Hi all, Just had my coolants changed. Evolved to a skeptical mind, how can I tell if the coolant was indeed replaced for the 100k recommended maintenance? bought the 2011 standard Prius with 22,000 miles which seemed like the origin owner drive I frequently and I put about 15,000 miles per year. So I just had my spark plugs and coolants replaced today. When I looked under the hood when the car was given back, the reservoirs for both coolants looked exactly the same when I took a mental image as well as a mobile photo shot of the resevoirs right before heading to the shop. I could swear that the fluid level as well as the reservoir cap etc looked untouched. And the invoice only had “coolant service” written on it even though the plugs I had replaced shows a break down of the parts ftom labor; is this suspicious? Can a coolant service be interpreted any other than that the coolants were replaced with new coolant?!? And although I had taken pictures of the coolant reservoirs right before taking it into the shop, I didn’t actually examine the condition of the coolant with my own eyes or feel; wish I had. Thought I saw a mention that u can check the status of the coolant on this site. Does anyone know if there’s some sort of an actual test that I can perform to convince myself I was given new coolant? Thanks!
https://www.brakebleeder.com/products/brake-fluid-testing/coolant-brake-fluid-15-pack-foil-wrapped-double-ended-test-strips/
If you went to a shop like Jiffy Lube, chances are they didn't do much to your car. Just gave you a bill to pay
Generally on most of my Toyotas which have been corolla's celica's Hilux trucks etc. The cooler that came with the car when I got it usually stays in the car a long time unless it's discoloring really badly frothing blown head gasket foaming stuff like that I try not to change it it's nice pink nice looking color pass my smell test I leave it alone to be honest I don't just go changing it because some random book or something says it should be done I would be doing a lot of things that I don't think I need to do I haven't had a failure related to cooling living like this so I'll keep doing it that's my reality and I've logged millions of miles on 40 years of Toyotas
Hey Tom, I like your way of thinking; I’m beginning to regret I requested for the coolant service. Looked quite pink and good as far as I could tell; was just trying to keep on top of it as the manual said replace at 100k.
Speaking of head gaskets, though, there are various lines of speculation on things that lead to their early failure, and one that has been touched on in some recent threads is the coolant. If it is old enough that its anticorrosion addtives have lost strength, well, it gets circulated through a gasket between hot pieces of aluminum.... So that might be an argument in favor of a bit more proactive approach to changing it. It might be ok to rely on a test strip to gauge how the anticorrosives are holding up. I'm not sure how far I could trust my nose for that, or just the color of the coolant.
Look at the splash shield under the car. Does it look like the bolts and plastic clips have been removed? If not, they they didn't change the coolant. You have to at lease partially remove the shield to get to the drain on the radiator. "IF" they did drain it, and removed the coolant tank cap, then it was drained.
I totally agree in the test strips I guess are probably the way to go I'm guessing that they are probably looking at ph I guess as generally too acidic will cause the kind of problems with metal that I imagine it does with some other things but I would imagine that to be probably quite a long time I mean how my car had 250,000 miles on it in I don't know 6 years which that's about Dex cools life I think . That's not what I use in the Prius
