Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Duratec Maintenance Cooling Sys Flush & Thermostat Change

Looking for any words of wisdom, potential screw ups, etc. I've got a 2000 SVT with not quite 32K miles and thought an early flush, replace thermostat would eb agood preventative.

Thanks

Tony

dont know about the thermostat replacement but the flush is pretty straight forward drain the old flush and refill it is better to use one of those chemical flushers they work a lot better than just running water through it. the coolant you replace it with afterward is not really important of what kind(autozone or a name brand) but what i would go with woud be the Dex-cool version of coolant you can tell it from the other beacuse it is orange it lasts a lot longer than the green coolant. hope that helps

You can probably safely delete a new t-stat, as the old one should be fine at such low mileage.
Use an extended life A/F like DEXCOOL or Peak Global. Also I would use distilled water for the last flush and any needed top-off with water. At about 50 cents a gallon, its extremely cheap and it will eliminate a lot of the hardness found in tap (city or well) water.

How often does the Tstat have to be done?

There's also stuff like Redline's Water Wetter and others' products, like RV Cool that are good to add to the water/coolant mix, they apparently help conduct heat better than typical coolant does without them, gives a smidgeon more effectiveness to your cooling system.

i changed mine at about 95K during a flush. It still worked OK, but I thought it was getting near the end of its service life.
Typical life? Hard to say, but I would say at least 90k miles ( three or more flush cycles), maybe much longer. Certainly at every flush and fill is too soon.
A typical Joe Blow who knows nothing about his car never even thinks about changing it, only when it malfunctions.

The flush at 30,000 is a good idea....I don't know why Ford waits until 45,000 miles for the first flush, then after than, every 30,000 miles. I wouldn't change the thermostat until it gave you trouble. Too much potential for leaks if its changed for no reason.

I have heard too many contradictory posts about putting Dexcool in to a system that previously ran on non Dexcool coolant. Some say yay, some nay. Why risk it?

same here although i actually did run the dexcool for a couple of days and then i decided to just flush the entire system and put the green stuff back in. whenever you mix the two it looks like shitttt brown!

I too had my coolant changed at 30K, why wait till 50K like the owners manual says, I mean after 50K, they want it done every 30K anyways I wouldn't worry too much about the thermostat, I haven't heard anyone with that problem. Maybe if you were to change the w/p I'd go with a new thermostat, but if not, just leave it alone. FYI, I took my car to the dealership to have this done and it was only $100.00 and I think theres a special "pill" they have to add to the coolant flush due to the all aluminum engine