I have a 06 honda crv, the book says anti-freeze is good for 10 years. then after that it should be changed each 5 years. What is your opion on this 10 year change?
At 10 years, you generally change the whole car…
I change my anti-freeze every 50,000 miles. But that’s just me.
The actual antifreeze is indeed good for ten years or more, but the other ingredients such as corrosion inhibitors tend to get used up. It is considered prudent to drain and refill your coolant at intervals, maybe every 3-5 years. This operation is simple enough to be done by the owner.
Just be sure to use the correct coolant specified for the car. There are many wrong formulations to choose from.
Simple is relative to how complete you want to flush the system. If you just drain the radiator from the lower hose or petcock you won’t remove the fluid in the heater core and liekely part of the engine. If you drain it about every 3-4 years that is probably ok. If you flush it out with a Prestone flush kit or similar it will be more complete. I don’t think the extra work is worth it so I do it the simple, less complete way, but every 3-4 years.
It can be a pain on the A to bleed all of the air out of the system. I am not familiar with the CRV engine. Some cars like Chrysler’s come with a bleeder valve mounted on the thermostat housing to facilitate this.
Honda is notorious for specing out their own fluids. Make sure you use the correct antifreeze and mix it with distilled water only.
After it is drained and refilled check the level each day you drive it and top off as needed untill you no longer need to. Do this even if a shop does it for you.