Stop Leak Will Come Back To Bite You

Stop leak is “heavy” and tends to settle in the lowest point of the system. You may want to consider replacing the engine radiator as well.


iPhone ? Pro

 

Yeah, I never use that kind of product. If it could be fixed that easily, why take it to the mechanic? Don’t take that as negative, I’ve learned the same lesson when I was younger. Now I just replace everything because I’m planning on keeping my Prius for a long time.

 

They should outlaw that stuff, people use it with expectations it's going to do something good, and I'm sure the packaging reassures them, reinforces that belief*. it's comparable to sawdust in transmissions you used to hear about. Is that still a thing?

A lot of the snake-oil product are at least harmless, or mostly so. Stop-Leak and similar are damaging.

* A lawyer could have fun cutting that to shreds...

 

I always just figured, "If it will plug a leak, what else will it plug?"

 

Ya...this stuff fits right in there with long-life motor oil. It's just a cheap cheat to get it sold. There are no magic solutions around proper maintenance and repair.

 

Try putting some of those blobs in such a mixture, see how they react.

You don't want to let the vinegar linger in aluminum either, should flush it out promptly.

 

White vinegar is some pretty useful stuff! And it's inexpensive!

 

@Allison Meggison will be very interested in this.

Drain the coolant, fill with with the 50/50 vinegar/water mix, run for say 20 minutes, drain, fill with straight water, run a few minutes, drain.

Now a minor dilema: there will be residual straight water, enough that if you fill with the (US) Super Long Life coolant, which is diluted 50/50 to begin with, you're going to be a bit thin. Is there still a 100% Toyota coolant, I think there was.

Another option: the Canadian Toyota Super Long Life is 55% coolant.

 

Doubt it. No one uses the search feature, we post the same topic already covered and we wait for someone to reply to their thread when tagged. No one has time to even read here, we're all like that tv show "The View." Everyone talks over each other and spits out their opinions without any actual facts behind it, me being one of them

 

She'll get an alert, the way I typed her name. And this on her mind; she's having issues with that stuff.

 

@cnc97 When draining the coolant system: I recall someone saying they got a more complete drain by disconnecting one of the hoses at the Exhaust Coolant Heating system.

 

That sounds like a lot, maybe not that much. Ah, according to attachment, about 0.8 liter. A significant amount though.

Don't neglect the engine block drain either. That said, most everyone here who's opened it reported a piddling amount? But worth a try. If you have the engine under panel off, you can "just" catch a glimpse of it, and then reach it mostly by feel. IIRC there's a bolt, and a spigot directly next to it. Kind of brass looking. It's back side, fairly high up, towards right end of the engine block.

 

The coolant volume spec in above attachment is probably refill capacity, presuming radiator and engine block drained? They use the term "standard" capacity, whatever that means:



The total volume would be nice to know, in particular when you're doing a water flush. Too bad they don't list it, or clarify what they mean by that volume. Assuming it's not total volume, I looked around and found this:



on this page:

Toyota Prius >> Service specifications - Specifications

There's a lot of misinformation on the above page, motor oil weight for example. And the pic is a Prius v. But who knows, maybe they got the total coolant volume right?

 

Standard usually implies a drain and refill.
A completely empty/dry system is not standard. You will never get ALL the coolant out.
Unless you drain it, and blow heated air through it at high volume for a while to completely dry it out.
After flushing with straight water... And pull all drains, water pump, hoses, radiator, heater core....etc....