What coolant is best?

rang-a-stang

rang-a-stang

Silver Member
About to conduct my second coolant flush. I don't remember what I used last time (at about 65K miles, about to turn 140k miles) but I think it was FL22. Not sure though.

All my other cars have always just gotten good ol' Prestone Extended life green concentrate and distilled water. Any reason I should not run Prestone Extended life in my turd?
 
Prestone works great they have an Asian one that is fl22 compliant. I think I just have the regular 50/50 prestone in and it's fl22 compatible as well should say on the bottle some folks just go to Mazda and get the OEM stuff
 
Valvoline Asian Formula. They own Zerex and label their bottle as made "with Zerex technology;" I'm pretty sure it's the same coolant under a different name and at a lower price. Super cheap at Walmart or wherever.
 
Copy all. Thanks everyone.

New question: Is there a block drain plug or can we only really drain our coolant out through the radiator drain valve? All my other engines have a plug at the bottom of the cooling jackets somewhere to drain the block. I don't see any mention of them for our blocks in the Google tech manual.
 
rang-a-stang said:
Copy all. Thanks everyone.

New question: Is there a block drain plug or can we only really drain our coolant out through the radiator drain valve? All my other engines have a plug at the bottom of the cooling jackets somewhere to drain the block. I don't see any mention of them for our blocks in the Google tech manual.
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You will get most of it from the radiator drain, that is the only drain I know of. The rest will come out and make a mess if you take the motor out.
 
Drained the rad into a bucket and only got about 3/4 gallon. Topped it off with distilled water and brought it up to operating temp. Let it cool over night, then backed my car up the driveway, jacked up the back of the car as high was my jack would take it, then drained about 1.25 gallons. Topped it off with distilled water again and brought it to operating temp again. Tomorrow I will drain yet again and keep going until I have clear water pouring out of the rad.

Seems like none of the Asian formulas come in concentrate either. so when I drain water for the last time and add pre-mixed coolant, it will be watered down too much. Slightly annoying.
 
Why not just disconnect the U/L rad hoses and run a hose through the radiator if you're trying to flush it? Or remove the thermostat and run water from a hose through the engine/heater core?

I had a 96 Tacoma where the coolant was kind of rusty. I ran a chemical to break down the rust then flushed it using that method. After it drained out I did a 60/40 mix of coolant/water and never had issues.
 
I used to use hose water in my cooling systems but our water here in my town is super hard. There are TONS of minerals in it so I only use distilled water in my engines now. I have seen some pretty nasty looking aluminum parts over the years from corrosion in the cooling system and am pretty paranoid about that happening to my MZR.

Honestly, If I am getting about 1.25 gallons out of a 2 gallon capacity, than that last bit of water does not make much difference. I also use a bit of Water Wetter in there, too. Hopefully it will be concentrated enough for the cold Boise winters...
 
I just flushed mine with fresh coolant, drained, filled with coolant, drained, filled and Called that good. You can get one of the tester's to check the freeze protection if you don't need the freeze protection from 50/50 then having it as 65/45 water / antifreeze or even 60/40 is probably fine will still provide rust protection especially with the distilled water in there.
 
I'm about to run Motorcraft Yellow since it's the successor to the green that is identical to FL22. I'll let you know how it goes.
 
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