anyone change the coolant on their 2007+ outlander yet ? ?

looking for tips to get ALL of the old coolant out of the cooling system.

thanks

 

From the manual linked in the sticky on how to change the coolant:

1. Stop the engine after it is fully warmed up.
2. Add detergent to the engine coolant in order to flush the cooling system, and start the engine.
3. Loosen the drain plug, remove the radiator can and drain the coolant.
4. Feed fresh water into the cooling system through the filler port of the radiator in order to wash the cooling system, and then tighten the drain plug.
5. Drain the coolant from the radiator condenser tank.
6. Install the radiator condenser tank.
CAUTION
Do not use alcohol or methanol anti-freeze or any engine coolants mixed with alcohol or methanol anti-freeze. The use of an improper anti-freeze can cause the corrosion of the aluminium components.
7. Depending upon conditions of operation, determine the amount of long life coolant, antifreeze or antirust to be added to the coolant. Recommended antifreeze: BASF Glysantin Alu Protect Premium/G30
8. Fill the cooling system with soft water through the filler port, and add long life coolant, if necessary.
9. Fill the radiator condenser tank with coolant.
10.Install the radiator condenser tank cap.
11.Recheck the engine coolant level after a road test.

 

Do not forget to merge from the engine and an oven.
On engines there is a drain plug.
And the oven should be left in an on-position.
When you will fill in охлаждающию a liquid do not forget to expel an air block.

 

..thanks guys !

 

outty, how'd it go? I just did mine and really had a fight.

in a nutshell, here's what I did.

- removed underside plastic trim as well as "lower lip" of the front bumper.
- opened drain on radiator (passenger side in front) to relieve pressure.
- opened radiator cap & let radiator drain
- pulled "feeder hose B" to drain. This hose is on drivers side near the transmission. it is about half the size as the regular radiator hose. coolant will come out from the metal tube part of the hose, not the rubber hose.
- get a small set of vice grips and fold & clamp the feeder hose very gently, but enough to seal the hose.
- make sure drain is closed for the radiator.
- pinch the overflow tank hose with your fingers
- (some may not like it, but make sure the radiator opening is washed off) blow into the radiator to pressurize the system. since the only opening is the metal tube below, you get a bit more coolant out. DO NOT OPEN YOUR MOUTH OR BREATH IN WHILE YOUR MOUTH IS ON THE RADIATOR.
- fill with water
:::repeat this until coolant is very diluted

now you are supposed to put your new coolant in, but that depends on amount of water remaining in the system. Service manual calls for 9.5 quarts of coolant. Every drain, I was switching out 4 quarts at a time. So I guessed on how to much concentrate to put in and will check in the morning when cooled down.

 

I'm resurrecting this thread because I just drained the coolant and, like ccernst, I only got about 4 litres of coolant out of the engine. What does one do at this point?

I bought 2 gallons of the Peak Extended Life concentrate, so after dilution to 50%, that's 4 gallons, or about 15 litres of 50%.

With 4 litres draining each time, I suppose I could drain and fill a bit under 4 times.

If there is a a period of time with the engine running to completely mix the coolant, after the first fill, the concentration of old coolant should go down to 50% of the mixture. On the second fill, 25%. Third fill, 12.5%. Fourth fill, 6.25%.

How does the dealership do this? Are they able to get more coolant out of the engine on first drain -- perhaps as ccernst has suggested?

Thanks.

 

Below is the shop procedure to "replace coolant", but read below the procedure for real world things.

One thing I noticed during this process is that it takes very little of the old, dark green coolant to "color" the new, amber-colored coolant/water 50% mixture, as show in the below photo taken after 3rd drain (about 12% old coolant); fill with 50%; run-engine-to-mix cycles. (Right now, as I type, I've got the 4th fill in the radiator waiting for some place to drive in order to completely mix the coolant for the 4th time.)
I've still got the plastic shield off the bottom of the vehicle. I'm now debating how many more, if any, cycles I should perform. To go further would constitute a severe example of the law of diminishing returns. I figure that after mixing, the amount of original coolant in the engine will be around 6 or 7% of the present mixture, yet, if I were to drain it, the color would most likely still look amazingly similar to what the first drain of old coolant looked like.

Quite obviously to me now, what this engine needs is a removable drain plug on the engine block's water jacket which, together with the radiator drain, could be used to completely drain the engine coolant in one fell swoop.

The above shop procedure does not say to drain the old coolant more than once. Considering that at least 50% of the old coolant remains in the system after the first drain, this is more than strange. Does Mit. actually feel that this is adequate to meet their maintenance/warranty requirement to "replace coolant"? By their own procedure, I guess it must, and I've already gone well above and beyond the call of duty.

 

I hear ya, the manual didn't help much honestly. I attacked it with straight water and then added concentrate....guessing how much was added each time. Eventually got to something that was mixed properly per a coolant tester gauge.

Reading on BITOG coolant, I read that color doesn't really mean much...just different dyes. You just really need to pay attention to the specific needs.

 

The next time I do this (5 years down the road), I will do something similar to what you did. The problem with it is that I want to use only distilled (de-ionized (DI), de-minearlized, etc.) water. Around here, that costs about $2.50 per gallon, which is a bloody ripoff. (My work life was spent as a lab technician in power plants. We produced demineraized water for around 5 cents per gallon. But it's the size and weight of water that makes transportation, storage, shelf space, etc. so expensive, I guess.)

Anyway, $2.50 is still a lot cheaper than the price of antifreeze, so, rather than right off the bat draining and fillling with 50/50, I'd just drain and fill a number of times using DI water, then fill with concentrated anti-freeze, mix, check concentration; then drain just enough so that the amount of concentrate added will raise the concentration to within a narrow range of freeze/boiling point. This would minimize the wastage of new coolant.

Of course this begs the question of why to replace the "old" antifreeze/DI mixture in the first place. Nowadays, with the inhibitors put in coolants, the amount of metal dissolving in the coolant will be very very low. It is possible for metals to dissolve in coolant, but if this happens, the conductivity of the solution will rise. Therefore, if the conductivity/corrosivity of the original mixture is close to that of new, why replace the coolant?

Of course it's possible for oil (head gasket) or tranny fluid (transmission fluid cooler within radiator leaking, a la Nissan Xterra, Pathfinder, etc.) to leak into the cooling system, but if this has not happened, again, why change the fluid?

After our vehicle's warranty runs out, what I'll probably do is check the coolant for color, turbidity and conductivity/resistivity annually. If those are all like new, I'll likely keep the coolant right in the cooling system.