Walmart Coolant

When in doubt; use the OEM coolant........

'Ya feeling lucky punk' (Clint Eastwood).......... If you put the wrong stuff in there, that could be a costly mistake. I'm also wondering if what someone tells you on a forum is any better than Google AI???? Clearly there's a lot of confusion out there and how do you know someone isn't just "parroting" something else they've read, that may also be WRONG??? If your confused; I sure other people out here are too.

Food for Thought.....

 

The Asian red at Wally is fine I have I've 300K with it in 4 cars .

 

Toyota doesn't insist you use their coolant, just cautions (in Owner's Manual), that if you use an alternate, it should meet certain criteria (long laundry list of of do's and don't ensues). The best I can say about that list, is that I understood "some" of the words.

Accordingly, I stick with the Toyota coolant. For gen 2, is it "Long Life Coolant", or has that been updated to "Super Long Life Coolant"? Replacement interval is shorter with the former, IIRC.

 

Buy the red coolant from Walmart and use it without much risk. I used OEM coolant in the 19 years I own the Prius but it did not protect better any cooling system parts. In 200k miles, I have replaced 4 water pumps, 2 inverter coolant pumps, 1 three-way valve. What more protection did the OEM provide over aftermarket coolant?

 

The quality / applicability of anything but the original factory fluid is a question that can't be answered, nobody knows for sure if it's as good as factory, but we do know it's more likely that it's not. For the best price buy it from one of the many dealers that sell online, or get a price there and ask your dealer to match it.

 

Do test strips work?

 

If a pump’s going to fail, how much difference is a coolant brand, or condition, going to make? I’d speculate if there was any difference it’d be minor.

 

Make sense on the coolant.....
Question... When do you change the Toyota coolant? I had mine service 100,000 miles (Dec 2018). I also changed the 3 electrical pumps including the inverter, 1 mechanical water pump, belt and thermostat.

 

I’d follow the Toyota guidance, for miles/months. That said, for us it’s been months, by a country mile.

 

Thank you....

 

Prestone makes a pink Toyota/Lexus P-HOAT coolant labeled OEM that is about $25 at our local AutoZone. Think it's item/part #AF7030

OEM by Prestone Toyota Lexus Pink Ready to Use Antifreeze/Engine Coolant

 

Coolant G12 and G13 standards are not even mentioned here, EU car definitions..?

https://www.teclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/80053-TD-Coolant-Concentrate-G12-G12-EN-v2.pdf

https://www.teclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/80133-TD-Coolant-Concentrate-G13-EN-v2.pdf

 

Do a litmus and glycol test to see if it needs to get done; cross that bridge when you need to.
IMHO: I'd probably stick to OEM, since the REAL question here is inverter coolant. Rather than have two different coolants, I wouldn't chance putting an unknown into the inverter cooling system. But that's just me....

 

You need to tell her to ONLY top-off with distilled water, if she can't find the right stuff. Regular drinking water, if distilled isn't available. Deal with the glycol concentration imbalance before the next long freeze.
I've dealt with a few gelled cooling systems in my day; so that's a very expensive lesson to learn. The other is a silent killer, eating away at the internals of rubber and gasket components - Not changing your coolant.

Hope this helps.....

 

Many tumble driers (yep, those household machines) here in Sweden have a collection unit for the condensed water. This is almost flawless distilled water. I use it for many tasks, it’s free and when water is gas and then cooled, it will not consist of any pollution as chlorine etc.