VB.NET said:
I have a 2002 Impreza WRX. i see in my maintainance manual that i should
replace the engine coolant every 30,000 miles. I'm at 50k and must confess
i still haven't done this. Is this a do it yourself task?
Does your sewage facility (wastewater plant) permit dumping of coolant into
their system? How are you going to flush your system? Just opening the
petcock and removing the radiator cap won't drain it all into a pan
underneath, so presumably you will be attaching a tee into the hose to
backflush by attaching a garden hose and will be pushing lots of water
through the engine while it is running and out the radiator cap opening.
Where are you going to collect all that polluted water? If you just let it
run down the street, you might find your neighbor suing you for the death of
their dog that lapped it up (one teaspoon is enough to kill a dog) plus you
could get cited for spewing the pollutant into the drain sewers (which empty
into the river without going through the sewage plant).
You need to check if your muncipality's sewage treatment system can handle
ethylene glycol. Some do, many don't. By the time it reaches their plant,
the concentration and toxicity has been reduced to levels that they might be
able to handle (but not obviously if everyone flushed on the same day);
however, there are other toxic components in the flushed coolant, like lead.
So you would need to run another garden hose back to your house to dump the
polluted water back into the sewage system (and not a storm water system).
You are not allowed to simply dump it on the ground or into the storm sewers
as that will pollute ground water and poses a health hazard to everything.
http://www.misterfixit.com/antifrez.htm
http://www.epinions.com/auto-review-2E92-2A16CCF7-3A05CD56-prod3
If your sewage facility declares that thou shalt not flush coolant into
their system, are you going to collect a barrelful of polluted water from
the backflush to then haul away to dispose of properly? If you watch the
shop do the flush, they are actually retrieving the coolant to recycle it;
see
http://www.epa.gov/msw/antifree.htm. Are you going to buy one of those
coolant recycling machines? If you take it back (and loads of it from a
backflush) to a service station for recycling, they may charge a fee. If
you take it to your municipality's drop-off site, they probably charge a fee
for disposal of hazardous materials. With the cost of the coolant, the fees
for disposing of it, the hassle of transporting it for disposal, or having
to check to see if you allowed to flush it down to your wastewater treatment
facility (and because you are polluting rather than recycling by disposing
that way), seems like having the shop do it is not much more expensive, it
is safer, and it is far less hassle. If you were doing flushes in bulk then
the cost difference might be significant, but for one flush every couple of
years it doesn't seem worth doing it yourself.
You need to know the laws that apply to your locality. For example and for
me, see
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/115A/916.html. Note
section 3(b). Section 3(c) lets me dump it in the municipal wastewater
treatment system (i.e., sewer) but still requires you check with them
separately. The state says it is okay but one city's wastewater plant says
No while another says Yes. Realize that draining through the petcock (with
the radiator cap removed) does NOT drain the coolant from the engine. The
"rinsing" procedure described at
http://www.peakantifreeze.com/whychange2.html neglects all the coolant that
is sitting in your engine nor does it clean the system but just drains [a
portion of] it and replaces [a portion of] the fluid. If all you want to do
is "energize" your coolant once a year before winter comes then this
"rinsing" procedure is okay, and using a pre-flush additive might help.
I would've done my own flush except that trying to connect a garden hose to
a tube protruding from the radiator cap opening (the water comes in through
a backflush tee in a hose and exits out the radiator cap hole rather than
down throught petcock) resulted in lots of leakage from the tube which just
press fits into the hole (I don't have the tool that will seal into the hole
that will keep a watertight fit under pressure). I didn't have a drain hole
in my garage that went back into the sewer system, and running a couple of
garden hoses connected together to go send it back to the kitchen sink or
basement floor drain was too much of a hassle. You could use the petcock to
get rid of most of the concentrated coolant but, I think, that only drains
what is in the radiator and hoses and not what is in the engine block, so
you will still need to backflush and that results in lots of polluted water
to get rid of. For $40 (on a coupon deal), I'd rather let someone else get
underneath, get dirty, and have to handle the flushed out polluted water.
If I had a drain in my garage to the sewer system, maybe I'd do it myself.
If you still decide to go ahead with your own flush (or rinse), make sure to
use distilled water to mix with the new coolant. Don't use tap water.
