How To Flush & Fill Your Cooling System with Peak - AutoZone

Cooling system failure is the number one cause of engine breakdowns on the road. Protect your engine against cooling system failure by flushing your radiator and filling your cooling system regularly. Get a step by step guide to flushing your cooling system in this video with Kevin Tetz!

For parts or advice, head to AutoZone.

[condor]

Excellent video. One important observation. It is essential to know the quantity that is drained. In this case you filled with water and diluted the fluid that remains in the system. My suburban holds 16 quarts of antifreeze mixture. I drained 10 quarts. If I fill with water and mixed throughout the system like you did in this video, the over all system percentage is now 19% coolant and 81% water. By putting in 50/50 like done in this video on the second fill, the overall coolant percentage is way low! Turns out it would be ~38% coolant/62% water. Point being it is key you know how much the total system is and how much is drained. Should have put in 100% concentrate (can't be done with 50/50 mix) in proper amount based on quantities above (drain and total) to ensure end result is 50/50 or whatever you desire. Great video though. One of the best overall - very thorough throughout. Thanks

[alankauth]

Find out what your vehicle coolant capacity is, then fill the radiator with half that amount of pure concentrate coolant. That will mix with clean water left in the system after flush. Then fill the rest of you system with distilled water to get your 50/50 mix. You can empty the coolant resevoir and put a clean 50/50 mix in there to refill it.

If you want a 70% mix of coolant, then just add that proportional amount of pure concentrate to the radiator which will force you to refill with less pure distlled water than for a 50/50 mix. The amount of distilled water left in the system will be mixed properly. Technically, there still will be some coolant in the "clean" water left in the system, but that amount is negligible.

If you want to put the non-poisonous, pet friendly, eco coolant in, you MUST get rid of ALL the old coolant. They are not compatibly mixed. Flush the radiator with clean distilled water 3 times instead of once or twice. Then there will be only (almost) pure water left in the engine and core. Still a little coolant left, but very, very little. Fill with the appropriate pure coolant for the concentration you want, and then fill the balance to the top with distilled water. You also MUST (instead of SHOULD) empty the resevoir of old coolant and refill it with the new type in the appropriate mix. The poisonous and non poisonous types of coolant don't mix. They are made from different materials.

You can refill with premix bottles of 50/50 mix, but the water left in the heater core and engine will dilute your 50/50 mix you are putting in to one with more water than coolant. In milder climates that is okay as the point of freezing will be raised, but if you never hit that anyway, it is no problem. A mix with more water provides better cooling and a mix with more coolant concentrate provides better freeze protection (and slightly less cooling efficiency). A 50/50 mix (more or less), works for pretty much everyone unless it gets really, really cold. Then you need to mix to 70% pure concentrate.

[spider]

This was a huge help, no one else knows about different color coolants on youtube, even the staff at oil zone that did a radiator flush yesterday told me they filled my system with YELLOW but I can see by this video it is not yellow but GREEN and it is called PEAK

[countryfamilyalways]

You drained red and put in green.
And you put in 50/50 in a system with block and heater core filled with distilled water.

[nfamousonline]

To the people complaining about the video you need to USE the proper coolant type for your vehicle. Not all cars use the same coolant type, the video is a GUIDE to show you how to do a flush NOT what coolant to use. Stop being sheep and do your own research.

[whiskkers]

OMG I need to subscribe, I haven't laughed this hard in a while. They need to rename this channel Comedy Zone.

[JoseMolina-jfxx]

Thank you. Super helpful and very cut and dry.

[blackiechong]

Problem here. It is dexcool  draining and he refills with regular green stuff. Did he check what kind of antifreeze the car takes.

[MrAvlandrew]

draining the radiator only gets1/2 or so of the coolant or water if your flushing out of the system. so if you flush with distilled water you would still have water in your system 50%, so you want to add pure concentrate into radiator to make it a 50-50 mix.

[goeunlee]

you really thought that that was 50/50? that was more like 60/40.. (!)

[TheGamerbroski]

Hmm 🤔 very correct in figuring it out. As I was doing my first coolant/radiator flush+clean. Noticed that my Scion tC uses 7.2 quarts or 1.8 gallons as I looked it up online. And saw how when I first drained it (and second time) I only needed 1 gallon of water to fill the radiator cap meaning .8 gallon/3.2 quarts was left or should I say, 40 percent was still left in tank (thought it was interesting in my mind the left over ratio/amount). I was then looking up some more vids on reviews on how effective cleaning flushing is with my brand I used (BlueDevil; can’t find any), and was wondering if it was just best to use a concentrated coolant for future reference as it’s cheaper (mostly) and probably more effective in using it to your weather environment (percentage wise) and I read your through observation comment making me to fully think it through for future reference. It’s true as if in a mathematical concept. Did the ratio in my car capacity pretty much and after a fully thought concept I discovered that a 50/50 coolant/antifreeze left after a water 100% water drain no need to even calculate, as if you pour in 100% substance concentrated coolant/antifreeze in a left over of ~40% (my car’s percentage in a Scion tC left .8 gallon of just water, should say or at least it mostly water (to be exact for mathematics divide it again in how many times it’s drained in a if 100% water used substance fill/drain x times)) ratio of coolant to water left in the radiator it will come out to be 60% - 40% in coolant to water ratio (good enough ratio). BIG difference in adding a 50/50 dilute as the left over water will make it to be a LOW RATIO of ~20% - ~80% (coolant to water ratio (may be even less for coolant if drained more times); as you pretty much just double the percentage in each as a 50/50 means just multiplying x2 a ratio that was leftover; which water was already MOSTLY LEFTOVER ALREADY). Now I would say, DON’T! put a 100% concentrated if you use a diluted 50/50 and didn’t do a 100% fill up w/ water and ONLY just drained it; because than if you filled it after just doing a drain from a 50/50 and filled it with a 100% concentrated it will turn to a fill up of being ~80 to ~20 ratio it being really BAD as you are NOT doubling both ONLY the coolant making the ratio shrink for that 50/50 water that was left. So in short best to fill a 100% concentrated if you do a complete water fill drain ESPECIALLY if you do it multiple times and only do a 50/50 coolant ratio for-sure; if you are just draining a 50/50 coolant with NO DRAINS as it will just replenish the double ratio of both ingredients substances as 50/50 turning to a SIMPLE double double making it well... a 50/50 equal ratio w/ no change.

[benjaminmeza]

What about the pure water still stuck in the block?

[spider]

Oh yea, the guy at oil zone (the owner) disconnected the radiator hoses and flushed the system using ORANGE coolant instead of water so do I need to flush out the system again because green is now in the plastic fill dispenser in the car or just wait a couple years and flush again? I will continue to use green Peak till I get a yay or a na

[zeroten]

This is the best way to change coolant . 👍👍👍👍👍

[lightningsmokerXx]

Instead of filling it at the Radiator Cap area, can you just use the overflow bottle?

[twincams]

Don’t you need to remove the thermostat to drain all of the coolant with the system cold?

[human]

Is it appropriate to use it in a hot climate area?

[markmelendez]

I used dexcool. Yesterday I changed out my intake gasket on my 12k mile crate 350. My last 2 water jackets on each side closets to the distributor were clogged. I would never use that product again.

[ravenbonanza]

3:29 Why is the color of that coolant pink? I thought GM used DexCool exclusively on all of their vehicles?

[looseunit]

I noticed you didn't bleed air out of your cooling system.
Other videos I watch say to bleed out air or "burp" the cooling system.