Coolant Change

[itarumaa]

I have a blue coolant in my ls400 at the moment.

Since I think it would be safer to keep the blue one and not to change to red one to make sure that I do not mix them and car is working fine anyway, I was thinking to continue with blue coolant.

But I need to change it to stronger version, since I think I will take the car to Northern Finland where it might be -40 in the winter.

Do you think this would be suitable for the car:

Halfords

So if the coolant amount is 11litres, 6 litres of that stuff and rest distilled water. Would this be ok for the car?

The car is ls400, year 1998.

Thanks

[steve2006]

Personally I would fully drain the old coolant,flush then refill with the correct Toyota long Life Red Antifreeze. I looked at the specifications for the Halfords brand and noticed it contains silicates which according to Toyota can damage water pump seals!

Toyota Long Life Antifreeze/Coolant (RED) Specifications

Factory-filled red fluid specially formulated by Toyota for Toyota vehicles

New generation ethylene-glycol based premium engine antifreeze/coolant specially formulated for all Toyota engine cooling systems

Helps prevent cold weather freeze-ups and hot weather boil-overs

Does NOT contain silicates that may harm water pump seals

Does NOT contain borates that may cause aluminum pitting/corrosion

Provides excellent corrosion protection

Contains ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, water, organic acid salt, and hydrated inorganic salt

Protects from -34ºF to 265ºF (using a 15 lb. psi pressure cap)

Meets all Toyota warranty requirements & ASTM Specs

There is an excellent tutorial on www.lexls.com regarding the full engine block drain and refill.

[itarumaa]

Thanks for the reply, I definitely do not want to take risks with this, and info about silicates is good to know.

Of course I have no way of knowing if the current coolant consist of these or not.

I have to see if I can find the Toyota coolant, but I think it is only sold in Toyota dealers.

[Malc]

Hi, my thoughts are that the longevity and legendary reliability of the LS400 must revolve around using the correct maintenance products ............... simple really.

Maybe a reason why the waterpumps seem to last for ever.

Malc

[steve2006]

Thanks for the reply, I definitely do not want to take risks with this, and info about silicates is good to know.

Of course I have no way of knowing if the current coolant consist of these or not.

I have to see if I can find the Toyota coolant, but I think it is only sold in Toyota dealers.

That's why I recomended removing the present unknown coolant,flushing to remove all traces and then filling with Toyota red.

Even at a Toyota/Lexus dealer it would probably cost around £30.00 for the amount you need, a lot less than sorting potential future problems caused by the incorrect type.

[itarumaa]

Ok,

I have started now.

I bought a 10mm hex key for the throttle body connection and 6 litres of coolant and 5 litres of deionized water.

Then I opened the radiator valve and poured the coolant away, filled up the expansion tank and bleed the system. Repeat of this 3 times, then I started to flush the car directly, so left the radiator valve open, run the car 5 minutes at time with constant water flow to expansion tank.

Eventually water was clear, when I started it was dark blue, black even.

Then I added the deionized water, bleed the system, emptied the radioator and poured coolant trough throttle body valve.

Now it is quite good, but since I have only poured about 2½ litres of coolant in the system, there is too much water, so I will wait the car to cool down, open the radiator valve, empy the radiator, fill up trough throttle body valve and then bleed the car again.

Takes forever but I think the result will be good :)