Trying to gain your experiences on what method works best.

Is it safe to go to the dealer or local jiffy lube and have them flush the system? From my understanding, they use some sort of pump that will get ALL of the old fluid out and then pump in the new fluid.

I thought I read somewhere that this was bad for the system. True or not?

What are your thoughts?????

Thanks

 

Everytime I've had a radiator flushed, the problem begin.

 

huh?

 

I know what your saying.

 

Explain...I am not sure that everyone else knows what exactly you are saying??

 

I was just about to do mine, I haven't read that many negative comments about it??? Seems pretty straight forward. I've done it on farm equipment many times and never had a problem.

 

I should say I haven't had issues with my vette but on my DSM, the wife's Miata and the Jeep everytime I do a flush it wants to overheat. I will tell you this is 100% operator error and it takes me awhile to get the "air bubble" out but for some reason I usually have issues with coolant flushes. My main problem is I'm doing them on a incline I guess but it usually takes me a few drive cycles and burps to get everything situated. I rather change sparkplugs on a hot motor then do a coolant flush.

 

The 2 times that I've had a radiator flushed it just seems that it knocks everything loose and I start having overheating problems that I really didn't have before. Then I have to start having it flushed several more times.

 

The gm coolant is good for 100K miles, unless you're close to that don't mess with it.

If you do decide to do it, the 'shops' (i used oil can henry's) unhook one coolant line and try to recover all the old coolant for environmental reasons. It has nothing to do with fluid removal efficiency.

IMHO... if you can catch all the old coolant, unhook both radiator hoses and run water from the bottom hose until it comes out the top one. I had to use a garden hose with a high-pressure nozzle. Then let it drain, hook the hoses back up and add dextron until it's full. the water left in the block leaves about the right mixture ratio... that's how my chev garage mechanic told me to do it.

If you live in a really hot climate run distilled water and a water wetter instead.

good luck!!

 

GM says 100k on their coolant but I don't know if I believe that. I had mine flushed by mechanic at 50,000, he used the pump to suck all the coolant out. My mechanic said the coolant did not look good even though they claim 100k, mechanic said it was good I got it removed.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'm still confused as well.

Has anyone had this "complete" flush done at a dealer or jiffy lube?

This would seem to be the "easy" way of cleaning all of the old out in order to put new in...rather than the typical drain, fill, run, drain, fill, run, etc...

 

I haven't had a flush done at either but it isn't hard to do at home. It just takes a little time and some containers to catch the waste coolant. The hardest part is getting the old coolant out of the block. If you just open the system and drain through the radiator you will leave several quarts in the block. The only way to flush those out is to refill with clean water and run the engine until the thermostat opens, then drain again, refill and keep repeating until the drained coolant is clear of any color. Once clear close the petcock on the radiator add the proper amount of DexCool and top off with water.

As for how long DexCool lasts all I can say is it goes at least 5 years. GM says to change it at 150K miles or 5 years. I have several cars that have been through their first 5 year change. When the coolant was drained from the engine it looked just like it did when it was installed.

Bill

 

No one said anything about distilled water. That is what I read recommended here before. So how do you flush/fill with distilled water? Sounds like water is left in the block from this discussion.

 

So, if I understand correctly, the only way to get the coolant out of the block is to work the method you were talking about?

I thought that the dealer / Jiffy lube has a pump method that pumps everything out including the block. Is this correct???? Is it safe to do this???

 

The shop manual says no need to flush unless the old coolant is discolored.

I have changed my 1998 coolant twice, based on time (5 years or 150,000 miles), never flushed. With 113,500 miles it has been fine.

 

I don't buy the 50/50 premix because I have no idea what the water they used was like. ie how hard and what the mineral content was.[/QUOTE]

Not to mention they take out half the coolant, replace it with water, and still price it at 90% of what straight coolant costs!

 

The other problem with the 50/50 mix is you do not know what percentage you have once it is put in the cooling system that has a certain amount of coolant/water already in it. I change the DexCool on all my vehicles after 5 years. Have 3 right now that are on their second fill. One of those is coming up for its third fill in about 6 months. The coolant in every one of them looked just like the day it was put in the car. No need to change as often as the green stuff as Dex is much better at inhibiting corrosion.

