Coolant flush, how often? 2005 S80 2.5T

robocam · Post by **robocam** » 12 Apr 2009, 18:15

The manual says that it isn't necessary??? I've never heard of such a thing.

What do you all think? How often do you flush your cooling system?

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 12 Apr 2009, 18:34

I would flush it before 50K miles and then get on a 30~40K maintenance schedule for the flush- great prevention to say the least. All of those transmission that have bit the dust that I know of are ones whose owner followed the Volvo company line that it is a closed system and never needs flushing.

robocam · Post by **robocam** » 12 Apr 2009, 20:07

Are you talking about the transmission or the cooling system?

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 12 Apr 2009, 20:11

Oops, sorry...actually what I said is true about the transmission but for the coolant, I would flush every other year.

robocam · Post by **robocam** » 12 Apr 2009, 22:54

Thanks for all your help.

BTW, in the booklet it says that Volvo doesn't approve the use of recycled antifreeze. Do you think it's that big of a deal to use recycled antifreeze? I wonder if Volvo dealers use new Volvo antifreeze.

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 13 Apr 2009, 05:02

On all of my Volvo's I use Ethylene Glycol based antifreeze and try to stay away from those with too many additives. Zerex makes a good one for that... All should be that fluorescent green stuff and on the bottle it will say 'safe for aluminum," etc. That said, on our V70, I went ahead and splurged for the actual Volvo coolant. Just flush water through after engine is hot... after you pull the drain plug about 1/2 of the coolant/water will come out...I usually add distilled water, warm the engine up and drain again, twice....then shut off the petcock and fill completely w/ the 1 gallon of coolant and then top off w/ distilled water. In the end, you're about at 50/50 mixture with the Volvo coolant and the distilled water. Good luck!