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Any tips for swapping coolant in the 7th-gens? I know basically how to do it (I'd BETTER know at least that much); am more interested in possible snags to avoid, and tips to reduce mess/time/regret. Have gotten away with just some coolant consumption with this D17... I'd rather not give it an excuse to overheat and ruin my year.

Does this motor fill with coolant better when the front end is elevated, filled through both the top hose and the rad filler neck? Or does the car-level/fill-rad/idle-&-blip-until-rad-level-drops-and-stabilizes/top-off, work just fine? If it fills better elevated... great, as I plan to do trans fluid at the same time. Plan of course to fill with only Type 2...

 
Rep Power: 519

A simple D+F through the radiator draincock is safe, I don't have issues with trapped air that way. My problems with air seem to happen once the heater circuit is allowed to drain.
Yes I try to raise the front just because so many have the upper rad hose sloped downward toward the radiator so air can be trapped in the higher area (head) if water flow is slow. That way I can just let it idle and burp. If on flat ground I might raise RPM to 2k so the pump runs faster, increases speed of flow whenever the thermostat opens and purges trapped air easier.

Funnel-fill funnel is a great thing!



So is an Airlift


I get a lot more mileage from the funnel though, set it on, fill, run, walk away and do something else for a while. Little or no babysitting.
Airlift is rarely used.

 
Rep Power: 210

mine burped pretty easily, and i had the ENTIRE system drained cause i replaced my water pump, when you remove the water pump there is probably another 1-2 more liters that come out of there,

i had mine on level ground, filled the rad and let it idle for about 10 mins with the cap off, topping up as nessessary, then i shut it off, topped the rad and made sure the overflow was between the lines,

then i just drove it as normal, i kept my eye on the overflow level for the first few days, checking it at least once a day as some additional minor top ups were nessessary until it stabilized

 
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Okay, cool... the yellow Lisle was something I was planning to buy anyway -- as you mentioned, it makes air-pocket-free coolant swaps (with the exception of possibly missing a leaking hose connection) pretty much guaranteed with a raised front end, no possibility of trapping air in the head. Thanks!

Here is the Amazon link to the product, if anyone else wants to get one: .

@mikey: so an add'l ~2 qts come out of the block, in a 4 qt+overflow system? Wow... so I'm hearing some quite passionate pros and cons to touching that block coolant plug. I'd really like to get half of the old coolant out, if it's at all worth it.

 
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When I last changed my coolant, I didn't open the block drain plug and didn't even jack up the car, I removed the thermostat and stick a shopvac tube into the lower radiator hose then put the shpvac on blow and let it blow all coolant out of the thermostat housing, kept blowing air until the air coming out is totally dry, at this point the system is completely drained with the heater switch is on. The disadvantage of this method is that the system will be full of air and need burping for long time until it takes the whole gallon