Coolant Drain Plug on '03 X5 3.0L

[alnsquare]

Hello, I will be changing coolant on my GF's '03 X5 3.0L shortly. I have searched throughout the forum but can't find a good picture where is the drain plug on the engine. Is this the plug? Thanks in advance.

[Ricky Bobby]

Isn't the coolant drain plug on the bottom of the radiator somewhere, or on the lower rad hose, a plastic plug with an X on it?

[THE VEIN]

Yea but he's asking about draining the block

[Doru]

That's the engine drain plug. Make sure you get a new aluminum crush washer if you remove it.

[alnsquare]

ok...Thanks Doru....

[Rockit]

You may not be able to get to that when it's in the car. What most do is remove the lower radiator hose, where the hose connects to the radiator and let the radiator and block drain. I'm going to guess 10% will still be in the system. I do this with the engine warm so the thermostat is open. Of course be careful not to burn yourself....again warm not red hot.

[Doru]

When I drained the coolant through the drain plug on the engine block, I did it twice: once when I changed to Evans, then a couple months later when I reverted back to the OEM blue. This was on my e39. It was not hard, very easy accessible. To drain EVERYTHING you have to also take off the hoses that go to the firewall into the heater core. there is a fair amount of coolant in there as well. I also used compressed air at lower pressure settings.
the drain plug of the radiator will NOT drain what you have in the engine, only what's in the radiator.
Also, through the WP/T-stat opening, not everything will be flushed out.
Through the engine drain block, I collected an extra 1/2 gallon or so, after the WP/T-stat was out, and the radiator plug was open.