I recently flushed my coolant. I ended up putting back one gallon (4 quarts) of antifreeze (refilled according to the Techinfo procedure). With a capacity of 10 quarts I am sitting at a 60/40 mixture of water/coolant. Based on the scanner tool, the highest temperature my antifreeze has reached is 160. I have a 180 tstat. My concern is that the tstat has not opened and I have not created a homogenous mixture from the radiator and engine block. Is that concern valid?

Did you replace your thermostat when you flushed? If not how old is your 180 stat?

Even if the stat is not very old take it out and look at it; last year I had 180 degree Duralast (AutoZone brand) stat fail on me after only a few months of use.


Ed

Let the car idle and get above the thermostat temp for awhile. If it'* too cold outside, you may have to block off the radiator with some cardboard. Make sure you heater is off and the AC is off.

You should be able to get that to open and circulate.

The tstat is 3 years old (i ordered it from a reccommended website on here that I cannot recall). I did remove it and inspect when flush/fill, but did not check to ensure it will open. I am pretty confident it will open, I just have not had success of getting the temperature hot enough. I let the car idle for about 25 minutes following the flush, but could only get it up to 160, outside temperature was about 45. I will try the cardboard trick willwren recommends.

Could I get it to circulate by idling without the tstat in, or could that cause problems?

take it out and boil it in a pot of water.. watch for it to open