It is time to change your coolant.

Steps to change coolant in Perodua Viva.

The radiator cap. Please read the warning!

Actually this is a very simple task provided the engine has cool down first. All one need to do is first to locate the drainage plug for radiator. Other than that are 2 bottles of Long Life Coolant (LLC- red color as per recommended by Perodua), one bottle equate to 1 litre, but I require about 1.5 litres. 

As far as I know, Perodua is using aluminium radiator. Therefore the red coolant (LLC- Long Life Coolant) is more recommended. 

Other secret ingredients are...

to mix the coolant with distilled water (those drinking water sold in supermarket is my choice – bought the 5litres bottle) and I also flush the radiator with distilled water… :)

For those who wander whether distilled water is battery water also..the answer is yes. And you can used battery water also to fill in the radiator provided it is pure distilled water. :) If in doubt, just walk into any supermarket and search for drinking water - labelled as distilled water.

For Perodua Viva, the drainage plug is located at the bottom part of the radiator, at the back and on the left side when you are facing the car.

The drain plug...just need to loosen it to drain as much as previous coolant that I can.

Before loosening the drainage plug, please open your radiator cap first (prior to anyone attempt to open the radiator cap please make sure the car is cool down properly. I will not be held responsible for any injury. Thank you). After that, I loosen the drainage plug to make sure the previous coolant flow out of the system. However it is quite hard to reach from the top. Me, as a skinny person also have to lie down to loosen the drainage plug in order to drain as much as I can of the previous coolant.

While waiting to drain the previous coolant, I used a size 10 wrench to open the bolt holding the spare tank. However it is difficult to remove as I have to loosen the battery also in order to pull out the reserve tank. I remove the reserve tank and flush inside it until it is clean.

The reserve tank. As you can see, it is already jam-packed and need some time to remove carefully.

After the drainage process is complete. I tighten back the drainage plug and pour in distilled water into the radiator until it is full. Then I start the car and let it run for a few minutes and top up with distilled water when necessary. I did this process a couple of times until I am sure the water coming out from the drainage hole is clear.

Yet I still feel it is not clean enough. So what I did was poured in distilled water in the radiator and tightens the drainage plug and radiator cap and drive for a couple of days with the distilled water in my radiator. Then after a few days, I wait for the engine to cool down and repeat the process to drain my coolant (which is now distilled water). I repeat this process for the whole week until I am satisfied.

After only that, I pour in one bottle of coolant into my radiator and mixed it with the distilled water. From the label at the bottle, it says that need a 50:50 ratio of coolant and water. Well I just made my estimation. The other bottle I pour in about 1/2 into the spare tank and add with distilled water until the max level. Nevertheless it is no harm to fill above the max mark, just do not fill until the brim. It will overflow.  The remaining balance of coolant, I just kept in the store for next year project to change my coolant again. It means I just need to buy only one more bottle for the coolant. :)

This is the radiator.

The steps by steps:

     1.     Open the radiator cap and loosen the drainage plug to let the previous coolant flow out.

2. Dismantle and clean the reservoir.
3. Tighten the drainage plug and pour in distilled water into the radiator.
4. Turn on the engine and let it warm up until the thermostat opens up (temp at half)
5. Then loosen again the drainage plug and drain as much as I can.
6. Repeat again above step until the water is clear.
7. I do not fill up the radiator with the coolant yet but I used distilled water.
8. I drive the car for a couple of days.
9. Wait until the car is cool down and I repeat the process to drain the radiator.
10. When satisfied, pour in one bottle of coolant (approximately 1 litre) into the radiator and top up with distilled water.
11.  Run engine and top up with distilled water if necessary.

Lastly, total damage to my pocket was around MYR 40:
2 Bottles of Coolant (Brand from UMW) - MYR 36 (MYR 18 x 2)
5 litres of distiled water (Jusco brand)- around MYR 4...can't remember... :)

P/S: There are a few ways to flush radiator coolant. Just want to share on how I do it. :)