Location of radiator drain valve for coolant change?
 

Hello everyone, First post here! Today I spent about 10 min under the car and hood (and about 45min google searching) and can't seem to locate the petcock valve? We have a out of state trip coming up and I am sorry to say I can't remember the last time we changed the coolant (wife's car). So I figure a good drain, flush, and refill would do the old girl some good. Any help is greatly appreciated. justin

EDIT: 1999 300M

heheh geeee

It's usally located at a lower corner of the radiator. Since you didn't specify what vehicle you are talking about here, that's about as specific as you are going to get as an answer. They don't use those old brass petcocks any more. The newer cars have a plastic drain cock that looks nothing like those old things. Look for a black plastic circle with a line down the diameter. Turn it.

re..
 

look under the lower radiator hose on the bottom of the radiator.

My mistake! I had thought this subforum was only for the 300M. My wife's car is a 1999 Chrysler 300M. I assume all models have the same engine? It's a v6, I believe a 3.5L or so. I had read on another forum a different Chrysler model required removing the fog light to gain access to the valve. I'm familiar with the switch to plastic as I stripped a stuck valve on my ride (2000 Trans Am) and so now have to use one of the radiator hoses instead (I'd prefer to avoid doing this on the 300M because last thing I want is a hose leak). Has anyone done this on their 300M (and specifically a 99' model if they changed something in later years)? I'd like to avoid removing as much plastic/parts as possible so it'd be great if someone could steer me specifically to where the valve is located. Thanks for the replies so far....except for the mods super-helpful post. I would have expected that from a junior member....

cant help it I haft to get a laugh out of stuff like this U have no idea how many times I have been asked a question on stuff and have no idea what kinda car or anything to what I am trying to answer if I had a dime for each time I have had to ask what kinda car is this I would not need to work any more. See gets kinda old ya know.
But now that u have given the info needed undo the lower rad hose dont worry about the drain cock it will leak after u open it and then u will be removing the coolant for a second time and then replacing it hoping that u get the right one and well more of a mess just remove the lower hose u wont get a leak from it.

Thanks for the reply, and sorry if I sounded like a jerk earlier. I didn't know the subforum had multiple car models and so your response really got to me. ;)

Thanks for the recommendation on not using the valve. Here I was worried about the hose being a leak after removing for the drain, but it makes much more sense that a valve (especially plastic!) could be more likely to leak.

Do you happen to know what side (facing the car) the lower rad hose is on? From my searching there really isn't any direct access to the radiator, and so I don't know if plastic "flashing" or whatever it's called needs to be removed first, and so I'd like to avoid removing pieces that aren't blocking the hose. I've had enough bad experiences trying to remove those plastic covers, normally ends after 10min of being gentle snapping them off and having to ghetto fix them with zipties/etc.

And while we're on the issue, what coolant would you recommend? My Trans Am uses DexCool but I think that may only be for GM cars.

I really should get a Hayne's manual for both of my cars. I'm sure it would solve a lot of these issues...

Thanks again.

pass side is the lower hose U need 100k coolant not 30k stuff.

Thanks! Do you happen to know what if anything needs to be removed to gain access to the hose?

Most of those plastic shields are held in place by push pin fasteners. There's usually a button in the center of the pin that you must lift, then you can pull out the whole fastener. They are made to go in really quickly, and not come out by themselves. Most autoparts stores sell them if you mess one up.
Now that you know that you do not need to fear pulling off a splash shield, you might find it's easier to get access to the hose if you remove the splash shields either under the car and/or in the wheel well.