coolant after service

[Anonymous]

hi

i had my car in for a full service on saturday and when i got home i thought i would just check to make sure they had done everything.

anyway had a look and noticed my coolant level was well below the minimum mark (this is when it had cooled down)

so i rang toyota up today and they have apologised and said its one of the hardest cars to drain the coolant out of and fill back up (for what ever reason i dont know)
he said that it will be ok to drive backt o the garage though (it is about 20mins drive away) as there will be coolant in the system.

is this the case?? i dont want to drive it up there if it is going to bugger up my car.
can someone just confirm that what this guy at toyota has said is true??

thanks

Alan

[Anonymous]

Most mid engine cars with radiators at the front are a bugger to drain and refil cos there is a very high chance of getting air locks in the system that are a right PITA to get rid of.  Mk1's used to be an absolute bugger for it and it wouldn't suprise me if the Mk3 is the same to be honest. So they aren't necessarily telling you porkies there. As for driving it back, not sure on that one. If there IS an air lock in there (you can't really tell striaght up), then it very much depends on where that lock is. If it is in the engine block, then you can get "hot spots" which CAN (but not always) cause warping of the clock or the head. If the lock is in the piping itself, then I wouldn't worry too much about driving it. The air rarely moves around the system.

I would risk it and then do them for misinformation if it buggers the engine, but I doubt that it will on such a short journey. But nice one for noticing and I am quite impressed that the dealer admitted its mistake......

[Tem]

so i rang toyota up today and they have apologised and said its one of the hardest cars to drain the coolant out of and fill back up

I just changed my coolant...and it's not hard. Just time consuming, so obviously someone doing it for the money tries to do it as fast as possible  s:? :? s:?

You just need to open two valves under the front hood (and connect plastic tubes to them) and then fill the coolant to the top line (marked A IIRC). It feels like it takes forever for the air to come out, but it did. Must've taken close to an hour in total. If I was doing it for someone else for money, I wouldn't have waited that long...my guess is they tried to be fast, filled the coolant reservoir and closed the valves when the level wasn't dropping fast anymore...

[Anonymous]

You just need to open two valves under the front hood (and connect plastic tubes to them) and then fill the coolant to the top line (marked A IIRC).

Correct.  My reservoir has the lines marked "full" and "low"

I just changed mine as well.  At first it appeared all air pockets were gone as only coolant was flowing from the valves.  But after running the engine for awhile and not getting heat from the heater I rebled the valves and found the higher one (the heater valve) still had some air.  After that I have heat, the engine runs at proper temp, and the reservoir in the back remains steady.  The mechanic may have never done a mid-engined car before and didn't know to he should rebleed.  But the Spyder is a picnic compared with the old Bertone/Fiat X1/9's.  It's not that hard.

[Tem]

My reservoir has the lines marked "full" and "low"

There's a 3rd line right on top of the reservoir...it's almost full at that line.

BGB tells you to fill the coolant to that 3rd line and if you got all the air out, the level should drop between low-full once you start the engine and it pressurizes the system.