle off and let the engine cool before proceeding.
  7. Drain the radiator flush (similar to what you did with the old coolant).
  8. Refill the radiator, and the coolant reservoir, with new coolant mixed with water—follow the indications in the coolant when it comes to the right coolant-water mix ratio.
These simple processes take only a few minutes to complete, but they go a long way in keeping your cooling system and engine in good shape and in preventing possible problems and expensive repairs.

No comments:

Post a Comment