Maintenance cost for coolant for engine and inverter

Seems like maybe $100 too high? You can watch DIY videos by @NutzAboutBolts here:

Nutz About Bolts Prius Maintenance Videos | PriusChat

There's one for the engine coolant, another for the inverter. I think it takes at most 2~3 gallons of the coolant, for both?

 

it'll cost you 50$ to do engine and inverter coolant. 2 bottles of the 1 gallon super coolant.

 

That's about DOUBLE what I would expect a good dealer to charge. There is only $50 in parts and an hour labor.... maybe.

Problem is, Kaputi Garage may not use the right parts or procedures and cause a huge problem down the road.

 

I just bought a gallon of coolant on e bay for 17 bucks with free shipping
remember its 50/50 so you are paying $8.50 for half a gallon of water..
talk about a rip off!
Engine Coolant / Antifreeze AISIN ACT-002 | eBay

 

Yes, pre-mix (aka Ready to Use) is more per gallon, but mixing many modern coolants with tap water is not a good idea. If you can find them, most OEMs publish make-up water guidelines and cutting thru the chemistry professor and engineering speak means: Distilled Water. Believe it or not, water is not water.

Distilled water at the grocery store is what, $1/gallon or so? So yea, even $12/gal for RTR coolant is a rip-off, all things considered.

 

In Canada the Toyota pre-mix is 55%. I wonder about Alaska, if they get the US 50%? @spiderman might know.

 

120k yes, over time the coolant gets degraded by the engine heat, soe th you want to change fluids so it will be more effective for along time.

 

You might want to check out Miller Toyota in Manassas for a price. I know they have good sales staff, especially Sam Lee, a Gen 1 Prius owner.

 

Not at all. Toyota uses Super Long Life Coolant and per Toyota's maintenance schedule, no replacement is required until 120k/144months.

Gen2 (2005) Maintenance Schedule: https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/omms/05ToyAllMS_MS0012/pdf/01omsour/2005/schedmai/51w1smt.pdf

 

Look through your Warranty and Maintenance Booklet. If it's missing, you can download pdf format from the Manuals section of the Toyota Tech Info site (just google Toyota Tech Info to find).

The US Booklet outlines service maintenance-by-maintenance, with no summation table, which is a little difficult to read. I put this together to summarize what's in there.



The Toyota USA schedule says:

engine coolant change: 100,000 miles or 120 months
inverter coolant change: 150,000 miles or 180 months

FWIW, the Toyota Canada says to change both at 100,000 miles or 120 months.

I've attached the above image in spreadsheet format.