Car: 2003 Nissan Maxima.
I'm at 91k miles. I did a coolant flush at 60k miles.

I am going to drop my car at the shop for AT flush this Friday and i asked how much they would charge me for Coolant replacement. The price is $140.
I've never done it on my Maxima before, but i was wondering, should i save $100 and do the coolant myself. I've done this job on Audi/Toyota before but never on Nissan. Can you please tell me how difficult it is on this car? Is there a drain plug? Is it easy to reach? Do i need ANY special tools? Anyone done it? Any tricks/traps?

Thanks!

 

do it yourself.
1. buy radiator flush, coolant catch pan, and coolant
2. drain coolant (the plug is at the bottom of the radiator and easy to get to)
3. replace plug
4. put flush in radiator and top off with water
5. run car to operation temp (to open the thermostat) plus ten more minutes
6. let car cool
7. drain radiator
8. fill radiator with water
9. repeat 5-7 until the water is clear
10. fill radiator with new coolant and water

 

how would you deal with that much disposal.. 5-7 flushes?

 

i dumped it down the sink in my basement...doesnt get in the environment

 

I do almost all my maintenance, however I would rather pay someone just to avoid the mess and skip the environmental issues.

In my area $70 is the average price for "machine flush".

 

It's not really 5-7 flushes. Simply pop-out the drain plug and keep adding water into the overfill tank with a garden hose while the car is running until the water coming out of the drain plug is clear...Not that it makes a difference, but I usually turn my heater on while doing this. It usually adds up to about 3-4 gallons of a really diluted mix.. Plus most cities have a place you can dispose of less than 5 gallons of antifreeze mix for free.

 

No flush that you do yourself without a machine will be as good as a machine used at a shop. Its way more worth it to use the machine. You need to shop around for a better deal because I work at a SpeeDee Oil & Tune Up and we do coolant flushs for $69.99 and Transmission Flush for $99.99 Which is way worth it.

 

I would say save your money and do it yourself. It's not really that hard nor complicated. I did mine back in the summer using Sooner's method. I bought about 8 gallons of distilled water and it took about 7 gallons to get the water to flow out clear. I didn't remove the plugs near the block since this also holds coolant. It's just too hard to get to, so I just left it alone. That's why it took so many gallons of water to flush most of it out. Took me about an hour or so to do the whole procedure.

 

I did a coolant flush on my Saturn a couple weeks ago and just emptied the coolant into my oil drain pan. Then just take it to AZ or some place that takes used oil.

 

If you've kept up on the maintenance and your coolant still looks good, you don't need to waste your money on coolant "flush" service. Just follow sooners advise and you'll be fine.

 

Exactly what I did 2 summers ago. Check out the sticky in the Fluids/Lubricants section.