Asking for help with coolant drain and fill

[Jimmy9190]

I would like to do a coolant drain here at home, I have a 2018 Rogue S, nothing fancy, it's not an SV, no AWD or anything like that. It has 67,000 miles on it now and the sticker in the door jamb says it was built in November 2017, but the In-Service Date is in March 2018. It's a Korea built car so I guess it took a while getting over here and delivered to Florida.

Anyway, the maintenance schedule says replace the coolant at 7 years or 105,000 miles. I am at 7 years now so would like to drain and fill the coolant. I read the FSM page on it, wanted to ask do you really have to remove the freeze plugs from the block and/or drain the block? Is it possible to just crack open the radiator drain and refill it with new coolant/distilled water mix?

I would not mind taking it to the Nissan dealer to get this done if I have to, but I just wonder what does Nissan do for a coolant swap? Do they really use a flush machine and flush out the radiator, block, hoses, all of that, or do they drain and fill the radiator only? I can do it myself if that is all it takes, sort of like the spill and fill CVT fluid swap I did here at home not long ago. I am in Florida, it gets pretty hot here most of the time so I want to get this done as soon as I can.

Also I read the coolant capacity is about 2 gallons of 50/50 mix but is that just the radiator or is it the total for radiator and engine together, so my logic would say if it's just the radiator, I would appreciate if anyone knows the radiator's coolant capacity by itself. I tried Google and Youtube and was kind of surprised there is not much info out there for a DIY radiator drain/fill. My Owner's Manual just says the Nissan Dealer can drain and flush the coolant.

Any help, tips or info is most appreciated. Thanks.

[VStar650CL]

You're misreading the manual. It only calls for opening the engine drains if the engine is being removed, only messing with the heater hoses when replacing the heater core, and only flushing the system if the coolant is rusty or contaminated. For routine maintenance, you just drain, fill, and bleed. If desired, you can get some extra coolant out of the system by jacking the rear of the car while draining. To bleed, in the shop we use a vacuum fill setup, but the simplest DIY method is a steep hill. Warm the engine, overfill the reservoir to max, park nose up, and goose the throttle to 4K for about 2 minutes. Let it cool and top off the reservoir if necessary. A similar technique will work in the garage using a bleed funnel, but you need to jack the front pretty high to assure all the air is bled. Frankly, a hill works better.

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks VStar. We don't have any steep hills around here where I live. My driveway does have maybe a 15 degree slope but that would not work so I ordered one of the coolant funnel kits. I watched some Youtube videos on how to use the kit, they always make it look so simple but it looks pretty straightforward. I have a gallon of Zerex blue Asian coolant, it's not the pre-mix so it should be enough to make 2 gallons of 50/50 mix with distilled water, which should be enough for this job. I read the FSM again and saw that I did miss the parts about the engine and heater core replacement.

One other thing I wanted to ask, does the o-ring on the radiator drain need to be replaced or can it be re-used?

Thanks

[VStar650CL]

It's reusable.

[D1dad]

I’ve got the same rogue. I did mine @80k with the plugs. Pulled up on some ramps, drained and refilled with peak Asian coolant. I pretty much did what vstar said, except I cranked the heat and squeezed the radiator hose a few times. It’s the same way I did my 09 more times than I remember. My rogue is over 100k now and no issues. Unless you take the bottom trim piece off (I didn’t) it’s a bit messy.

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks D1. I thought the coolant I have was Zerex but it is Peak Concentrate. I will get this done either this weekend or next at the latest depending on other projects I have to do around here. I probably will pull the bottom plastic panel so I can get a better look at the radiator and keep the job as clean as I can. Coolant is nasty slippery stuff and the less I have to clean up the better. I ordered a big bag of the plastic panel rivet fasteners a few years ago, still have plenty on hand if I break any of those in the process. I do believe I can get this done without too much trouble though.

[VStar650CL]

I thought the coolant I have was Zerex but it is Peak Concentrate.

Any coolant that says "Asian Blue" is fine. You can safely use Asian Green too, or even mix them if you don't mind Asian Turquoise. Just don't use Euro Blue, that has silicate additives which aren't good for riceburners.

