My new Chevy 2500HD came with Dexcool antifreeze, which Chevy says is better than the standard antifreeze, and does not need changing for 10 years. Is anybody using this in their Vette??? :chevy

 

VettePower,

I have been using Dexcool for almost 2 years now and I don't have any problem but I plan on changing it probably next year, I would never let it go for 10 years though....
If you have been using the green stuff make sure you flush it out really good you don't want to mix the two.

 

I am using it in my 66 bb. It has a new 454HO, new alum rad, new water pump, new heater core, and all new hoses, thus I figured how could I go wrong? So far I am happy with the results (of course the reason I switched was that I was hoping ultimately I could reduce the frequency of coolant changes)...

 

I using it with my 383 and stock cooling system + a bottle of water wetter, haven't seen temps over 190 even sitting in traffic. I don't think I would keep it in for 10 years though.

 

My Z28 came with it from the factory. I changed it after 5 years and it looked like new. No sludge, discoloration or rust.

I've had it in the Vette for 2 years and haven't had any problems. Running 50/50 mix in both cars.

I've read on the net that running low amounts of dex-cool (80/20 mixes) can lead to rust and corrosion as the additive package will be too weak.

 

Had Dexcool in my 98 S10 Blazer and had to abandon it after 3 years. The coolant was turning into a rusty sludge which were the first stages before turning into solid sludge.
Do a Google search under Dexcool and read the horror stories
If you are using Green glycol now you have to hot tank the block ,heads radiator and heator core before using Dexcool in it to get any benefit from its enhanced corrosion package it uses. The hot tanking is necessary to remove all the sylycates from the metal of your old equipment. Otherwise the new Dexcool packge is useless and has to be change at the same interval as the green glycol your currently using.
Keep in mind it's a crap shoot as to how effective it will work in your system anyway. The culprit with Dexcool is trapped air reacting with the collant to form sludge. Some systems have no problems but others are more prone to trapping air like the S10 's and have terrible consequences such as completely plugged cooling system and engine requiring replacement because of pluged collant passages.
I would advise anybody with an older system to stick with there green glycol. Do yourself a favour
Bob

 

OK That scared me!! No way I am going to hot tank my engine. Guess I'll stay with the old green stuff. :eek:

 

My '96 CE came with it, and I jsut replaced it when I did the TB Coolant bypass and intalled a lower Tstat w/ the Hyperteck PP III.
Everything was clean on the inside.
The '96 has a bleed port on the Tstat housing to get all the air out.

 

I changed mine over about a year ago. Even though I changed the regular anti-freeze every I still kept getting rust stains in the overflow bottle. When I bought a new overflow bottle I changed to the Dexcool and so far the bottle still looks like new.

 

There is no argument DEXCOOL is a great product. I know there were problems during a span of about a year and a half when GM was so busy producing SUV's and could not keep quality control standards in place. They will not admit word for word (but their service education videos dance around it and end up saying refill to meet warrenty specs) that when factory filled they did not dispense and had no idea how much was even in the cars, of the proper amount of DEXCOOL, hence many complaints and repair issues down the road. It remains today the factory fill for many cars. If you know you have leakage problems with your system you should not go to the expense of using it. You can add red to green antifreeze with no problems(it will still be like green) but if you already have red then stay away from the green as you will ruin the produce and basically have green antifreeze. You will be seeing almost eveybody producing a DEXCOOL like product soon as the patent from TEXACO/HAVOLINE will expire in 18 mos... We have many many customers on it and I don't get cranky calls about product performance and believe me if something seems wrong I get calls which is as it should be. Many of my sales saff have flushed their personal cars(new/newer)and switched to DEXCOOL and would not use anything else. You really can have a true extended life product.

Laurie
Customer Service of VOCI, the petroleum service company
:cheers:

 

Chevrolet had a few TSB's out on it at one time. The biggest problem I run across with Dexcool is that it congeals in the presence of oxygen, in other words if you have a leak it makes quite a mess of the cooling system. I sometimes don't drive the vette for many weeks at a time, so if i had a leak I might not catch it for a while, so I personally won't run it in my vette. The old green stuff does good enough for me and I don't have to worry about the possibility of it gumming up. I change my antifreeze pretty often anyway, I figure it's another way to catch a possible problem early, kinda like changing plugs often just to see how each cylinder is doing by looking at the old plugs.

:cheers:
Pat Kunz