Hello,

Today I'm doing a coolant flush on my 2003 A4 Quattro 3.0. I found the drain **** and opened it and about 1 gallon of old coolant came out...Great start. I sealed that up, then filled up my reservoir with almost a gallon of distilled water hoping to cycle it through the system.. I planned to do this 4-5 times to "flush" most of the old stuff out.

I fired up the car let it run till it was good and hot, and opened the drain **** again... Nothing came out... water in reservoir was still cold.

Drove the car around and tried to drain again, same problem. So I took it for a drive of about 20 minutes over 6-7 miles and still nothing.

At this point, the car has been running for an hour... The engine temp gauge is right in middle where it should be but i cannot get anything to drain from the radiator (and yes, I have the cap removed from the reservoir). It will trickle a bit, but that's about it. No nice steady stream like the first time through.

What am I doing wrong?

 

OK well in the time it took me to write this, the coolant eventually drained out. There must be some sediment in my drain valve as now it trickles when I open it and takes FOREVER to drain the radiator and reservoir tank. I had planned to do 4-5 "flushes" but thanks to the slow drain, I only did two.

 

honestly bud, weigh your effort and time vs paying a shop to do it. I've gotten shops to to flushes for those reasons also it is more thorough than your process when you have a potential blockage.

doing the flush pushes out the blockages and even cleans out the heater core. Id say go that route and i believe you'd be happier with the results