| Re: DEX-COOL ----LONG---- |
Subject: Re: DEX-COOL ----LONG---- by volzfan on 2008/7/10 18:52:02 Okay, this is going to be kinda long, but it is my experience with Dex-Cool. We had a 1998 Pontiac Trans-Port Van a few years ago, had 24K miles on it when I bought it. Due to circumstances having to take my daughter to Knoxville (about 90 miles one-way) two to three times per week, we were putting a lot of miles on this van. At about 85k, I noticed the "low coolant" light coming on intermittently. I kept check on the coolant level, and added when necessary, all the while wondering where it was going......evaporation.....? The van ran just fine thru all of this. At 93k, while on the way to Knoxville one day, the van kinda "shuddered", the check engine light starting flashing, and the motor started missing.....really badly. I'll bypass the rollback ride and how hard it is to get into the motor in the van. When I took the motor apart, the intake gaskets had disentigrated....literally! The "plastic" part of the gasket that holds the silicone "seal", was "eaten" away. Research let me know that Dex-Cool will mix with motor oil....with dire consequences. The small amounts that had been leaking had allowed the cam bearings to wear out, to the point that the cam broke in half! The block was even ruined....cam bearing bores were junked! Fast forward again.......I bought a motor with 60k from the junkyard......but before installing it, I decide to at least look at the gaskets.........and sure enough, the intake gaskets were being eaten away around the coolant passages. I of course replaced them, sealed the motor up, flushed the coolant system, and filled it with GREEN GLYCOL COOLANT, and drove the van for another 50k before I traded it. I would never put Dex-Cool in anything I own again, and if you Google Dex-Cool problems, you will find that GM knows it has it's problems in some applications, but will not do anything about it. At one time I had pics of the gasket damage that I sent to GM, but I'm not sure if they still exist on my computer. The "sludge" you found was not the result of mixing Dex-Cool with regular Anti-Freeze.....they will mix just fine, but mixing them destroys their corrosion resistance.......what you found was the result of the Dex-Cool running with air in the system. Once again, Google it and it will back me up. If I sound bitter over this, I am. If you had been through what I was, at the time it was happening, you would understand. Hope this helps, and I hate to ever sound like I "know it all", but when it comes to this stuff, I lived it. |
