Coolant Change on my Xsara HDi 90...any tips before I start?

Nuneatonrob · Post by **Nuneatonrob** » 02 Jun 2009, 12:49

Hello chaps,

I am wanting to embark on a coolant change on my car, ideally tonight if I get time as I am driving to the west coast of wales this weekend and as I have just done the full service, wanted to do the coolant as that often gets overlooked.

I have put some coolant flush in it already as it's a bit brown in there at the minute, but I wanted to ensure as much as the old stuff and the flush is completely removed before I refill with premium red coolant.

The only drain plug I have been able to identify is at the bottom of the rad on the passenger side. Is there anywhere else you can safely drain coolant from?

I have located a bleed nipple on top of the thermostat housing, and one at the back on the pipes going into the cabin for the heater.

Is it best to bleed the system with the engine running?

Hope sombody can help.

Thanks in advance.

Rob

Post by **RichardW** » 02 Jun 2009, 13:23

We did a coolant change on my mate's 306HDi as part of changing the clutch. Found it quite difficult to get it to refill - ISTR having to blow into the header tank to get the water up to the bleed point on the heater hoses. We left it idling for ages (on a cold day) but couldn't get it anywhere near getting the fans to come on. Just took it for a drive in the end! You could always start the engine and take the bleed screw caps off, the water pump will force the air / water out! Take care if you do it hot of course....

Post by **Paul-R** » 02 Jun 2009, 13:50

I put a new rad into our Xsara about 6 months ago so had to refill it then.

I would recommend that you completely remove the rad so that you can backflush it with a hosepipe. Then you can try to flush through the engine and heater as best you can. The thermostat will be closed so this will limit the flow around the cylinder head area (unless you use hot water

) but it's still worth doing - I flushed my daughter's Clio system this way last November and she was able to use the heater afterwards so it had a defiinite effect.

In my experience of the Xsara you try to fill up as much as possible with engine cold - slightly overfilling the reservoir wouldn't go amiss. Then run the engine to warm it up. When warm, slacken the two bleed screws/nipples one after the other to let the trapped air out - this won't happen until the engine is warm and some pressure has built up.

Now take the car for a run to get the engine really warm and repeat the bleeding process.

If you're going to keep the car could I suggest that, as you will be completely flushing the cooling sytem out, you use 5-year life anti-freeze. This should not be mixed with normal 2-year anti-freeze as the chemicals interact so this is the time to do it.

Normal anti-freeze is blue/green, 5 year is red to help identification.

I just undid the bottom hose to drain the system - I long ago gave up looking for drain plugs!

Nuneatonrob · Post by **Nuneatonrob** » 02 Jun 2009, 14:01

[I would recommend that you completely remove the rad so that you can backflush it with a hosepipe. Then you can try to flush through the engine and heater as best you can. ]

Is it easy enough to remove the rad? Does your car have A/C?

I need to change the cooling fan, or at least one of them anyway, so I wanted to try and do it all the time.

I am planning on keeping the car for a while, as it's in very good shape mechanicaly, (apart from the cooling fan issue) so have bought the longlife coolant for it.

Just as a side though what sort of percentage of coolant to water should I use for longest life considering my tap water is hard water? I have bought 5 litres and have no problem in using all of it and a dash of water....would that be wise or not?

Many thanks,

Rob

Post by **Paul-R** » 02 Jun 2009, 19:44

My Xsara does have A/C but even so it's very easy to get the rad out. The only difficult part was disconnecting the very small air bleed hose (at the top of the rad to the header tank) where I had to cut the clip off and replace it with a Jubile type clip.

I didn't touch the fan at all but it doesn't look too difficult .

If you have hard water then I would seriously think of buying some deionised water to dilute the anti-freeze. I'm fortunate that our water is quite soft here. I would probably go for at least 40%, 50% if you have enough. I don't think I would go neat even though they do run pure anti-freeze on vehicles at the Polar caps.