first time flushing coolant on my x5 3.0

[Serb404]

seems pretty basic, ran across this video, is it recommended to do a flush just with water if you drain your coolant out and it appears to be almost black before refilling it with 50/50?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8YZF5cW7-A

[oldskewel]

OMG, is that a prank video? I have never in my life seen old coolant like that. I honestly cannot believe that came out of a BMW - plastic, rubber, and aluminum - no way would it be brown like that.
https://youtu.be/g8YZF5cW7-A?t=222


Just me?

If I had that come out, I'd definitely flush repeatedly with water until clear water was coming out, but would also hire an exorcist.

[crystalworks]

Wow ChrisFix has come a long way in terms of video quality. LOL I had never seen that one before. That poor E39.

I agree, that coolant was ridiculous. I'm betting there was a leak at one point and water had been continually added until it was almost all water. Then over time electrolysis did it's thing and you ended up with rust colored water in the system.

The way I flush is the remove the bottom rad drain as shown in the vid, then start the engine and keep filling with filtered water (or distilled). I do that for up to 30 minutes usually... have a lot of water on hand. On neglected cars it takes the full 30 minutes and well maintained ones, much less. If the car was like the one in the above video... I'll also do the cooling system flush/cleaner that he did with distilled water. Then shut the car off, let the distilled water drain out. Fill with BMW (or equivalent) coolant (50/50 mix) and then bleed the system.

[Serb404]

Originally Posted by oldskewel

OMG, is that a prank video? I have never in my life seen old coolant like that. I honestly cannot believe that came out of a BMW - plastic, rubber, and aluminum - no way would it be brown like that.


Attachment 76303
Just me?

If I had that come out, I'd definitely flush repeatedly with water until clear water was coming out, but would also hire an exorcist.

lol at hiring an exorcist yeah it just didn't seem like it was normal quality coolant

Originally Posted by crystalworks

Wow ChrisFix has come a long way in terms of video quality. LOL I had never seen that one before. That poor E39.

I agree, that coolant was ridiculous. I'm betting there was a leak at one point and water had been continually added until it was almost all water. Then over time electrolysis did it's thing and you ended up with rust colored water in the system.

The way I flush is the remove the bottom rad drain as shown in the vid, then start the engine and keep filling with filtered water (or distilled). I do that for up to 30 minutes usually... have a lot of water on hand. On neglected cars it takes the full 30 minutes and well maintained ones, much less. If the car was like the one in the above video... I'll also do the cooling system flush/cleaner that he did with distilled water. Then shut the car off, let the distilled water drain out. Fill with BMW (or equivalent) coolant (50/50 mix) and then bleed the system.

perfect I already purchased everything except the couple gallons of distilled water so I'll do that tonight and proceed with your recommended steps tomorrow morning, my car is 15 years old and I've never done a flush so this will be good

thx man

[Attacking Mid]

I would just add... when you are ready to fill with coolant, there is a lot of water in the engine block. You can't add diluted coolant - it must be straight coolant or you'll never get to a 50% concentration.

Hence, you need to look up the total capacity of your cooling system, add half the total with straight coolant. Then you can finish filling with distilled water to achieve the recommended 50% concentration.

Oh, and on my 3.0L, I had to pull the block drain in order to get enough water out so I could add the proper amount of coolant. In other words, the water sitting in the system after draining at the bottom of the radiator was more than 50% of the system capacity.

AM.

[crystalworks]

^Yep, to get it all without running the engine you drain the block. I just keep the engine running with the rad drain open (should have clarified that) so that the water pump pushes the fluid out of the block.
I do that while adding 50/50 BMW coolant until what comes out of the rad drain is the same color as I am pouring in (not perfect, but you end up around 50/50). It uses extra coolant... but saves having to drain the block.

[andrewwynn]

I like the idea of flush with distilled water until runs clear then drain half the capacity and fill with concentrate to get 50/50.


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[Serb404]

ok perfect guys thanks for the tips, I already have the 50/50 coolant solution so I don't plan on manually mixing it but I noticed I couldn't locate the plug under the drivers side for the coolant so I'm wondering if I have to take the under body plastic panel that's located right under the bottom of the radiator, doesn't seem like it's a big task to deal with

I have 2 gallons of 50/50 solutions and 2 gallons of distilled water that I plan to run through before adding the complete 50/50

pretty sure that's more than enough for my tank


edit: just found the answer to my question via this video, looks like I have to remove the under body panel :/

soooo many bolts

https://www.carcarekiosk.com/video/2.../flush_coolant

[Serb404]

Everything went well but only filled up with 2 gallons for my coolant reservoir? Seems a little low to me. Only issue I ran into was the coolant drain plug broke off so I had to ghetto rig a metric 10mm stainless steel screw with a gasket on there and actually functions much better than the crappy OEM part. I ordered it from BMW and should be in next week just to have a backup. I didn't put the undercover back on yet since it's in the 90's by me gonna drive it without it until the replacement plug comes in.