My 18 S63 has 56K miles and I've been planning to perform a coolant flush and refill this spring or summer. I thought I would be able to find a full "how-to" video online but haven't seen one. Has anybody here performed the flush and fill? If so, is it pretty straightfoward? I know the vacuum bleed procedure is the prescribed method. Is it beyond DIYable? And, is it even necessary at this point??

 

One of the unfortunate byproducts of having my car in the shop a few times in the last few years is that they always have to drain the coolant to remove the motor so I think it has been done a few times now. Not sure what the MB approved interval is for this though.

 

Carlos it is due to be done.

I’ve not done that in a 177 powered car.

 

I've seen conflicting information about the service interval. Is 60K or 120K suggested by MB? After posting this question I called the dealer ($400) and an indy ($200) to get a price quote. It's a lot cheaper than I expected so I'm going to pay to have it done. Probably going with the indy since it's so cheap and much closer to my house.

I called the dealer back to ask about the service interval for my car and he said 15 years or 150K miles. The V12 is every 40K miles, but the V8 M177 is 15 years.

 

Carlos coolant is cheap. Your engine, radiator, heater cores are not. Do it every five years or so. Miles is unimportant.

 

You're 100% correct! Cheap peace of mind. I'm amazed that they said 15 years. But after considering everything, I can;t help but think that as long as you a problem arises AFTER the warranty period ends, it's a financial windfall for the manufacturer. Wait fifteen years and then the radiotor, temp sensor, water pump, and maybe something else might need replacing. Maybe I'm missing something here, but does the car use this same coolant as part of the circuit that cools the turbos?? If that's the case, I can only imagine the extreme temperatures in the "Hot-V" that the coolant is exposed to. For that reason the car is getting the flush and fill tomorrow.

 

Carlos I believe charge coolant is separate from engine coolant. If so there will be a coolant reservoir for charge coolant as well as engine coolant. Verify for yourself but I believe both systems use the pink MB coolant.

 

Thanks for the heads up on that. I'll be sure to ask at drop-off, and be sure both circuits are done, if there are two separate circuits.

 

I picked up my car this morning after the coolant change. If I had to do it all over again I wouldn't do it. Here's what happened and what I learned.
Don't take your car to Firestone, even for minor service.
Told the service adviser to let me know if there are one or 2 coolant circuits and advise if they are changing the coolant in one or both prior to work beginning. He didn't. In the interim I did a little research and found out there are 2 coolant circuits. The normal circuit is for the engine. The low temp circuit is for the turbos, intercooler, and transmission. Same fluid for both but they do NOT mix, 2 completely separate circuits. So I got the call to pick up the car and asked on the phone if the coolant was indeed changed in both circuits. The service advisor didn't know. When I got there is when it got really interesting. Not only did he only change coolant in just one circuit, but he put yellow universal coolant (Trinity DK600P) in the car. I specifically told the service advisor to only use MB or MB approved fluids beforehand. I got mad, really mad. Long story short, they agreed to drain that out and use premix Peak Anti Freeze.

So in researching this, my conclusion is to wait at least 10 years before changing coolant. Why? Because it's designed to last 15 years, and it's more than likely that when something else needs to be changed the coolant will be changed at that same time. I've attached the service procedures for both coolant circuits. I'll DIY this procedure from this point forward.

 

You took an S63 to ...Firestone????

And not for tires ?

o m g

 

Wow, Firestone, really?

Coolant spec for the M177 is MB 325.6. Zerex G40 meets the spec and is commonly available. I always buy the 50/50 premix since my tap water isnt the best and demineralized water isnt common locally to my knowledge. I searched around for info on Peak and do not see the MB approval on it. I only use fluids that meet the MB spec and have is printed on the label.

No harm in replacing the coolant ahead of schedule but theres really no need to. The recommended maintenance schedule should be in the Maintenance Manual that came with the Operators Manual in the glove box. Also the car will tell you what services it needs by going into the ASSYST Plus menus then read out the service code numbers. Coolant is service 13.

I personally will only let the MB dealer work on my car and I just have a 2010 W204. I am able to do most of the maintenance myself and on the very limited times I took my vehicles to a regular shop have all been negative experiences.

I bought 4 new tires off Amazon and scheduled them to be installed at a Monroe Service or whatever they call themselves. Day of the appointment I see them finally drive my car into the work bay and then i see my hood up. I ran over to the guy at the desk asking why is my hood up, he said its a complimentary check, i said no thank you please close my hood and just install the tires. No way do I want them playing around my engine bay adding mystery fluids. And I was correct in thinking that because as soon as i got in the car and drove the ride felt extremely hard like I was riding on solid tires. The tire pressure warning popped up and i saw all four tires at 50psi when they should be 30psi front 35psi rear. The pressure is listed right there on the drivers door and they couldnt get that right. Then when I got home the rims were filthy so i started cleaning them to notice two of the center caps had sticky stuff all over them. They broke two center caps and had glued them back on and didnt bother to even tell me. Shady stuff. Spent the next 2hrs inspecting the engine bay for anything wrong then jacked up the car to remove each wheel to inspect everything, looking for broken brake hoses, damaged calipers, anything they could have screwed up and not told me about. Next time i need new tires im taking the wheels off and bringing them to a tire shop to just have replaced, ill put them on and take them off myself.









My W204 uses the 325.0 blue coolant. I buy the Zerex G48 50/50 and it has the MB spec right on the bottle:

 

Lesson learned. In the past Firestone was better than just about any other "chain" repair shop. My indy said he doesn't have the adapters and pump to perfor the vacuum assisted coolant refill and recommended Firestone. I'll be sure to let him know what happened. But main thing is I sould have trusted the 15 year recommendation. After thinking about it a little more, I'm pretty certain something will arise that will neccesitate draining and refilling the coolant at some point within the next 7 years. I'll keep an eye on the coolant over the next few weeks just to be sure all is well. $184 out the door is what it cost me for this lesson.

 

I was skimming thru info for the W222 and i'm seeing the recommended coolant replacement every 120,000 miles/12yrs. Could be the wrong one though since i just chose the USA spec.

My W204 came with a Maintenance Manual I go off of for servicing. Just to double check I will go into the ASSYST Plus menu when the dash shows service is due and I will match up the Service numbers and its always correct.

One of my last services said Service 2, Service 3, Service 11 and Service 13. Those services are service B, oil change, replace fuel filter and replace coolant. At the time my car just hit 150,000 miles and those services matched what the maintenance manual said.

Heres a link to the Service sheet i'm looking at: https://lemon-manuals.la/Mercedes%20...0.20-P-1240HA/















ASSYST Plus service screen on dash:

 

Thanks for looking up that info! There's so much info out there that it can be quite confusing.