Changing the coolant on a Volvo 850 / T5-R

This weekend I took the liberty of changing the coolant in the T5-R. The process is the same for all 1993 to 1997 Volvo 850's / Volvo T5-R's. First you will need several materials:

Car wheel ramps or Jack Stands (I prefer wheel ramps)
A 10mm open ended wrench
A 13mm open ended wrench
4 liters of deionized water
8 liters of 50/50 premixed coolant (I recomend Prestone 50/50

optional: Drainpan and new radiator drain plug

Prerequisites: A level driveway or work area, cold engine

Step 1: drive the car up onto the ramps, or if you have jackstands, jack up the car and place a jackstand beneath the driver and passenger side subframe.

Step 2: Open your hood by releasing the latch near the driver side kick panel, then release the latch on the hood.

Step 3: Open the coolant cap. It is located inside the engine bay on the left.

Step 4: Go underneath the front of the car and remove the splash guard. It is held on by two 10mm bolts.

Step 5: After the splash guard is removed, locate the radiator drain plug. Looking at the front of the car, it is on the left side on the bottom of the radiator.

 Step 6: Take your 13mm wrench and loosen the drain plug. Be careful to not use too much pressure. It is made of plastic, and may break easily if forced too much.

Step 7: Unscrew it by hand.

Once unscrewed, allow the coolant to drain. I chose to drain into a drain pan, but it not nessecary. Approximately 6 liters of coolant will come out.

Step 8: Locate the engine drain plug. It is located right above the passenger side halfshaft. Loosen it with your 13mm wrench. You can choose to use a hose so that is will flow cleaner, but with my driveway and slight incline, I managed to catch 90% of it. About 1 liter will drain out.

Step 9: Retighten your engine drain plug and radiator drain plug.

Step 10: Add 4 liters of deionized water to your coolant resevoir. Refer to step 3 for resevoir location.

Step 11: After the water has been added, start your Volvo. Allow the engine to run for 2 minutes. In this step, the water pump is circulating the water through the cooling system, taking any old coolant along with it. After 2 to 3 minutes, shut the engine off.

Step 12: Open up your radiator drain plug again. You will notice the fluid is clearer than before, meaning the water has flushed the old coolant out. Four to 4 1/2 liters will come out.

Step 13: Close the drain plug. Its now time to add the new coolant.

Step 14: Reinstall the splash guard. We are finished draining fluids.

Step 15: Take your coolant and slowly add it to the coolant resevoir. You will notice the tank will fill up, then slowly go down. Keep adding coolant till the level normalizes. The ammount of coolant that the engine will take is anywhere from 7 liters for the non-turbo Volvo 850's, to 7.4 liters for Turbo models / T5-R.

Step 16: Now it is time to burp the system. Air pockets may have formed while refilling the system. Leave the coolant cap off and hood open.

Step 17: Start your car.

Step 18: Let the engine run till the temperature gauge (the temperature gauge is to the right of the fuel guage, as shown in the picture below) hits the middle area of the gauge. Once it does, allow the engine to run for another 2 minutes. The engine is approximately 210° fahrenheit.

Step 19: The coolant level will drop. Add enough coolant so that the level is near the "MAX" marking on the resevoir. Congratulations, your done.