Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Is it necessary to flush coolant?

Since I got my car I did not flush the coolant so I want to know if I need to do that annually or something?

Also where exactly is the lid to empty the tank?

Thanks =)

It would help if we know how old the car is, what year it is, how many miles it has, if it is a 4cyl or a 6 cyl.

Generally speaking the coolant should be changed at least every two years or 30,000 miles, whichever comes first. If it is changed often enough, flushing may not be needed.

I change mine once a year.

There is a radiator drain petcock on the lower right rear of the radiator. You will probably need to remove the belly cover for access.

With a little more info from you, we could provide a little more detail.

I beleive the common service interval for collant is every 50k or 5 years. I would say if the coolant looks used up to go ahead and change it. When I got my car it had 83k and the collant was tinted brown, I changed it but need to do it again. I would highly recomend changing the coolant, what can it hurt, can only help.

The drain for the radiator is on the bottom passeger side, I am not sure about the engine block drain, hope that helps

Oh I have a 96 Contour GL with almost 70k miles. Thanks

My understanding is that, over time, coolant becomes acidic and will start to eat away at the gaskets in the engine. This leads to things like head gasket failures.

So I would say that coolant should be replaced at least every two years for the health of your engine.

If you follow this schedule of 50k or 5 years you will have problems.

The actual factory schedule for green coolant is 3 years or 45,000 miles for the first change and 2 years or 30,000 miles after that. They say that the quality of the water that you would be mixing with it may not be good enough to stay on the original 3yr/45k miles.

It has been my experience that cars that do not get the coolant change as often as they should start to suffer from water pump leaks, radiator leaks, and hose failure at about 60,000 miles.

For what little it costs for a gallon of coolant I change mine annually and as a result on the cars that I have followed this agressive schedule with cooling system problems are non existant. The car I had before the SVT had 170,000 miles on it when it met it's untimely end. That car still had the original hoses, radiator, and thermostat. The water pump was replaced at 120,000 miles because the weep hole showed traces of very slight seepage when the timing belt was changed and since 90% of the labor was already done with the timing belt, the water pump was changed too.

I strongly recommed changing the coolant at least every two years, even on cars with the orange "long life" coolant. You will have fewer problems in the long run.

different metals in your block/heads etc.. aluminum/steel/iron/nickel etc that the coolant comes in contact with changes the properties to battery acid over time. Thereby developing a wet-cell battery.

Remember those HS expirements with zinc copper batteries?

Well same thing. Change it.. I do mine once a year. It's much easier than replacing a heater-core

how do you get rid of the old coolant?

....may be i should ask that question differently...

how do you get rid of the old coolant legally?

Places like autozone will take used motor oil and batteries. Not sure about coolant.

I have to cart it to household hazard waste depot along with used oil and paints.
Check your city's garbage pickup rules.
Some gas stations will let you dump it in their waste disposal tanks.