All the information you seek is in the official maintenance thread sticky.

 

You want to use PhOat coolants. Just verify on your bottle.

 

I recommend the Toyota premixed 50/50 coolant direct from Toyota. Commonly known as Super Long Life Pink.

00272SLLC2 - Toyota 50/50 Pre-Diluted Super Long Life Antifreeze/Coolant - Genuine Toyota Part

Genuine Toyota Part # 00272SLLC2 (00272-SLLC2, 00272SLLAC) - Toyota 50/50 Pre-Diluted Super Long Life Antifreeze/Coolant

parts.toyota.com

It's good stuff............better than beer!

Every 3 years

 

or toyota concentrate coolant and mix with 50% distilled water.

 

Toyota super long life coolant in Toyota vehicles only.

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Zerex Asian - $12.99 at Napa. Blue or red, your pick. Pink/red is the “Toyota color”.
Imo stay away from the generic universal prestone/peak stuff.

 

Oh, No! Not a-nother coolant thread!!

 

It's a popular subject!
8 hours and 24 posts!

 

I use Valvoline Asian from Walmart. Meets all of Toyota’s specs.

 

Now I am ready to refill the coolant. I know it had Pink coolant but I don't know what brand it was.

There's a whole section on coolant in the stickied/tacked maintenance thread. You should read through it to see the recommended coolant type and brands many use.

Official Ultimate 2003-2008 Corolla, Matrix, Pontiac Vibe Maintenance Thread!!!

I used the Zerex Asian from NAPA when I replaced my leaking water pump on an 05 LE.

 

Thanks everyone. you're right, I should have researched the Maintenance thread first. Thanks for responding.

 

As with engine oil, as long as the vehicle specs are met, there is not problem using any brand coolant (or engine oil), be that SuperTech, Valvoline, Prestone, etc. Meet Toyota specs and you'll be perfectly fine.

Greg

 

I read through the Coolant section. It didn't mention ANY Prestone products, but the Prestone coolant that I bought, says specifically for "Toyotas". I don't see how that could be bad. UNLESS there is something about "Prestone" that is particularly bad that I don't know about. I am willing to learn what that is.

 

The Prestone one will work. It's not Toyota's formula, though. The Toyota formula coolant (Pentofrost, Zerex Asian, etc) will be better and match exactly what is already in your car.

If the OEM formula coolant was significantly more expensive, I would use the Prestone too. But IMO it's pointless to try to save $2 to use a different formula coolant.

FWIW, I have Prestone coolant in my Camry. I put it in after doing a full flush before I got educated on the differences between coolants, and I'm too lazy to flush it back out to switch, so I've kept using Prestone on that car. It'll do, but if doing a flush again, I wouldn't use Prestone again.

 

@jiantao thanks for your response. I think I'm going to use it, since I already bought it. 😬. Next flush, I will go to the dealership and get the "good stuff"

 

I'm sure it would be okay to use. Make sure to use distilled water too.

 

I would make sure it meets these requirements listed in every Toyota owners manual

 

Well, It's not IN the car yet, so I guess I can take it back and exchange it.

 

If you can still exchange it I would. Whether it's getting the dealer Pink or even Pentofrost A4 at Advance ($20/gallon premixed) or the Zerex IMO would all be better.

Special order may be required:

Advance Auto Parts - Down for Maintenance

You shouldn't need to flush the system (or do you?), and if you do you'll need concentrate to get the ratio back to 50-50%, because some water will remain in the system.

Make sure not to dilute coolant that's already 50-50% premixed!

 

I agree you should switch it out. Ph levels are different. That difference can corrode your cooling system. Not worth the chance

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I agree, if you can still return it, I would. The Zerex, as someone mentioned, is only something like $15 at Walmart.

Think about it this way. I've heard of some people using green coolant (the old green coolant, not the all-makes-and-models stuff), where there are signs of minor corrosion or deposits in the cooling system. You could probably run it for YEARS and not really have an issue, but you don't really want corrosion or deposits if you can avoid it. Not a huge deal if the car already has the generic coolant in it, but I'd try to stick with the correct coolant otherwise. Especially if you're not even saving $5 on each gallon.

You don't need to get the dealer coolant. The Pentofrost A4 is 99% the same formula, and I think the Valvoline Zerex Asian is very close also.

 

If you are flushing with distilled water then you need coolant concentrate, not 50/50. The coolant capacity is 6.9 quarts. When you get done flushing, there will be a fair bit of pure distilled water trapped in the system. If you fill with 50/50 it will dilute down. After your final drain, you need to refill with 3.5 quarts of coolant concentrate first, then add distilled water and burp until you get all the air out. Then you will end up with a true 50/50 mix in your system.

Toyota coolant concentrate is hard to find. OEM Toyota red concentrate from the dealer or find Beck/Arnley Red coolant concentrate for Toyota. A store here in Arizona called Pep Boys can order the B/A.

