Quote:
"I asked Dealer about how often to change coolent and they said every 2 years.no matter what the milage."

That's interesting... My MINI is 3 years old on June 6th, with 48,000 miles and it has been serviced at the dealer exclusively... and not once did they change the coolant or even recommend that it be changed!

Now that my MINI is out of its "free service warranty" (3 yrs, 36,000 miles), I wonder how much they are going to charge for a coolant flush and refill? Has anyone had the dealer change the coolant AND paid for it? What's the damage?

-boognish

 

For those who want to attempt to use the block drain plug, the only way to successfully access it is to remove the exhaust header. Removing the starter requires removing the header anyway. Remove the top heat shield (two bolts). Disconnect the two o2 sensor connectors and free up the wiring, remove the two bolts from the exhaust pipe and the eight holding the header to the engine and slide the header towards the back of the car (no need to remove it entirely). Remove the bolt holding the heat shield over the starter, the pull the shieldtoward the right side of the car to free it up (no need to remove entirely). You can now get to the drain plug.

I went through this process in order to fit a 'real' temperature gauge to my car using the drain plug as the sender port.

 

based on what thet charge for an oil change. (65.00) 35.00 dollars for oil and filter the $30.00 in labor. Not bad for 10 minutes work.
It's got to be expensive.

 

You don't need to remove the hose clamp to drain the fluid. There are two bolts that connect it to the radiator.