well, i finally took the plunge.

i flushed my coolant out a few months ago (in the summertime). i assume my car had original coolant in it, so at the MOST it was 5 years old w/30,000 miles on it. for dexcool, that's less than the recommended change interval. like clockwork, a few miles later, the water pump starts leaking. yay dexcool! a waterpump should last 100,000 miles, but thanks to dexcool i get a generous 30k out of it there's nothing wrong with dexcool, right?

so i've been limping it around for about 3 months and a few thousand miles. it's been a very slow leak, and i've been getting a squeak at startup, but it would go away as soon as my car would warm up and i'd drive a block. two days ago the squeak got really bad and is there ALL THE TIME. i finally took the plunge. i went to napa and dropped $160 on a new water pump. i wanted to get a GM OEM pump, but they're $200 shipped at gmpartsdirect.com and they have NO RETURN POLICY OR CANCELLATION on them because they're a special order, so screw them. with my luck i'd get a dud. also, they're $315 from the stealership, so nuts to that also. since napa's the only autoparts store that has good hard parts IMO, i went with them. i get the return policy and the warranty, plus there's 2 locations 10 mins from my house.

i dropped it off at the shop today, and i'm also getting the serpentine and A/C belts replaced at the same time. may as well, right? (yes, i took it to a shop. i have class every day this week and i'm borrowing my dad's truck since he has a car, too, and i don't have the time to screw around with my daily driver car).

i'm switching to GREEN COOLANT. i've had enough of dextrol coolant. i've decided that the ONLY reason why GM recommends dexcool is because they make money off the stuff, just like they recommend mobil 1 because they have an advertising deal. dexcool is **** (and mobil 1 ain't all it's cracked up to be either ). green coolant = no more gumming up, no more skunky smell and HOPEFULLY a water pump that lasts a long time. i have no problem changing coolant more frequently. i have a problem with my water pump breaking!

so who else here has switched to green coolant, or any other non-dextrol based coolant (NOT dexcool, that is )? any good results? let's here the nay-sayers

 

When I first bought my car in 00 I switched from Dexcol to Green and blew a head gasket a week later. Don't know if there was any corilation between the two, but I went back to Dexcol and have never had another problem. I guess it's just coinsidence, but who knows?

 

im doing a cam swap and also making the switch

 

we can only hope it's a coincidence!

was there coolant all in the motor or around the heads or anything? or was there coolant anywhere coolant didn't belong?

 

Just in the cylinders, so everything was normal

 

i have got the regular ol' green stuff in mine also. actually that is what i've ran in mine for a few years because we changed it over when i put a cam in the 346.

 

I highly doubt dexcool is the reason your waterpump failed, but I think you'll be just fine running the green stuff. FWIW, my car is 9 yrs old w/66k miles and I've changed the coolant twice....still running dexcool and stock waterpump with zero problems. My Tahoe (5.3) is 6 yrs old w/78k miles and is still on the stock coolant and waterpump.

 

you took your car to a shop to have the waterpump replaced???


anyway, im running the prestone "mixes with all" green.... (aka the only brand name green stuff you can get nowdays)

 

i don't. GM cars go through water pumps more than any other brand that i've heard of. and what do you know, they ALL use dexcool. there are so many rumors about dexcool chewing up gaskets and killing water pumps, but so many people say they're not true. are you KIDDING ME? do you know how rumors start? because a lot of gaskets and water pumps crap out for that one specific brand.

the green stuff is age-old and proven. all dexcool is is a problem. yes, dexcool is guaranteed the reason why my water pump went. yours didn't go because you probably change it out every year or two. mine went because it was stock dexcool from 5 years and 30,000 miles ago. now, that is STILL in dexcool's lifespan, but dexcool is awful, so it went.

 

yes. it's my daily driver and since i have class all week and work the weekend, i have no time to do it myself. i need it to drive, and i need it done ASAP. it's getting done today, and that's all the downtime i can afford.

 

You could have replaced it way faster and spent less money doing it your self. You're always talking about how you have no money to do things.... I now know why. Another internet guru

 

no i couldn't have. i don't have 5 hours to squeeze underneath my car and replace my pump and belts, flush the entire system twice and convert over to green coolant. it takes 1-2 hours just to do a proper flush with driving the car around and all, and i gotta replace the pump, too? when am i gonna do this? 7pm when it's dark out?

i have no money to spend on POINTLESS modifications to my car like headers or drag radials - things i don't need. i NEED to have my car working because it's my daily driver, so since i NEED my water pump, i forked out the money. if i wanted to, i could supercharge my car, buy a built tranny, get a set of ARF 205's and throw in a blower cam and get it tuned. i COULD do it, i do have enough money in my life savings to do so. i, however, have more important things to do with the money, like pay my credit card bills, my college tuition and housing rent.

there's a difference. what i can't afford is downtime. i have my priorities in line, because i don't want to be the average american living paycheck to paycheck buried in debt.

 

man all of that just over this coolant topic. i do agree with you in a sense there are more important things than building your ls1, and being an "internet guru" means you have to have somebody do it for you!!! lol sometimes if you dont have time and you do have money than pay someone.

 

Time/Money/Ability. Pick two out of three. Your choice.

I changed from DexDrool when I replaced my waterpump at 80k. Just been a few months so it hasn't exploded or anything. Doubt it will because of coolant, at least.

 

Well i have definately seen a far share of dex-cool related problems. I work at a radiator shop and we see a lot of it. Although i dont think its all in the dex-cool. We change it for a lot of people though. I ran it in my car but i also checked it at least once a month. It seems that after a certain amount of mileage and time it is actually worse to change over. The green and orange coolant are different chemical makeups and it seems after about 60000 miles the seal dont like the change. Kind of like switching to synthetic oil on a high mileage motor. It a little thinner and so u notice leaks you may have never had before. Overall in your postion i would have made the switch probably also, although the dex-cool does have better aluminum protection.

 

Yeah thats why i still have a job.

 

I run dexcool and never had a problem. You'll have a problem with anything if you dont maintain it properly. I have many freinds that run green in their LS1's they dont have any problems either. What ever floats your boat.

You dont maintain dexcool you'll have problems, you dont maintain green you'll have problems.

 

I'm not a hundred percent positive on this but i was told one time that if you completely flush the system and put green in there its ok. Its when the 2 mix it creates that muddy **** and it can clog up everything.

 

Rumors usually start with information like that.


You didn't read my post. Tahoe: 6yrs/78k miles, STOCK DEXCOOL COOLANT & pump. Never been changed, pump's doing fine. When we sold my wife's old car (97 cavalier) with 145k miles, it still had the stock pump & factory poured dexcool. Do you honestly think that if dexcool is pure evil towards cooling systems that GM would continue to put it in new cars??? Doubt it. All I'm saying is don't jump to conclusions, you don't KNOW what made your waterpump fail. Could have easily been a pump with loose tolerances that would have died at 30k miles regardless of what coolant was used.

Sound advice right there. Coolant is coolant. Pick a color, run it & maintain it. Problem solved.

 

Whether or not it's the dexcool to blame, in the cars that are running with it at my household, I change it at the same interval as if it were the green stuff (~2 years). Also I'm sure to run a true 50/50 mix with water.