vmax84

My sister is coming over with her super nice 2000 4Runner with the awesome 3.4 liter engine, and wants the coolant swapped out. She said the coolant is "red" in color, for whatever that means.

What coolant should I put back in it? thanks.

vmax84

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

Toyota Red from the dealership.

vmax84

Man, I hate going to the dealer...........none of the parts store have the same thing?

vmax84

toyomoto

im sure a parts store would have something similar. Just use the dealer with something like that. takes those "what if's" off your mind.

profuse007

is the red coolant from walmart or auto part stores equivalent?

mt_goat

The dealer coolant isn't too costly. I'd either go with that or do a complete flush and replace with Prestone green. Don't mix different types if you can help it. And MOST important is only use distilled water to mix with it.

profuse007

imma just go to toyota and get their toyota red.

Just curious, how does one completely flush the old ones out? Do you just run it w/ couple of flush w/ distilled water?

Rock Slide

iTrader: (1)

http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/mainte...p3.htm#coolant

vital22re

iTrader: (2)

Toyota red ftw!!!!! aluminum engine parts and standard green dont work so well together.

TheDurk

Actually, my Toyota dealer did my 30K maintenance and flushed out the factory red and put in green. (I let them do the 30 and 60k maintenance because I didn't want complications with some warranty issues.) They claimed that changing green every 30K was recommended for our special NJ climate (huh????). Then, at 60k, they flushed the green out and put in red. I called BS both times--but all I could do was make a service writer uncomfortable. Who knows how those clowns decided what color to put in?

Now, long out of warranty, I do my own, and its Toyota red every 40k.

mt_goat

When I had my 3.0 head gasket recall done the dealer switched to green and "gasp" mixed it with tap water. As soon as I got home I flushed the whole thing out. I don't know if I was more surprised they used tap water or that they admitted they did.

profuse007

flush it until the water is clear or pink/clear is okay? I have done it like 4 times already and wasnt able to switch to antifreeze yet due to time.

mt_goat

Don't forget to open the heater core valve and get it too.

gdutch

Is distilled water really that necessary? Seems like oversensitivity to me.

ROCK HOUND

Yes! distilled water does not have the impurities that tap water has. Tap water has calcium chloride, which is basically a salt, which will build up inside your rad and can cause problems.

Ohhh and dont be fooled by deionized water which can still have trace amount of impurities.

PismoJoe

x2 on the red, but actually they both have similar aluminum protection, its the iron protection that separates the boys (prestone green) from the men (toyota Red)

mt_goat

http://www.sancarlosradiator.com/ima...%20Coolant.pdf

http://www.rondavisradiators.com/tech.htm

Quote from 2nd link:

gdutch

Thanks for the info. Didn't know about the different sensitivities of aluminum rads.