How to Replace Coolant Reservoir 2005-16 Toyota RAV4

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the coolant reservoir on this 2010 Toyota RAV4. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1AAuto.com.

From underneath the vehicle, we need to remove this panel right here. This one was pretty much falling off. There really wasn't much holding it on, but you should have some push pins right here, right here, right here, right here and over there. And then, this one didn't have any of these fasteners, but there's some type of screws that go there. So, you want to pull those off and slide this down and slide it out. Get that out of your way. I want to loosen up the drain on the bottom of the radiator right here. It's below the radiator hose right there. Loosen that up.

Make sure you have a drain bucket underneath. And, actually it's pretty tight so I'm going to take some pliers. Now be careful with this because if it breaks then you're going to have to replace the radiator. If it doesn't move with pliers easily, then don't even bother with it. Just drain it with the hose or something else. And, there we go. I'm just going to let that drain slowly. Now I'm going to take the cap off. This is going to make it drain a little bit faster. A little bit faster. I want to pull this trim panel off. Take these little push clips out. What you do is you push down just a little bit on the clip and just slide it out. Just use a pocket screwdriver or a pick. You just grab that panel, slide it out. Now take a 10 millimeter socket extension and a ratchet. I'm using an electric ratchet. If you don't have an electric one, just use a regular one. Take these two bolts out. One here and there's one on the back right there.

I'm just going to use some pliers. You can use special hose clamp pliers for this, but regular ones work, too. Remove this hose clamp, and this one as well. We're just trying to break the seal with the hose and slide it off because sometimes you just can't get the hoses off. So, if you just take a little pick, get underneath the hose, go all the way around, and then you can slide the hose off just like that. And, there's the reservoir. Be careful.

All right, well I'll just slide this coolant reservoir hose on the bottom and this one goes on the top just like that. Take some pliers or some hose clamp pliers and reattach these hose clamps in the right position. I like to, if you can see where it was on the hose, try to put the hose clamp in the exact same spot that it was. You can see where it's indented. Generally, that makes it seal a lot better if it goes back the way it came off. Put that right there just like that. Perfect. Take the two bolts. One goes right there and one goes in here. I'm going to use a 10 millimeter socket extension and ratchet to tighten these bolts down, and just snug it up. Same with this back one.

There we go. Make sure that coolant drain is closed all the way. Just grab it and just give it a twist. You can try loosening it and just snug it up. You don't want to tighten it too tight, just finger tight and then maybe just a little bit more so that's good. So, if you have this panel, just line this up right like that. Just position that there. If you have the screws or bolts that go in there, put those back in and any of the push pins. They go in there, there, there's a couple of other spots there and there, right there and there. And then, just take this cover and just slide this back in position like that. Make sure everything lines up. And, now we're just going to have to reset these pushpins. Just push this tab back so the centerpiece is popping out like that, slide it in position and then push the button down so it's flush. Do that for all of them.

All right, now we're going to take this coolant funnel, and for this particular vehicle, I don't need any adapters. I can just put this coolant funnel here. This funnel comes with different adapters. We actually sell this at 1AAuto.com if you want one. We're going to take the appropriate coolant. You're going to want to check the owner's manual and make sure you use the right coolant for the vehicle. We'll fill it up. And, as you fill this up, it may take a little while so you might find that the reservoir completely fills up with coolant. Then just let the vehicle sit for a little while. It's going to have to bleed itself into the engine. There may be some air pockets.

Just be patient and fill it up and let it bleed. As you can see it's about two minutes later and it drained back down, so just keep doing that. Fill it up, let it sit for a minute. Watch it drain. Once you've noticed that the level stays at one level for a little while, what you can do is go over to the radiator hose and give it a squeeze and see if you can get any air bubbles out of it, see if you can get it to bleed a little bit more. It looks pretty good right there.

Then, what you're going to want to do is start the vehicle, let it run, put the heat on low speed and monitor the coolant temperature. Make sure the coolant temperature does not get over 210 degrees, or into the red zone, and as long as you feel heat, you should be good. Then, you're going to shut the vehicle off for a little while, and then once it cools down, recheck your level and adjust accordingly. Take the funnel out, take the cap, put the cap back on. Lock it in place.

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