So I've taken it upon myself to perform routine maintenance on my other ride noted above.

I purchased VCDS with the HEX net adapter a while back.

Changing the coolant. Pretty basic.
Apparently not.
It has two cooling loops and 2 electric auxiliary pumps in addition to the water pump.

It is only obvious how to drain the section of the system from the thermostat to the expansion tank.
Done.
1) I've read that vacuum filling is pretty much mandatory. Didn't do so.

I tried burping the refilled section of the cooling system.
I'm not sure at what temp the thermostat opens.
At about 216F, a rush of bubbles come racing into the open expansion tank causing the coolant present to be ejected

I am aware of water's boiling point. However, there is no steam associated with the bubbling I might expect if the water in the cooling system was literally boiling. Also, as soon as I shut the engine down, the bubbling quickly ceases.

This leads me to think that this is actually air escaping the system, not boiling.

Thoughts?

Is this why it must be vacuum filled? Because air pockets that big cannot escape the system without a mess?

2) if the thermostat stays closed, can I vacuum fill the portion of the system I drained? I can't really think of another way to minimize the air in the system.
​​​​​Then use VCDS to bleed the two loops?

This is not your parent's Saturn.....

(I got a hold of a factory service manual. It conveniently is missing the drain full and bleed section )
​​​​​​
Thoughts?

$400 at the dealer for this.
VCDS comes with a pretty steep learning curve.... I made my bed so I guess I'm sleeping in it.........

Thanks for any input.

Derf

 

What I've learned with imports, jack up the front end. Literally nose to the sky. Run it until it gets violent in the reservoir. Shut it off, cap off, and let it sit for a few hours. Repeat as needed.
imports are the only ones I have issues with getting bled. And yes, I'm considering a euro an import.

 

You lost me as soon as you said VCDS, derf. I don't have a clue as to what you're doing. Now I'm getting gun shy about changing the anti freeze in my KIA Forte.

 

Okay

After more research, I have come to learn that a 50-50 mix of antifreeze and water not under pressure will boil above 212 due to the boiling point elevation properties when mixing the two. The value goes up to about 220° f.

As I stated before, there is no steam just massive air release coming so fast that it pushes all the coolant in the expansion tank literally into the air and onto the ground. So I do believe this is actually air and not overheating.

I tried to use the bleed procedure in VCDS to bleed the two cooling loops in the system. However, I could not get the bleed circuit choices to show up in the menu of operations.

Turns out the dude who made an otherwise excellent YouTube video did not capture the step where you must go to a different section of VCDS and activate the coolant bleed procedure, high pressure loop. That is under the adaptations section. Once you activate that, VCDS makes the two bleed options available in the basic settings menu.

I've also learned there is a setting that refers to coolant system feeling, so I'm assuming I need to have the car koeo, Make The coolant fill setting in adaptations active, then select it from basic settings, then fill the system via vacuum filler, having drawn down vacuum on the system, then deactivate the coolant filling procedure in VCDS.

Then start the car, get coolant to 85 F

Then 0 activate the high pressure bleed selection in adaptations.
Then go to basic settings and select test -bleed cooling system high pressure

Let it do its thing
Once complete, choose basic settings test bleed cooling system low pressure 3 times per YouTube consensus and VCDS user consensus. Then it's done supposedly.

Never would have thought those would be such a ****ing pain in the ***. I suppose it will be a learning curve from zero on every new procedure I must perform for regular maintenance. If it's over my head then I will take it in but this is not over my head.

Yet.

Learning is fundamental (schoolhouse Rock?) or something similar?

 

Our transmission flushing machine is now obsolete. It hooks to the cooler lines at the cooler. The machine captures the fluid coming from the transmission and supplies the same amount of new fluid back the line to maintain the proper level. The machine changes all the fluid including the converter. Ford has installed a thermostat in the transmission cooling lines, so only hot fluid circulates through the cooler.
They want to make these cars so complicated that the dealer is the only place to get them repaired. We were told this 40 years ago as an independent garage.

 

I feel like I'm the kid who's locked out of the secret club in the treehouse for a week because I didn't shake down enough other kids for milk money.

There's a straight forward way to do this-- if you're not part of the club, you have to figure it out along with what "specialty tools" you need. But you have to do so 100% BEFORE you start. That was my mistake.

I'll likely finish this tonight.

The steps are simple once you know what they are.

I'm going to write up a detailed thread on this forum so that the people who want to know how to do it can read a correct description.

On a Saturn forum.

 

People will migrate here for valid information. I know, we need more people! I am happy to help the Saturnfans refugees. Too bad the deep knowledge files are lost. I have been training grandchildren on brake job basics today, one on a Chrysler mini van and of course a Saturn L. My second set of boys are growing up so fast! Back to work tomorrow, 69 and keeping on!

 

If you're going to be working on the occasional Mopar, Andy, I'd suggest you check out allpar.com. I've been a member there for over 20 years. Tons of knowledge and help there on all of your Mopar needs. Of course since Stellantis has control now, who knows how long it will be around? Not much excitement happening at Mopar since they're phasing out the hemi.