Battle With A Bottle

[Steviewevie]

No, not alcohol, Toyota coolant !

I bought a 1L top-up bottle of Toyota (red) coolant, but try as I might, I couldn't get the lid off. Feeling rather embarrassed I phoned up the Toyota parts dept where I'd got it from to ask what the secret was, and they tried with their own bottle and struggled too. I started to feeling not quite so bad, especially when they said that they got a lot of calls about these bottles !

The instructions make it look like you have to press down and twist, but that just didn't seem to work, no matter how hard I tried.

At the other end of the phone, one of the Toyota guys took the bottle and bashed it top-down into the floor. Apparently this worked, I tried it on mine and it cracked the problem for me too. Looks like there's a seal or something that's difficult to break, I think the diagrams on the top of the lid are showing that you need to hit the lid, not just press it down.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my experience here in case others come across this.

My coolant expansion tank was empty, so I've topped it up now and will keep an eye on it.

[janey]

So the moral of the tale is....when buying toyota coolant buy a hammer at the same time

Must confess it took me about 10 mins to work out how to open the 5l one at the weekend....turns out you have to squeeze & push at the same time

[reganlives]

lol...now thats a problem u wouldnt expect to have to ring the dealer about.

[Steviewevie]

Yeah a hammer would be very useful !

I was really embarrassed to ask, but I was glad I did, because I could hear the parts guy at the other end struggling exactly like I did, assuming it was a simple push-down-and-twist job. It took one of his colleagues to show him the bash-it-hard-on-the-floor approach !

[kam05]

No, not alcohol, Toyota coolant !

For a moment I thought this was the LOC AA thread:

"Hi, my name is Steviewevie and I'm an alcoholic"

Just kidding, mate :winky:

[Steviewevie]

I just thought, it probably *is* alcohol in the coolant bottle, isn't it ?

[aido]

I'm kicking myself now as I had 10L in the car when I dropped it off and I could have had a drink

[BluffMaster]

struggling with child locks eh! :winky:

just kidding mate

[MacRS200]

....turns out you have to squeeze & push at the same time

Must be a Woman type thing then

[DJ Wozza]

yeah Mac, guys just tend to squeeze or push but never both at the same time !!