New coolant

DawnMc

Hey all,
Firstly, may I admit that I completely clueless when it comes to cars!
Here's the deal, got oil changed a while back in a petrol station and dude doing the oil tells me that I need to get my coolant thing replaced. He said it was black and he couldn't put more water in and I needed to get it replaced.
That was a couple of months back. I need to get it done tomorrow, anyone know how much it would cost and how long it would take?
Living in Cork if anyone knows anywhere good

BrianD3

I'm not trying to be an asshole but you really should try to educate yourself a little about how a car works as it is quite clear that you are clueless. This means you are leaving yourself wide open to being ripped off by dishonest or incompetent mechanics. Unfortunately there are plenty of them out there.

It is hard to tell from your post but it sounds like the "black coolant thing" could be one of two problems
1) your head gasket is gone which means there is black oily sludge in the cooling system. If so, this will cost around 200-500 quid to put right
2) your coolant has not been changed in years and is now a dirty rusty brown colour and needs to be flushed and changed. If so this will cost around 50 quid to do.

However, I could be totally wrong If you could give a little more information on the problems, type of car etc. then things may become clearer.

pedro ferio-vti

I'd say it's the latter Brian and it just needs changing. We would need to know what type of car it is to recommend a type of coolant. Also you may want to get a mechanic to drain and flush it as if you don't know what you are doing, you can do serious damage to the engine by not bleeding it properly or using the wrong type of coolant.

fletch

I drained and flushed my coolant system a few weeks back (in prep for the cold weather)....tis a simple job, jus open the plug at the bottom, let the liquid drain out, run cold water through it a few times to clean it out, then fill with the required mix of anti-freeze/coolant/water
Shouldn't be an expensive job in a garage either

pedro ferio-vti

Not all cars are as straightforward as that fletch. Your car may have a self bleeding system and if that's a case a monkey could flush and refill the coolant. However, some require special techniques to bleed all of the air out of the system by way of relief valves etc.

Let's not forget the OP isn't male either and this has to be taken into consideration. Don't want her chipping a nail now do we

fletch

pedro ferio-vti wrote:

Not all cars are as straightforward as that fletch. Your car may have a self bleeding system and if that's a case a monkey could flush and refill the coolant. However, some require special techniques to bleed all of the air out of the system by way of relief valves etc.

lol...oops.....hope i didn't fcuk mine up so but i did it a month or two ago and all is well so here's hopin i didn't cock up....
Any ideas how i would know if i did....the car is runnin grand since tho

Turner

Coolant flush's are easy but its better to use distilled water than regular tap water.

AMurphy

How old is the car. For the last few years, some manufacturers are now using a new coolant type, that is incompatible with the common Glycol of the past 50 years.
In addition, if new type coolant is required, the old coolant is incompatible with seals and gaskets I believe.
No harm to change the coolant every few years, 3~5, 30 to 50K mls or so.

If in doubt ask the garage/dealer for your car or maybe read the users manual, if you have it.

If you decide it needs changing, you can easily do it yourself. However, insure you get all the air out of the system on refilling of you can generate a hot spot in the head. One easy way is refill it with the engine raised at the front end. Or "burp" it. or crack open a sensor at the highest point in the engine.
Again depending on the age/mileage, it might be a good time to change the thermostat also.

pedro ferio-vti

fletch wrote:

lol...oops.....hope i didn't fcuk mine up so but i did it a month or two ago and all is well so here's hopin i didn't cock up....
Any ideas how i would know if i did....the car is runnin grand since tho

don't worry. If you didn't bleed or do something incorrectly you would probably know within the first hour or so of driving.

t5pwr

You are all treating DawnMc like she knows loads about cars and are forgetting her question. She wants to know how much it would cost and how long it would take and looking for somewhere in Cork.

I don't know how much it would cost and how long it would take depends on if it is booked in somewhere or not. As you are looking for a place then I can assume that it is not booked in so you could have to wait around until someone is free to do it.

If you put up the make and model of the car then people will be able to guide you better to a place that you could bring it to.