Cooling system flush.....

[RedRide]

I got my '09 Yaris in Dec of 2008.

Toyota says its long life anti freeze is good for about 60k miles or so.

However, my Yaris has only about 17k miles on it but it's going on 10 years with the same anti freeze.

So, for convenience and for the same Toyota long life (pink) anti freeze, I took it to the local Toyota dealer for the flush.
It's right down the road from me....

Anyway, they charged me about $150 (+tax).
Is that about the going rate for that sort of thing.... at the dealer at least?

[tmontague]

sounds about right. Although I'm still not convinced they do much else than just drain and re fill. Really that is all that is needed.

[WeeYari]

They do do something. I had mine done a number of years ago. I got the car home and was working under the hood when I spotted something sitting on the plastic underbody panel. Took it back to the dealer to question them and it turned out to be a connector for the flush equipment.

Sent from my Elite_5_5_Octa using Tapatalk

[RedRide]

FWIW.... when I got my car home, I took a good look under the hood and noticed some water below the radiator area.
It seemed like just plain water and not anti freeze.
So, they must have done something other than just drain and refill.

BTW, I still got the original battery and it shows no signs of failing yet. :)

[tmontague]

They do do something. I had mine done a number of years ago. I got the car home and was working under the hood when I spotted something sitting on the plastic underbody panel. Took it back to the dealer to question them and it turned out to be a connector for the flush equipment.

Sent from my Elite_5_5_Octa using Tapatalk

good to know, seems like a somewhat reasonable price if they have the machinery. Something that can easily be done by yourself but does take some time

[sherlockholmes]

I got my '09 Yaris in Dec of 2008.


However, my Yaris has only about 17k miles on it


I'm sorry, but how did you manage to drive JUST 17k miles in 9 years? secondary car?

[SirDigby]

i would think they would just drain and fill. there is no reason to "flush" the system. coolant is like $45 for the gallon. 1 hour of shop time is $135 in my area. shop supplies is usually around $15.

[CoryM]

Generally a coolant flush these days is actually a "coolant exchange". Basically they plumb a machine in that pushes new coolant in, and recovers the old stuff. It's all that is required. The water underhood is from them washing any spilled coolant away.

[ex-x-fire]

I don't really like using flush machines on my cars. The machines have to pressurize the system to force the t-stat to open so the coolant will flow, seems like it's hard on the system. I've seen hoses blow off during this operation, even when the pressure is 3psi on the machine.
I thinks its safe to say that with todays long life coolant and being a sealed system, you can wait for a coolant change till you need a water pump or a t-stat change. You can buy those coolant PH test strips to test the current status of your coolant.

[RedRide]

I'm sorry, but how did you manage to drive JUST 17k miles in 9 years? secondary car?

Good question .

I got my year just to commute to my job... 40 miles round trip... in Nov of '08.
I wanted to save mileage on my other car, (an '02 Celia - manual) that had about 90k miles on it.

However, shortly afterwords, I got forced into early retirement.
So, I no longer needed a commuting car,.
Long story short, I sold my Celica for a great price and kept the yaris as it's a very practical car to use for retirement. :smile:

[Frank Necrosis]

i would think they would just drain and fill. there is no reason to "flush" the system. coolant is like $45 for the gallon. 1 hour of shop time is $135 in my area. shop supplies is usually around $15.

I did a drain and fill. Bought the Toyota coolant on Amazon for somewhere around $25 a gallon.

[Billiam]

I did 3 drain and fills over the course of a week or so with Valvoline Asian pink formula with Zerex. A little over $30 for 3 premixed gallons. OTC at Walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Valvoline-Asian-Vehicle-Antifreeze-Ready-To-Use-1-Gallon/49660461?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222228039166309&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=80427748489&wl4=pla-177662961169&wl5=9014319&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=49660461&wl13=&veh=sem

[BennyLava]

Its pretty easy to get most of the coolant out. Open the valve on the back of the engine, also drain the radiator. You may be surprised how much comes out of the valve on the engine. It just drains and drains. Run the new coolant for 3 months, then change again. Maybe do this at the beginning of winter so you're circulating a lot through the heater core? Not sure if it gets circulated through there when you're not running the heater. Anyway now you've got nearly all new coolant, that you can run for what... 80k miles on the super long life?

[komichal]

Any picture of the valve on the back of the engine please? I am not able to find any on my 2SZFE. But I guess there must be some as I was able to drain only about 2 liters via the peg on the radiator - there should be twice as much...

[scylla]

Any picture of the valve on the back of the engine please? I am not able to find any on my 2SZFE. But I guess there must be some as I was able to drain only about 2 liters via the peg on the radiator - there should be twice as much...

About half way down is a picture of the drain. Hopefully it is on your engine too.

http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52876