i had a coolant flush done this week on our 99 gs400 at a rad shop. previous owner had mixed green coolant with the oem red fluid and turned it into a murky mess. i had asked that they use the toyota red coolant but when they did the power flush and refill, they used green coolant :

am i in trouble?

 

drain that stuff out and drain the block as well , fill with the toyota red stuff remember half red stuff and half distilled water .. if i remember correctly the green coolant should be mixed with toyota coolant and the toyota coolant has additives to prevent corr within the block

 

just curious how much did you pay to get it flushed?

i went to toyota dealer to get power flushed a few months back. they hooked up this thing that looks like a compressor of some sort, it took all the coolant out of the car... well anyways my coolant is a nice red color.

 

Drain and flush the system with Super Long Life Coolant. No mixing - use straight from the bottle. Instructions for flushing are on the gallon jugs. You'll need twice the cooling capacity and purchase at a Toyota rather than Lexus dealer. This is the "Pink" new Toyota coolant designed to work with your water pump and control valve seals. It replaces the Red 50/50 mix Long Life Coolant. Mine runs cooler than when I ran the red.

 

ur fine dont worrie about it

 

I've got some Redline Water Wetter laying around, think it would mix well with the Toyota Pink I just added?

Trying to avoid the problems of the RX300 engine to sludge up due to small cooling passages in the head.

 

it says $90cdn for 5 litres of coolant/flush.

the mechanic said the green stuff was for aluminum engines and meets toyota criteria, but is not as long lasting, so i would have to change it in 1/2 the recommended service interval that would have been normally reached had it been the red coolant.

but... i'm getting mixed responses from the crowd here... by not using toyota coolant, am i rising water pump failure?

 

90cad is about 75usd ... i spent 77usd from toyota to get a powerflush

i really cant comment on the green stuff you have in ur coolant because i dont know much about other coolants beside toyota stuff

 

oh u were asking about dealer cost? all i know is that lexus here charges about $200cdn to flush. the shop rate for lexus is only $3 more than toyota, but the price for lexus parts is thru the roof, even for parts that share numbers with toyota

 

The original Toyota red is an ethylene glycol coolant. It is basically the same thing as the green stuff except the corrosion prevention chemicals are different. I think the Toyota stuff is loaded with phosphates but no silicates(?) The regular green had both. True, the green won't last as long, but if you do regular drain and fill and a flush every couple of years, it should be fine. I've been running the green stuff with DISTILLED water (people forget this part a lot) for the last 8 years. I just had my thermostst, water pump and radiator hoses changed and everything was pristine. The danger comes with mixing regular coolant with the Dex-Cool stuff which uses organic acid inhibitors. It causes sludging which is bad. Don't know too much about the new Toyota extended life pink stuff. But I don't think you have much to worry about. Just remember to use distilled water. I use distilled water to flush my radiator every 2 years and to drain and fill every year. It takes about 30 minutes to do and is easy maintenence work.

 

thanks!

now... should i be doing the water pump or not when changing the timing belt... it's not leaking but the mechanic says do it anyway because he dosen't want to take everything apart again when it does?

 

Water pump is recommended. When I replaced my timing belt at 95k miles, the belt and pump were in really good shape. Can't say the same for my crank pulley. If you're going to do the belt, do the pump. Labor to get to the pump afterwards is the same as for the timing belt, so an extra $150 spent now could possibly save you another $400-$500 later. A price worth paying. Anyway, by the time you get to doing this, its a good timeto just take a look around the engine and take note of how the forst 100k has been.

 

what happened to your crank pulley?

 

Dampener ring rusted and fell off the pulley. Seems like I had been driving round like this for some time since it was resting on the plastic undercarraige cover and was rusted out. Replaced that ($240) and engine is QUIETer. Do a search for it. Someone put up pictures, but same thing happened to mine. Fortunately good Toyota belt and tensioner kept everything humming along.

 

I have ES300 year 2000.

what kind should i use in my car. I have 82000 mil.