So I'm changing out my coolant as it is way overdue, so I felt that flushing it would be better than just a drain/fill. So I did the initial drain, filled it up with Prestone Radiator Flush and Cleaner and Distilled water following all the instructions, ran it for a while (until the thermostat opened up) then drained and filled it with just distilled water again. Since then I've drained and filled in with distilled water, ran and drained 6 more times and still the coolant is coming out slightly orange. Should I continue to do this until it runs clear, or am I ok to just add the coolant now?

 

Add coolant mixture. Just be sure to use correct product--OAT or HOAT. Don't mix them, and don't go by color. Both can look orange. Go by year of your Jeep. 2007-12: HOAT. 13-up: OAT. Buy at dealer only. Don't use anything universal. Why, if you've flushed it? Because somewhere in the next few years you or someone else will put the Mopar-specified product in, and that would screw up the cooling system.

 

This brings up an interesting question and I'll have to check into this upon our next oil change.. But I would hope that the Valvoline techs would also know the difference seeing how they top off all the fluids at the time of the oil change.. at that time I would suggest that they reference this just to be on the safe side.

 

I wouldn't trust an oil change place. Heck, the dealers are even screwing this up!

 

True. I needed to top mine off and had to argue with the parts guy about the coolant mine needed. He was annoyed I called him out as being wrong. I bought what I knew I needed and told him to look it up before he caused more problems for people. I didn't even feel confident in letting the techs top it off.

 

Good advice on staying with the manufacturer's antifreeze. I was planning on swapping out to the old Prestone, but based on this (and reading other threads) I'll go pick up the Antifreeze from the dealership.

Follow up question:

Since I've flushed it so many times, I know whatever is left in the system is super watered down, should I premix the Coolant and water, or add the Coolant straight and just fill with distilled water at that point?

 

When I flushed RADs in the past it would take me a hour of flushing with water. Im ocd and it has to be clean. Ive taken out the thermostat before and let the system cycle. Drain radiator and repeat several times.

Might do the jeep at 100,000miles

 

I always pre-mix, then fill. It's the only positive way to control the ratio.

 

Are you draining from the radiator stop**** or by disconnecting a hose?

If by stop****, the radiator only holds about 1/3 of the system volume. So if you've drain/filled 6 times with mixing in between you've removed about 90%. That assumes serial dilution by 1/3 of 3 gallons with perfect mixing between drains. A couple more drain/fills would get you to 95%.

With the system at ~95% distilled water, the trick is to get it up to about 50% coolant.

Draining the radiator and refilling with ~1 gallon undiluted coolant gets you to about 35%. Let that mix well.
Do one more drain of the radiator into a clean container (to save, this container of 35% can be bumped up to 50% and used for top offs)

Refill the radiator one last time with undiluted coolant will get you to about 55-60% coolant.

Fill the overflow bottle with some of the 35% that you saved and you're good to go.

Forget using a cheap hydrometer to check the concentration. They are wildly unreliable.
Find a shop with a refractometer or buy one for $20. Very accurate, super easy to use.
e.g. RHA-100/ATC National Industrial Supply

 

Still can't write stopc0ck or petc0ck on the forum! So, maybe drain-valve instead, I guess?

Here's more detail
https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/stoc...ite-up-285444/

Here's the refractometer:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00DY1...&robot_redir=1

If you save a drained volume of clean 35% coolant and want to increase it to 50% coolant:
Measure the volume of the 35% mix. Add undiluted coolant equal to 3/10 of the measured volume.
Example: to one gallon (128oz) of 35% coolant, add 0.3 gallons (38oz) undiluted coolant, yielding 1.3 gallons (166oz) of 50% coolant.