[Jimmy9190]

Yep that's what I have, Peak Asian Blue but it's the straight concentrate not the 50/50 pre-mix so I will pick up some distilled water first before doing anything else. I have a clean gallon jug to mix it in. My funnel kit was delivered earlier today too. I am going to watch more YouTube videos on it and take notes. If I knew how to make my own YouTube video I would make one for this because there really is not any relevant info on a 2018 Rogue coolant drain and fill online. Not that I could find anyway. Posting YouTube video is above my pay grade.

[VStar650CL]

If you can find a vid for anything '14~'20 it's all the same stuff, there were no changes to the cooling system worth talking about across the 2nd generation model years. Just be careful with '14~'15 vids because the gen1's were still made as "Rogue Selects" during those MY's, make sure you're looking at the gen2 body style.

[Jimmy9190]

I first searched 2018 Rogue coolant change. I saw 2 videos where the car didn't look like mine, neither did the engine and the procedure didn't look right either. Then I thought I would cast a wider net and just searched for "Nissan Rogue coolant change" and still didn't come up with anything. There were videos for a lot of other kinds of cars but not for a second generation Rogue.

[VStar650CL]

Wow, you're right. As popular as the gen2 Rogue is, I'd have thought to find more. But maybe that's because it's too simple. The later QR25's are easy to burp and there's almost no complexity to doing a simple change. The earlier QR25's had a "water control valve" and could be a little cantankerous, but on a gen2 it's just drain, jack, fill, burp.

[Jimmy9190]

I thought I would post a reply here, in case it might help someone else out that needs to change their coolant too. I took the day off from work today to get a few other things done and finally had time to change my coolant. I took VStar's advice and jacked up the rear end while draining the coolant and let the radiator drain for about an hour. Then I saw the drain plug was missing, there was only one place it could have gone, so I fished it out of the coolant in my drain pan, put the plug back in and used the funnel kit to start adding new coolant to the radiator. I used the extension pipe from the funnel kit to keep from having the funnel sit right on top of the radiator cross brace and to get the funnel higher up to help get as much air out as possible.

I added coolant in small amounts through the funnel until the radiator was full, then started the engine, turned on the heater and let the engine idle. Some air did burp out while idling but what really helped was after the thermostat opened and the engine was warmed up I revved it to about 3,000 RPM and held it there for a couple of minutes. That really got some air bubbles out, I could watch the bubbles by looking through the space between the hood and the cowl. I did that 3 times and the bubbles got steadily less until there were none at all. I took a test drive for a few miles, everything was normal, the AC and heat worked fine and the temp gauge stayed right where it should be, the needle was just under half way on its scale.

The funnel kit made this job a lot easier, and I put on a work glove and squeezed the upper radiator hose several times during the process. I used the Peak Asian Blue Concentrate coolant mixed 50/50 with distilled water, it took about 1.5 gallons and when I was done the coolant level was right where it should be, about an inch below the top of the filler neck. I will check the level again a few times over the next few days just to be sure it is still ok. I also removed the plastic panel under the radiator/front part of the engine, which made it easier to see the radiator drain and loosen it.

[VStar650CL]

Good work!

[paulbot]

Thanks for this, as we just bought a 2020 Sport with 100K miles, Going be changing all the fluids. To surmise, raise rear to help drain, raise front to burp it?

[VStar650CL]

The Rogue Sport / Qashqai is a different animal from the Rogue and actually shares more in common with the B17 Sentra than the T32 Rogue. The engine is an MR20 instead of the QR25 used in the T32. The main difference when changing the coolant is that the radiator drain is on the lower left corner of the radiator facing backward, so it's pretty much impossible to access without removing the splash cover. Other than that, same general procedure.

[Jimmy9190]

I don't know much about the Rogue Sport but I will say the coolant flush funnel kit that I bought from Amazon made the job very simple. On my Rogue I just had to jack up the front end, drain the radiator, lower the front end, raise the rear end and get some residual coolant out, then use the funnel to fill the radiator as much as possible with the engine off. Then I added more coolant with the engine running to fill the system and burp the air out of the coolant. I think the trick is to get the funnel higher than the top level of the engine to force more air out of the coolant. Holding the idle at 2,000 to 3,000 rpm for a couple of minutes 3 or 4 times also helped to speed up the burping process.