jwh1

Hacker, That is a good reminder that during a flush, turn the heater on to flush out the heater core as well. I'm going to flush with water with the engine running and heater on, then drain radiator and fill with coolant concentrate and adjust from there.

Hollywood, I had to laugh about your comment..."you are liable to break more than you fix"...it's like you know me!! You are absolutely right. I was intending this to be a routine fluid change as the car is now 6 years old and I thought the coolant should be changed by then. I have a tester...the type with a squeeze bulb and a floating pointer to indicate the freeze protection level, but i am not familiar with the test strips for contaminants. I know the coolant doesn't wear out but I've heard it gets acidic. I'll see if I can find some strips at the auto store. You are also probably right about just changing the 5 qt from the radiator. That may be enough if done every several years.

Thanks for the replies guys. IS973800...the heater hoses are not terrifically accessible on the Edge, but could be done. I had a Prestone flush fitting on a previous car and was always concerned about an inexpensive $5 plastic fitting being the weak link in the system. Autom8r...very helpful instructions right from the book. Hard to imagine that the only way to get a 50/50 mix is to drain some of the brand new coolant and refill with concentrate, but I guess that's what I'll do. Somehow, I wonder if that is what really happens at the quickie lube, or do they just refill the radiator and call it good enough! Good idea about applying air pressure to gently force out additional coolant from the engine.

New member here and many thanks for all I've learned about my 07 Edge. I'm having the same trouble with my Edge as I've had with other cars when it comes to changing the coolant. I drained the radiator and got around 5 qt out. This seems to be the capacity of the radiator, reservoir, and hoses. Total capacity for the cooling system is just short of 12 qts, so there are still 7 qts in the engine. The common advice is to flush with a garden hose(or distilled water) and refill with coolant concentrate to 50%, meaning you add 6 qts of coolant concentrate to the flush water in a 12 qt system. If only 4-5 qts will drain, how do I add 6 qts of coolant to get the 50/50 mix??? Of course you could drain, fill with concentrate, run, drain and refill to slowly increase the % of coolant to 50/50, but surely a dealer or quickie lube doesn't do that. Everyone says this is a simple job and it seems to be, but I'm missing something. How does a shop do it? I've read of running the engine to pump the rest out (seems like a bad idea), pulling the thermostat, etc....Any advice?