Been a long day. Im not good at putting pictures on here. So ill try again. This is on my 89 year old moms ford explorer.its a 2012 she bought new. 3.5 engine. All work has been done at the local Ford dealer. 75k miles. I looked it over and decided to check the air filters and a few other things. I …

If its a blend of pink and orange, there’s no telling how long its been this way. Her last service was in March of 25. Im wondering if someone topped of the original orange with pink. Maybe at the dealer. The only other people who would ever lift the hood would be my nephew or brother in law. Both s…

The coolant was scheduled to be replaced after 6 years, then every 3 years. The dye used to color the coolant will fade after 14.5 years.

Interesting thought…I hadn’t considered that. It apparently hasn’t had a weird chemical reaction. My grandpa once added the old style green coolant with dexcool because he just didn’t know better. It more or less turned to sludge

I d have it drained, flushed, and filled with the factory spec coolant.

Ford sats the original coolant is good for 10 years or 125000 miles so just have it changed/

Also here… [image] What color is this coolant Maintenance/Repairs [20260102_104510]

Hard to tell, but I don’t see any cloudiness in the coolant, it looks pretty clear. For this reason, I would NOT flush the system, just drain and refill with the correct coolant, premix 50/50 or mix your own with the correct concentrate and distilled or purified water. If you use purified, make su…

[image] keith: Doing a flush has a chance of introducing contaminants to the system. How is that possible? Tester

Ford has used many different coolant over the years, so any coolant flush machine at a Ford dealer will probably have been used with old school Ford green, Ford gold, Ford orange, etc.

[image] Tester: How is that possible? That depends on the integrity of the shop owner or mechanic that owns the machine. [image] db4690: Ford has used many different coolant over the years, so any coolant flush machine at a Ford dealer will probably have been used with old school Ford gr…

Messed up my question about coolant

Maintenance/Repairs

davesmopar January 4, 2026, 4:09pm 7

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Messed up my question about coolant

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