Let's talk about Dex Cool...
 

Okay, I don't have the owner's manual in front of me but I believe the manual calls for 100k miles between changes on the Dex Cool stuff, right? I'm sure you guys are changing it more often then that. My car is a '00 so it's 5 years old but it only has 9k miles on it...should I change the stuff? And also has anyone gone back to the traditional green stuff, and if so, do you need an entire flush and all of that before switching? Thanks.

You cannot use regular antifreeze in our cooling system. Your best bet is to check it and if it dosent look good then change it, most people change it alot sooner then 100k.

Go ahead and change it, it can't hurt. You should be doing a routine maintenance of changing the fluids every year. Even if you don't drive it that much, the worst that will happen is that the engine will live even longer. In terms of the green stuff, it corrodes the aluminum of our engines. Dex Cool is formulated to shy away from doing that.

yea if u use other than Dex cool I've actually heard of people sayin it eats up the seals in the motor and whatnot.....I dunno though...I just changed mine at 50k miles Never hurts to be sure :p

ive heard mostly opposite of traditional green stuff. that dex-cool is more commonly the one that becomes corrosive over time if not changed regularly.

ive also been aware of many law suites with GM over dex-cool not living up to its claim.
if you have ever heard dex-cool refered to as 'dex-clog' it is actually possible for it to gel up if not changed prior to its 100k mile rating and cause damage to the cooling system.

my .02 fwiw

I don't know about that. I run just water & Redline water wetter. Works fine for me.

what he said. green bad...orange good. plus, changing it sooner can't hurt!

Many people switch to the green stuff because dexcool can become corrosive over time. But you have to do a complete flush, you can not do any mixing. Lots of dexcool humping in here lol.

By regular I meant green anti-freeze.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/autom...m_dexcool.html

i personally am still running dexcool, but when its time to switch im going to use honda radiator fluid. ya ya ya blah blah damn ricers whatever, the truth is dexcool sucks, and honda rad fluid is an excellent replacement, it is silicate free so it doesnt erode alumnium (duh, practically all honda engines are aluminum) and in my experience it has help up very well. smells good too, and its blue. later!

Jeremy

Flushing the cooling system once a year is a good idea regardless of milage claims by any manufacturer; corrosion, scaling, and deposits buildup over a short period and changing the coolant is just smart maint. Just like you change your oil on a regular basis, so should trans. fluid, differential fluid, coolant be changed on a regular schedule and usually much sooner then the manufacturer calls for. All of these break down ie lose viscosity, ability to absorb and release heat over time.

I see this every day at work with people who refuse to change any of these fluids and then wonder why their cooling system is filled with sludge, their trans took a dump, and their rear ends are shot. Preventive maint is ALWAYS cheaper than fixing a problem caused by neglect. Just my .02

lol, Joker your sig is hilarious.

If anyone is worried about coolent clogs, just change it sooner, why push it?

What IS DEXCOOL.


What everybody else says about DEXCOOL.

DEXCOOL is at least as good as the green stuff for modern engines. It was designed to better transfer heat, reduce silicate gel & scale, and increase water pump life. The big problem with it is that it is so easily contaminated. Simply putting tap water in it to top it off will reduce its service life. I've heard that simply letting coolant level fall and getting outside air into everything will contaminate it.

But it's easy to beat once you know those things. Keep it topped off with distilled water, change it at approx 3 year intervals, and you should be as good as with the green stuff.

DEX COOL is crap. It corrodes very easy. It should not be mixed with green. It is crap crap crap :judge:

My wifes blazer is a mess inside the colling system from this crap. Once it gets exposed to air it goes all to hell real quick. :barf:

DEXCOOL does get nasty after awhile. I also have a Grand Prix and the manual called to change it every 50K miles or 5 yrs. It should be the same for most GM cars.

if you don't have dexcool toyota coolant will suffice aswell FYI :)

use what your car calls for. Period. Dex cool is designed to work on newer cars that use more alum in thier construction. people have issues with dexcool because they don't know how to use it correctly. It's not teh dex cool that corrodes. It's the water that people use. Thats why you MUST refill with distilled water and no additives.

water wetter is an additive, your telling me thats bad?

:confused:

That and when people let their car run low on coolant....the exposure to air has a really bad effect on dexcool at the ventilation spot which can make the problem look 1000X worse than it actually is.

Case in point: A 97 Astro at work. Pulled the radiator cap off and it looked like a couple inches of red sludge at the top. Cleaned that out and everything else looked brand new inside. Cause of the problem? No coolant in the overflow and had been low for some time. Even though the problem looked bad and the Dexcool "looked" like it was corroding like hell.....it wasn't by any means.