For years I never flushed coolant on my old Cummins, now I do it every two years

I used to think changing coolant was a waste of money. Just top it off and keep going, right? Then last spring I had a 5.9 start puking out the water pump seal after 180k miles on the original green stuff. The corrosion inside the block was terrible, took me a whole weekend to flush it all out with a chemical cleaner. Now I use Fleetguard ELC and change it every two years without fail. Anyone else had a similar wake-up call with neglected coolant?

2 comments

2 Comments

milar4615d ago

That 7.3 story hits close to home. I learned the hard way too after ignoring my 5.9's coolant for years.

the_fiona15d ago

My neighbor had a 7.3 Powerstroke that ran fine for years on plain green coolant he never changed. Around 200k miles it started blowing heater cores like crazy. By the time he tore into it the passages were so clogged with scale he had to replace the radiator and water pump too.