When I look into the hood of my 2012 hs250h, I see two different pink antifreeze locations and they are both at the low mark. The antifreeze on the passenger side is a lighter pink, and the one on the driver side labeled "hybrid coolant" is a darker pink. Are they different? If I go to O'Reilly's auto parts, will they give me the correct types to top off?

 

Both reservoirs take the same coolant. Toyota Super Long Life Coolant. Only get the real stuff. It does not cost much more. It is Pink. Although there are some alleged aftermarket coolants that claim compatibility.


The reservoir on the passenger side is for cooling the engine. It has a change interval of 10 years or 100,000 miles.
The reservoir on the driver side, or middle area is for the hybrid system and has a change interval of 10 years or 150,000 miles as it does not get exposed to engine combustion by products etc.

 

Thank your so much for the valuable information. If one coolant is lighter pink, then that must mean that it is just old, and should be changed sooner, right.... ?

 

No. After a few months and thousands of miles the engine coolant is always darker than the hybrid system (technically called the Inverter) coolant due to being subject to more heat and working harder.
The reason Toyota-Lexus says the hybrid system coolant can go 150,000 miles is because it does not work as hard or get as dirty as the coolant for the internal combustion engine.
The easy way to change the inverter coolant is to suck all the fluid out of the reservoir and fill it with new fluid. Then drive for a week or so and do that again. Repeat and you will have painlessly changed most of the coolant. This is how I did it on my HS. A food baster works well to remove the fluid or a fluid pump from an auto parts store.
It is described in more detail in the links.

As a side note on the spark plug change mentioned in the first link. On the HS it is actually very easy to change them. I changed all 4 in less than 30 minutes myself, but I have changed a lot of spark plugs over the years.

These engines do sometimes have head gasket issues, water pump leak issues and oil burning issues, so keep an eye on the engine oil level and condition. And on the coolant level. If it drops again, or you notice the oil on the dipstick looks muddy, you may have a failing engine head gasket.

Here is more information from the 2007-11 Toyota Camry forum at Toyota Nation as the HS250h has the same engine and hybrid system as this Camry.

There is a lot more great information on the Camry forum as the forum is much more active than our Lexus forum.

See these threads on coolant change and general maintenance.

​​​​​​https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...#post-14269973
​​​​​​https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...3#post-9187433
​​​​​​https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...#post-14148345
​​​​​​https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...3#post-8007633
https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...1#post-3386341
https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...#post-14747825

 

Hi, I just got mine at 162k. it seems like the coolants have never been changed and the transmission fluid needs to be changed. the car runs perfectly and i have been a heavy reader of this forum for the last 2 months so most big things i am aware of and have already been done to the car. The coolants and transmission fluids are the biggest things left i have to knock out. Im pretty sure i already understand how to do the transmission drain and fill but am a bit lost on the other two. I know you linked these posts to explain but i have read them and am a bit confused. I am new to cars as well as this is my first car. would you be able to elaborate more on the inverter coolant drain and fill, as that seems to be the most expensive thing to replace if ignored. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Watch this video from the Car Care Nut who is a Toyota Master Tech. He explains how to change these fluids. He has many other excellent videos. The trick with engine coolant is to pour it in to the radiator very slowly to minimize air pockets. Then you have to make sure to bleed the system according to this instructions. You need to put the engine in maintenance mode so the gas motor keeps running so you can warm up the engine and bleed the coolant system of air.


I don't recall exactly what he said about the hybrid coolant but I just used a fluid pump to remove as much fluid as possible, the filled it up then repeated a few more times over the next week. You can get these fluid pumps at any auto parts store.
However you could just get quotes from a local independent Japanese or Toyota specialist to change both coolants. They have sold millions of hybrid vehicles and this same engine and hybrid system are in the Toyota Camry Hybrid for the same model years. Most shops have worked on them.

You can also use it to pump the new transmission fluid back into the transmission (technically a power transfer unit) In the transmission you can use Toyota WS ATF, or Idemitsu TLS LV ATF which is available at Amazon. it holds about 4 quarts so just buy the 5 quart jug from Amazon. On the Amazon page with the Idemitsu you will also see fluid pumps for sale. This ATF is what I am running in my HS and my other Lexus vehicles,