Bill

 

a pair of sixes,

The dealer or local 'quick' lube place will not be able to remove all the coolant in the block with a pump, as it will loose prime before all the coolant has been removed.

So, unless they also use low pressure/high volume air pressure to push out fluid (not aware of any shop using this technique), their only choice is to push the old coolant out with either water or new coolant.

In either case, your not really getting a 'flush', just a exchange and their 'water' could have minerals in it which would be bad for your coolant system.

By contrast you can accomplish a much better job doing it yourself for much less cost just following the FSM's recommended procedure.

Parts needed:

1. buy 10 gallons of steam distilled water ($15 +/-).
2. buy 2 gallons of GM's dexcool from the dealer (be aware not all 'dex cool' coolants have the same chemical composition, and many of the problems are caused by incompatible chemicals in the so called after-market 'dex cool' compatible coolants).
3. buy a new thermostat and gasket/o-ring (for the LS1 engine, comes with the housing, worth it as it makes it easy and quick to change).

time needed:

a long afternoon, where you can do other things too.

procedure while car is cool:

1. remove cap from expansion tank.
2. suck-out expansion/pressure tank coolant (shop vac, siphon).
3. find and loosen radiator drain **** and catch in a pan.
4. once drained,
5. optional -- loosen lower radiator hose where it connects to the thermostat housing and gently twist hose, then remove. Remove the bolts holding the thermostat housing to the engine and remove. Then remove the thermostat from the housing (pretty easy, you'll understand once you see it) and reinstall the housing (without the thermostat) to speed-up the flushing process.
6. Close the radiator drain.
7. slowly add the distilled water to the expansion/pressure tank until it is at the 'cool' level'.
8. IMPORTANT -- put the cap back on the expansion/pressure tank. The pressure build-up is needed to prevent air from being trapped within the engine by allowing the pressure to help move it around to the expansion/pressure tank.
9. start/run/drive the engine until the temp remains above normal for at least 5 minutes.
10. let the engine cool down 1/2 hour or so.

repeat steps 1-4 & 6-10, two or three more times until the liquid drained from the radiator.

Last time, just Repeat steps 1-4 & 6.

You have now not only done a great flush, but upon the final drain, left only distilled water in the engine, which will mix well with the new antifreeze as well as not leave any hard-water minerals anywhere within the engine or radiator.

now for the final steps:

11. install new thermostat (btw, reason for replacment is that it is never if, just when, a thermostat will fail, not to mention they become sluggish and do not open as far as they age, well before full failure), so it best to change it now and have 100k or 5 years peace-of-mind.

12. SLOWLY add pure anti-freeze to the expansion/pressure tank, to a maximum of 1/2 of the engine coolant capacity (e.g. 1.6 gallons given the 12.6 quarts capacity for a 2000 LS1 with manual tranny) the 'maximum/hot' level, whichever occurs first.

13. PUT CAP ON (again very very important).

14. Start engine (do not drive) and bring engine to 2k RPM's for about 5 minutes while closely watching the temperature gauge to assure it does not go above 228.

15.. Let engine cool down 1+ hours, then top off the expansion/pressure tank if needed and reinstall the 'radiator' cap.

16. Take the car for a drive and watch the temp gauge to assure it is operating at normal temps (might be hotter/cooler by a few degrees due to new thermostat). HOWEVER, DO NOT push it hard or get on it, until 3 more drive cycle/days to assure the anti-freeze is mixed with the distilled water and properly prevents hot spots and spot-boiling.

17. Over the next 2-3 days, when cool, make sure the expansion/pressure tank coolant level is correct, and add coolant or distiled water as needed (remember, more is not better, so do not exceed 1/2 the coolant capacity is pure anti-freeze).

18. Pop open a beer or two and smile -- you've just completed a much better job than you could pay for, and with the confidence and comfort of knowing exactly what was done and how well it was done.