DexCool coolant

"djoker" sez:

Check and maintain the proper level of coolant in your expansion tank to keep air out of the system and you'll be fine. Those with problems have leaks (be it hoses or gaskets) and have allowed air into the system leading to gelling problems.

Good ridin' to ya, VLJ

-- Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

-- C. S. Lewis

And check the radiator cap regularly. My expansion tank was quite well stocked when my radiator went dry because the radiator cap clogged up.

2000 Chevy Blazer 4.3 Vortech. Green Fluid now.

Justin

Get that crap out of ur system.. Donnot listen to the DEALER .. The Dealer is waiting for you GASKETS to be eaten up, So He can Charge u BIG bucks to Change those Gaskets !! An article in my Local paper say " GM reccomends that DEXCOOL be changed every TWO YEARS "

djoker wrote:

They solved the gasket problem several years ago.

Do you believe everyth> Get that crap out of ur system..

Say's You!

If they solved it, Then Why are the Gaskets still being Ate by DEXCOOL !!!

More Than I would Believe a General Motors Employee/Dealer/Mechanic .

I have not heard of any reports of gasket problems for the models made in the past three or four years. Only problems I have heard about are those that mixed the old coolant or let it get too low.

We have a 95 Caprice at work that's run dexcool it's whole life and has not had a single cooling system or gasket problem. It's at about

100,000 miles now. I still don't like Dexcool and wouldn't use it in my personal vehicles though :-)

-- New service to compete with paypal Get $25 pre-registration bonus by following this link

Keep the level full and mixed properly. NEVER NEVER NEVER add green anti-freeze to DexCool!!! It turns it to acid and THAT is where the main problems associated with DexCool originated.

People complain FARR more now than they ever have before because very few people know much of anything about working on their own vehicles...let alone are able to since it is difficult to see the actual engine buried under all that computer control crap! Before if someone had a leaking intake gasket, they had enough knowledge to be able to change it in an hour. But now, it takes an hour just to get to the intake and only a fraction of the people would even attempt it in their driveway.

They just changed it to a new problem. They went to a plastic rear intake gasket. Mine just let go on my 99 Blazer. The gasket lasts about

30k more miles than the first one they tried.

And MR GOODWRENCH made some more money off you !!!

Thats why all those MR GOODWRECH's say DEXCOOL is GREAT !

- Only problem I've had is FINDING the bloody stuff. I had a slow leak on a trip from Birmingham, AL to Houston, TX - you CANNOT find Dex-Cool in any sort of gas station, convenience store, etc. You HAVE to get it either at a dealership or at a full-fledged auto parts store

- which latter a>Has anyone eperienced problems with DexCool coolant ? I have a 2004

Try WalMart

Now, THERE's one that's everywhere that I haven't tried.

Thanks for the tip!

I picked up a jug at Target.

Now Prestone has a version that can be used with the green or orange coolant. It does not matter. Seem to work fine while I had a slow leak before I could fix it .....

Now that sh*# is gone and the traditional is in the '99 5.7L. Guess why! Yep, INTAKE MANIFOLD leak! Imagine that!!!

Also had injector #4 replaced as it would screw up under strain at highway speeds then settle down. No more problems at all.

The problem with Dexacool is not the coolant but the fact that when it came out, GM was also using a lot more aluminum in engine to and there was more reactivity with coolant on engine and the gaskets that have problem are between the dissimular metals in question that is causing the reaction and giving Dexi a bad rap of sorts. A simple and effect cure that I found long ago is to run greater than 50% antifreeze because water is a powerfull reactive agent in a "mixed" engine. When you get up to 60% antifreeze and better, you will have no problem as the higher consentration arrests the reactions quite well. I run higher in all of my vehicals and I have no problems and on one truck that is 16 year old the overflow tank is still clean as new and inside radiator as well with no signs of sludge or rust and it has 172k on it and has had 65 to 70% antifreeze since I got it. My 2000 K3500 with dexi is still bright and clean and it too is over 60% antifreeze.

good tip, how do you measure the %? Do you use the cheap hydrometer?

Yep, I add the amount of anitfreeze I think I need and then confirm it is a glass hydrometer (not a cheap plastic one) and adjust as needed. When I got my 2000 new I drained out about 1 gallon of dexicoolant mix when it was new and replaced it with a gallon of pure dexi and it got me around 65% which was close enough for me. Antifreeze reaches it maximum freeze protection at 70% so if you go over that you do start raising freezin point but even 80% still around 35 below or so as I recall and when you run high consentrations of antifreeze, it never really freezes anyway, it just slushes and never freezes and expanded enough to do any damage either. I lived for a while were minus 50 was possible so 65 to 70 % mixture was almost a must have there (with 60% bare min). At around minus 30 your nice foam seat feels like a block of cement when you first sit on it.

Also, another thought on this is the hardness of the water you use when refilling. I used to live in an area that had very hard water and I used distilled water for changing out the Dexcool as well as the battery maint. So far never had a problem that I know of. MR