96 and up orange coolant

[Lee]

Hey guys, do you have to use the new coolant in your 96 and up cars or is it really a choice?

 

My sister-in-law had a leak in her 96 Blazer and I had to spend a fortune on the orange stuff at a convien/gas store, $13.60. Then when I added it with some stop leak, turned out she had a bad leak and all that expensive orange fluid just drained out down the road.

 

Can she just use regular ethol glycol in it or is there a seriously strong reason for orange?

[Jcrow]

I want to know too!

[cutlsp]

Using the green stuff with a car that used the orange stuff is kissing the head gaskets good bye. If you looked on the main page you would find out the differance.

[94CutlassSLCoupe]

Using the green stuff with a car that used the orange stuff is kissing the head gaskets good bye. If you looked on the main page you would find out the differance.

 

The orange stuff is MURDER on gaskets and aluminum surfaces if its not changed at the regular interval.

 

I HATE that stuff...my blazer had it from the factory....as did our GP GT...the blazer lost the heater core, water pump, and intake gasket before the 5 years/100k miles was up, which was the change interval on the coolant.

 

The GP GT lost its water pump at 37,000 miles when it was only 4 years old...

 

All of our cars now have plain Prestone in them...and they are having no problems whatsoever.

[DiscoStudd]

There's no harm in switching, in fact I'm flushing all of that DexCool shit out of my new cars once the warranties have expired (don't know how the d-ship would react if I brought one of 'em in for warranty work and it had the "wrong" coolant in it.)

 

You have to completely flush the system out before you add the "green stuff" though. The 2 coolants are incompatible with each-other. Remember, too, that once you switch back to glycol you have to have the coolant flushed every 2 years (unlike the suppossed 5 years you can get out of the Dex.)

[White93z34]

well in my experience working in a shop and seeing the little tag GM puts on the shock tower or rad support about dexcool and its 100,000 mile change intervel. i have YET to see a gm car with dexcool (or most any car for that matter) go 100k without haveing something break or leak and require new coolant to be put in anyhow.

 

i'm not quite sure what the advantage is to it, i was told that it dosen't let corosion build up as fast, but then again the person who told me that could be a idiot, i don't know.

 

if it were me and i had a car that was made for it, i'd probably use it.

[3pt1lumina]

ahh this has sparked some heated threads before...

 

honestly, I drain all of the orange shit out and put the green shit in. On my 01 Malibu I did it, dad's 97 Lumina we did so as well. No problems with changing it. When you do change, if you do, the entire system has to be bled because if they mix it's not good... big no no

 

my $.02 for whatever it's worth. I'm happy with my decision though.

[Redwingvksm]

Um...

 

I just use that Prestone yellow stuff (07?) in my vehicles. Compatable with ALL types of coolant - and it only runs like 6 bucks/gallon at murrays here.

[supreme_style21]

Like disco said, green can certainly be used in place of the dexcool.. but a COMPLETE flush is nessesary! The two DO NOT mix!

When I bought my GP last year, it had Dexcool in it. And after it blew the intake gasket a week after I bought it, I had green put back in.

[THe_DeTAiL3R]

I beleive there is a type of Prestone that is suppose to be compatible with either types of coolant. Personally I would just flush it out and put in green. Or if you are low, just add water!

[supreme_style21]

I beleive there is a type of Prestone that is suppose to be compatible with either types of coolant. Personally I would just flush it out and put in green. Or if you are low, just add water!

 

Yeah its the yellow stuff.

I consider myself open-minded, but I'm scared of change. I usually stick with the tried and true.

[Brian P]

I think you'll be ok with dexcool if you service it like you would the green coolant. But after seeing the level of sludge on the filler neck of my sister's '02 GP with around 50k, I already changed that out.

[Prospeeder]

ornage is "suppose" to have more corrsion preventive things in it so the headgaskets last longer w/o flushing to coolant all the time

[maybe2fast]

that wonderfil 3X00 intake problem is caused by the Dexcool. I worked at an autoshop and we switched all the cars over to green.

 

1 it eats plastic

2 it globs up

3 its expensive

 

its horrible, switch to green asap

[cryptnix]

or the new yellow shit

[3pt1lumina]

i've never heard of this yellow stuff? more details please!

[maybe2fast]

it is just an extended life coolant that I believe can be mixed with either green or orange. kinda universal 5 year stuff.

[BIGBULS]

that wonderfil 3X00 intake problem is caused by the Dexcool. I worked at an autoshop and we switched all the cars over to green.

 

1 it eats plastic

2 it globs up

3 its expensive

 

its horrible, switch to green asap

 

Wow.............

 

This is just ONE example of the missinformation going on in this thread.

 

 

 

 

For starters.........

 

 

1) Dexcool is COMPLETELY compatible with any other Ethylene Glycol based coolant..........but once you mix them, you end up with a regular 2-3 year coolant. Just remember that Dexcool has a very different additive package (and is dyed orange ).

 

 

2) Just because it's compatible though, does not mean you can mix and match regular and long life coolant at will as far as your CAR is concerned. 96+ cars are designed with Dexcool in mind, and switching to regular green coolant puts a couple of areas at risk..............namely water pump seals

 

Going backward isn't the best idea either.........here we are going back to the additive package (and cooling system design). This switching isn't normally a problem on newer GM's (in fact, the 1995 TSB regarding the introduction of Dexcool stated you could use it in ALL 94-95 GM's EXCEPT 94 J-Body 4 cylinders), but older cars just aren't designed with 5 year coolant change intervals in mind (regardless of what coolant you put in them).

 

 

3)Dexcool does NOT eat plastic. Dexcool does NOT glob up. Techs are just ignorant enough to blame whatever is unfamiliar to them.

 

Let me repeat that: DEXCOOL DOES NOT EAT PLASTIC OR GLOB UP.

 

The reason this is a problem on newer GM V6's and V8's is because of two factors:

 

A) Crap gaskets (especially intake gaskets).

 

Have any of you actually LOOKED at newer GM LIM gaskets on 3100/3400's or UIM gaskets on 3800's?

 

Trust me, they are utter SHIT where design is concerned.

 

The globs...............well, lets just say that GM KNOWS their gaskets were/are crap and added a sealer to ALL new cooling systems. And guess where the sealer likes to gum up at................you guessed it, the coolant fill neck on the radiator .

 

 

 

 

As far as all this other stuff that people have been mumbling about..................

 

 

 

 

 

Just goes to show how much most people know about their cars, and what goes into them.

 

 

My advice is really simple:

 

If your car came with Dexcool, put Dexcool back in, and flush it at 5 years regardless of mileage.

 

If your car came with conventional coolant, put that back in and flush every 2-3 years.

 

Anything else is just asking for trouble.

[mihela816]

If you mix the two, it forms a brown goo. I've seen it quite a few times now. They aren't compatible.

[BIGBULS]

If you mix the two, it forms a brown goo. I've seen it quite a few times now. They aren't compatible.

 

In one word..............Bullshit.

 

I have seen FAR more cars than you with Dexcool in them (15+ per day for the last 1.5 years), many of which people have done a mix and match on where coolant is concerned.

 

And guess what..............

 

No brown goo from mixing.

 

 

 

 

 

Let me repeat.

 

The "goo" is from the stop-leak sealer that GM puts in there from the factory. It tends to deposit in the radiator neck and/or coolant recovery tank if the coolant isn't flushed regularly (and sometimes if it IS).

 

 

 

Does nobody actually READ anymore ?

[maybe2fast]

your right...