 

If you go with full strength coolant, make sure you mix it with DISTILLED WATER and mix it thoroughly OUTSIDE the vehicle before putting it in....................in other words do not put the coolant in full strength to the rad and then add water on top of/after that to the rad.

Everyone agrees on Toyota coolant and it is the safest..............the arguments start with non-Toyota coolant.

 

If you go with full strength coolant, make sure you mix it with DISTILLED WATER and mix it thoroughly OUTSIDE the vehicle before putting it in....................in other words do not put the coolant in full strength to the rad and then add water on top of/after that to the rad.

Everyone agrees on Toyota coolant and it is the safest..............the arguments start with non-Toyota coolant.

What would be the problem with adding exactly half of the cooling system capacity with concentrate and then the remaining distilled water? I just did coolant flush with distilled water on all 4 of my cars and all of them had a lot of water trapped in the system after the last drain. I had to add concentrate into that to get a 50/50 mix. I'll bet the coolant is fully mixed in a couple of minutes of engine run time.

I was using Prestone in all my cars but after reading a bit I decided I did not want 2EHA in my Toyota or Mazda long term. Decided the Toyota red would work in all my vehicles so I went with that. Would have loved to use Valvoline Asian but they don't sell it in concentrate.

 

I would honestly exchange it, not worth the risks it can cause.

I actually used green coolant In my sienna for 6 months, due to the fact I didn't know that Toyota required Asian coolant when I had the engine removed. I noticed during that time I had the green coolant my water pump seemed to run a lot louder than the Toyota coolant.

 

Toyota Pink (super long life coolant) doesn't come in concentrates, does it?

 

I could not find it. I guess they decided that concentrate would not sell because any Toyota sold new with that in it would not need to be flushed, just topped up with 50/50 if any was lost during repairs.

I'm really surprised Valvoline doesn't offer their specialty coolants in concentrate. Their marketing departments must have determined it would not be a big seller. The only aftermarket Toyota red concentrate I could find was from Beck Arnley. I had to order it from Pep Boys and it took a few days to arrive at the store. It was a great price, like $13 a gallon. I bought 8 gallons to do all 4 of my cars. Also went through 25-30 gallons of distilled water doing the flushes, which isn't really a flush, more like a rinse.

 

The accountants found out how profitable it was to sell distilled water! LOL

 

According to this sticky, DIY: 2003-2008 Corolla, Matrix, Pontiac Vibe Coolant... the op opted to further dillute what was not drained out. Breaking down what's left does in essence flush the remainder by using distilled water only. This way, by the first fill of 50/50 will be perfectly mixed. Issue is, as each following fill of 50/50 would reduce until the system is full.

I don't use Super long life, but instead use the Valvoline red/pink 50/50 coolant. There's been many discussions on coolants having the PhOat that Toyota uses as the coatings protect rather than the coolants that corrode from the inside.

Unless you had a full 5 gallon container to mix, then you can achieve a perfect 50/50 mix in one fill.

 

Wow, torontoguy222, that is interesting. I wonder if my Corolla engine is prone to this? So I guess the best way to do it would be to somehow get all the old liquid out of the system and replace with well mixed 50/50. Since I cant get it all out second best would be to figure out exactly how much water is trapped in the engine and calculate what mix you need ( say 74/36 ) to make the final fill 50/50. At this point since the deed is done maybe I'll just drive over the speed bumps in my area and do some high "G" cornering to mix it up. After a day or so I did sample the radiator after I added the straight concentrate and then distilled on top with a coolant tester and it read about 50/50.

 

And to make matters more confusing, in Canada, and presumably in the Northern States, Toyota sells it in the 55/45 ratio. For the math challenged, you not being one of them I see, now they just sell the pink stuff premixed only to make it relatively idiot proof. These podcast guys regularly say that most everything one learned about fixing cars 30-40 years ago now can be thrown out the window and many things/procedures have to be relearned!

 

You can, if you dillute the remainder with distilled water. But again, you need a large enough container to refill to keep it at 50/50.

 

I have done multiple flushes and fills on various makes where I have poured the concentrate straight in behind the water... can’t say that I have ever seen any evidence of corrosion when I did follow-up antifreeze changes three to five years later. I personally don’t think it’s a big deal, but I only have anecdotal evidence.

 

As a follow-up I don’t think our engines have coolant mixing issues at all. I drained and filled with distilled to flush and gargle the coolant and potential gunk but found that the coolant mixed very well with the plain distilled. No evidence of gunk in the system. To reallyknow? May have to disassemble to inspect but there’s very few individuals who are willing to test for testing sake. Don’t think we will simply because our 1zz is so reliable I don’t think we have any cooling related issues for the last 10+ years.


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