OK .. I've got about 40k miles on the Entourage .. just wondering what the common opinion is on coolant flush?

Please don't quote me what the maintenance schedule is .. I've got a copy and I've read it, thank you. What I'm looking for is the "real world" experience from DIYer's like myself who like to maintain a car based upon experience and reason.

What say ye group? Have you done this yet? If so, what mileage where you at and how often would you do this? Also, would you use official Hyundai coolant or something like Zerex, Peak, Prestone, etc?

 

My best advice is to tell you what I do to maintain my cars. Flush the coolant every 30K miles along with the trans fluid. I've done this on my Tiburon, my Tucson and my wife's Kia Sedona (Entourage twin) alone with other non-Hyundai/Kia cars.

 

Would you happen to know any specific steps on flushing the coolant? I just did this on my Camry this weekend. On the Camry, I had to remove the thermostat and let the water really flush the system out.

Did you have to do anything like that on your cars?

Thanks!

 

As a home DIY, the 3.8 has no block drain plugs, so what you get out of the radiator drain is about all you get..

To get some more out, since the van has rear heat, go to rear and underneath,, find a coolant line to rubber hose joint and pull the hose off, this will allow more coolant to be drained, possibly both lines, that is what I did for our 2005 Sedona w/3.5L, but it has a block drain too.

Mix your coolant of 1 gallon fresh coolant and 3qt water in a 5 gallon pail or other large container, then add mix to system, mix more as needed.

Our Toyotas (4 cyl here) have drain plugs on block, so I just drain block and radiator, and refill.

 

So .. instead of a system flush, I did a drain and fill of the coolant system. Again this is for my 2007 Hyundai Entourage. I'm also a big fan of really basic "How To" guides. So here's my contribution. Of course, many of you experts out there will laugh at how basic this is, but hey, if you're NEWBIE whose totally scared of working on cars, then this is for you.

TO DRAIN THE COOLANT
1. Get under the hood and unscrew the drain plug. Here's where it's at


You'll get about 4 quarts of fluid out of the radiator and you'll get about 1/2 quart of coolant from the overflow reservoir.

2. Here's a photo of the screw itself




After you fill it up, keep the radiator cap off. Fill up the radiator with new coolant and turn the engine on. This will help get the bubbles out. Let the engine run for a 1-2 minutes and then put the cap back on. You're do