mkgarrison5

hey guys, so i called 2 local yota dealerships just to get an idea of what they charge for a flush when i have my tbelt, waterpump and etc replaced.. they gave me a price yada yada, so i ask if they use tap water or distilled water. they said that in the 30 years they have worked there they have NEVER used distilled water! they just use a 50-50 mix of tap water and OEM red.. now what is wrong with this picture?? BOTH dealerships said the same thing!. I guess ill be doing that myself or just have them empty as much of the coolant as they can and replace with premixed pink.. what do you guys think?

johnsenpa

I say do it yourself, you will be able to thoroughly mix it up and flush it how you want. I did it myself and after using the flush and running it, then water and running it i took it off plugged my and over the bottom hole and shock the radiator around stirring up ALOT of gunk and then yas able to get it really clean. I doubt the dealerships will go through and clean it out as "best"they can. It helped that I already had to remove it to put on the drop bracket, but after doing there is a noticeable difference in the temperature in which it runs. I went pretty anal with the flushing process though, but it helped and I also took the time to jam out on the radio and screwdriver straight many of the bent fins from rocks and birds,, yeah birds. Found two birds buried in my front end..... HAHAHA I think those happened when going cross country through Wyoming

johnsenpa

I did a mix with the flush cleaner, and tap water.....then just tap water....then the tap water 1-2-shake-n-bake

mkgarrison5

do what?

johnsenpa

I took my radiator off after the final flush and shook it up with the water inside to stir up a bunch of gunk and kept dumping until nothing came out.

rdlsz24

I just did this to my wife's car last Saturday. Wasn't hard and didn't take too long. I used some Gunk 10 minute cleaner that foamed up nice to get rid of the crud. Then I rinsed and refilled with 50/50 antifreeze and distilled water from Wal-Mart (around 70 cents a gallon).

Rob

rearviewmirror

After I capture the main AF (I mean all of it, I then just set the hose in the radiator cap and let it flush for a long a time. If you squeeze the main cooling hoses you can pretty much get everything out. If you want to get both sides of the thermostat then you'll need to pull the hoses.

2000t4rAKS

You know what they say, " IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT, YOU GOTTA DO IT YOURSELF"

I just picked up two bottles of radiator flush concentrate at PepBoys and already mixed 50/50 of the red stuff at the dealer. Followed the instructions and used nothing but DISTILLED even for the flushing. It's so cheap at WalMart like Rob said.

mkgarrison5

well see, heres the thing.. they are going to replace my tbelt, thermo, drivebelts, waterpump and etc.. i figured while they were there, they could flush my coolant system bc i have a mix of red and prestone any make - any model green coolant in there now and i wanted it all yota red or the premixed pink... i am going to have them just drain as much of the coolant as they can and just fill up with yota pink and pay the extra $ for it... i dont trust tap water in cooling systems. they swear up and down that they have NO issues with it all bc of the OEM yota red coolant is strong enough to adverse the affects of tap water.. i still dont believe them so ill go with yota premixed pink

2000t4rAKS

Ahhhh, I see your point. You might as well have them do it while they are doing the rest of the other stuff. Is the price they quoted already including the coolant flush??? If so, you might as well let them do it. Then after you get home, let the runner cool down a bit and do the flush yourself. Its alot of work, I know but I am with you about tap water. I DO NOT trust tap water at all. I have seen what hard water/tap water can do to certain metals.

kmcaprice14

speaking of coolant flushes, how can you dispose of the spent coolant and flush agent afterward... I feel fairly certain you can't just pour it down the drain. My neighbor has two really yappy annoying dogs. Can someone suggest a better way to get rid of it instead of making it into dog chow?

mkgarrison5

take it to your local auto parts store. call first and ask if they will take it. most will..


2000tk4-- i am going to ask them not to use the red and to use pink and to just drain and fill basically.. no flush... OR i can say yeah, flush but do not use red. use the pink...

johnsenpa

around illinois autozone and the parts stores dont take it anymore, cause of scandles happening with illigeal dumping, but I just went up to a jiffy lube andtold the guyI had 3 gallons of coolant fluid and wash i needed to get rid of and he said no problem and I just dropped it out back

rdlsz24

To the OP, would they let you bring your own distilled water for them to use?

Rob

mkgarrison5

you know i dont know.. feel kind of silly to ask but it would only be a few gallons. not a bad idea though. it still just blows my mind why they use tap water and not distilled but whatever i guess... i know that MTL (Jamie) has had a major issue with incorrect flushing and if i can remember right they used tap water also. i am hoping he will chime in here

2000t4rAKS

If I am not mistaken, it has something to do with how the ions in tap water react with the type of metal our radiators are made out of.

CJM

Working at a shop and having done this plenty of times we use plain old water, no one has had an issue yet including me.

mkgarrison5

how many miles do you have on your truck that you do that on??

CJM

OVer 30k since the last flush..

Othe people have many more miles, our work trucks we use for the shop have over 50k at least since the last flush and no issues. Rads arent clogged and although it comes out brown, it all comes out and isnt in chunks and gunk.

Other customers as well have no issues.

I can tel you right now that 90% of shops use plain old tap water.. Distilled water isnt truly needed, I could see it if the tap water was heavily chorlinated city water though.

MTL_4runner

It wasn't from me flushing, it was a dealer in AZ that refilled my vehicle with tap water (don't get me started) and the water out there is horribly hard. If you live in a place where the water isn't as hard, it's probably not that bad to just mix with tap water. All that being said I still don't know why people would even bother because they sell the premixed pink which has none of those problems, it lasts longer and by the bottle it's also cheaper. It doesn't make sense at this point to be doing that anymore......just use the super long life pink and refill your system carefree.