Dealer coolant change

Only 1 gallon of coolant used, per the receipt. I’m sure it takes at least 2. Did they just drain the radiator then? They claimed they used a tool to “suck it all out”. I have 4.0 V6

 

Sounds like it if they only used a gallon, unless they used full strength and a gallon of water but I'm pretty sure Toyota only sells their antifreeze as a prediluted blend.

Not sure what they are talking about there's 2 block drains, a radiator drain, and a drain plug on the overflow bottle, no need to suck anything out.
I fully drained mine 2 years ago and it took almost exactly 2 gallons, I used a gallon of antifreeze and a gallon of water.

 

Had it done. Asked as well. Coolant is $XX per vehicle. So they charge for the combined total, or unit, instead of per gallon. Per gallon would cost more.

 

I used 2 and a bit gallons (premix) when I swapped my csf radiator. Unless they used one full strength bottle I dont see how

 

If your cooling system is not problematic and the pink stuff in your overflow reservoir is still crystal clear, you can literally just drain & fill 1 gal of premix Toyota Super Long Life Coolant (SLLC) or Peak Asian every few years to keep the corrosion inhibitors renewed.

Drain petcock is accessible near driver front wheel well, and then you just pour in the fresh stuff via the overflow reservoir until 1 gallon has been swapped out.

Takes 15 mins tops. Cost is whatever 1 gal of SLLC costs you.

 

Did you try calling back and asking them?

 

We weren't there either.......

 

pretty sure stock capacity is over 2 gallons

 

It’s a unit charge as zman said. Also when. The dealer does a flush they pull the coolant out with a machine that pulls a vacuum, once all the coolant is out they put back in exactly what was removed by pulling a vacuum there is no worry of air pockets in the system.

 

I have a situation which might explain why you were charged for just the 1 gallon.

If I replace 2 radiators, each needed 1.5 gallons of coolant. If I put on the receipts 2 gallons and 2 gallons, my parts department, run by an idiot, will restock me with 4 gallons. Pretty soon, I have bottles of coolant everywhere because the idiot is too stupid to do anything other than what the computer says to do. To counteract this stupidity, every other radiator customer gets a free .5 gallon of coolant.

 

We did this on my Tacoma last year at the Chevy dealer I work at. It was pretty slick and mess free. Didn’t take long either.

 

This is the first time I have seen someone complain about getting free coolant

sounds like you've never used that machine

 

Different companies use different inventory systems and some oddball ways to bill. For example, a fabricator would normally sell steel by the pound, not by the length. There's books that have every imaginable shape and how much it weighs per foot. So if you sell 1.5', it converts to x amount of weight, multiplied by their price of steel = your price.

A dealership might be getting fluids in 55 gallon drums instead of single gallon or quart bottles. Their inventory system might not let them sell less than 1 of something, so they have to do some hookey thing to sell the product at a fair cost.

The idiot I have to deal with stocks one type of fluid in 5 gallon buckets only. So if I occasionally need to add less than .5 quart, the first guy gets screwed paying for the whole 5 gallons. Everyone else gets it for free until the bucket is empty.

 

I’ve actually watched it be done by my mechanic. But hey explain it to me.

 

Why in the hell would the dealership not have a per gallon price regardless of what unit container the material comes in? The invoice to the customer should not drive restocking, rather parts would track how many full containers are consumed and order based on that. This is the equivalent of a gas station driving gum restocking based on individual purchases when there are say 36 packs of gum in a case. No, you buy another case when you go through a whole case.

 

Some things some people do make no sense. You can try to explain it but, at some point you have to realize, you might as well be trying to explain it to a rock, because the information just doesn't go in.

 

the machine does not fully replace the coolant

 

FWIW, when I did a drain and fill of the radiator ONLY.

It took 1 gallon.

I didn’t want to mess with the block drains. They have never been touched in over 14 years. I’m not risking a leak. I’ve chosen to do replace the antifreeze in the radiator every 2/3 years.

 

the block drains are metal. Radiator drain is plastic. Plastic breaks easier than metal. A light coating of antisieze can be put on the block drain threads and tightening them carefully to make sure they don’t strip.

I am more paranoid about the radiator drain given that even a good petcock can break, but the Tacoma one is a shitty design and hard to turn. It may be time to replace the cheap radiator as preventative maintenance given vehicles tend to leak there from the plastic end tanks on the sides starting to crack. Maybe less so on a Tacoma given the larger space in the engine bay and cooling fan making it so the bay may not get as hot as on more tightly packaged vehicles.

 

I use a 22mm 6-point socket to turn the one on the radiator. (Break it frees)
Hand tighten it closed.