Coolant is what keeps your cooling system working, which is important because cars tend to blow up or break when they get too hot, but that’s another article.
Maintaining your coolant fluids at a certain level, and getting them flushed once a year, is an important piece of maintenance if you want your car to reach that 200,000 mile mark. Remember those “200,000 MILE ‘WOW’ CAR TIPS!” that Mike wrote a few months back? Well, it’s still his favorite topic of conversation, so don’t get us started down that road, or we’ll be here all day, and we’ve got coolant to talk about.
What exactly is a coolant flush, then?
COOLANT is actually ANTI-FREEZE, same thing, different words. You put it in, it keeps your car’s engine from overheating or freezing; it’s a handy thing. A coolant flush is pretty much what it sounds like – you flush the old coolant entirely out of your cooling system, which cleans it out and gets rid of all the contaminants that build up in there. Then you fill it back up with brand new, clean coolant!
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A COOLANT FLUSH?
• When we flush your coolant, we also inspect the entire cooling system, and that includes the thermostat, radiator, hoses, and belts, so we can make sure your car is running at peak performance, and head off any problems in the making.
• A coolant flush will remove rust and scale deposits; these can build up over time and cause overheating which will damage your entire cooling system.
• Anti-freeze loses its anti-corrosive properties, and that allows contaminants to build up; getting a coolant flush completely cleans those particles out.
• The new anti-freeze contains additives that lubricate your automobile’s water pump; that can add years to it’s life.
• The additives also help prevent rust from building up in the water pump, which means it will work better.
• Old anti-freeze becomes acidic over time, and acidity will break down and damage bearings in the water pump, the rubber hoses, and aluminum parts of the engine.
