Anyone ever heard of problems with the pink (orange) coolant used in newer cars?

My neighbor just had a water pump replaced after having a bunch of sediment build up in the cooling system. The mechanic said this was very common on vehicles that use Propylene Glycol (pink stuff) rather than Ethylene Glycol (green stuff).

In fact, the mechanic went so far as to say that anyone using pink stuff should completely flush their system and use the green stuff as soon as their car is out of warranty.

That sounds pretty harsh when it's supposed to be 150,000 mile coolant.

 

I have a repair shop and have seen alot of problems with the pink stuff. I was told that the reason it gets crusty is because some sort of internal engine gasket leak, head or intake gasket. I can't verify that but I believe that if you were to flush the system every 25,000 to 30,000 miles you may not have any problems. The green stuff can cause problems if it isn't change regularly also.
I'm going to be pulling my engine this summer to do some engine mods and I haven't decided to keep the pink stuff or change it out to the green stuff. :auto:

 

I've heard the problem is when you MIX the two together. Seems together they really gum up the engine. I've been told people don't realize that they have the Dexacool (pink) in their system and add the green to the overflow when it's low. Actually I just switched out my truck with the green antifreeze since I had to replace the plastic intake gaskets that developed a leak.

 

Just short of 100k on my camaro, it has dexcool and Ive had no problems whatsoever

 

Dexcool has been a major problem with the blazers, when it gets low it gels up the engine, plugs up the heater cores and generally makes a mess of things. There is a TSB concerning the Blazers that decribes it..99-06-02-012D

 

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Anyone ever heard of problems with the pink (orange) coolant used in newer cars?
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I believe that when Dex-cool was first introduced there was a problem with it. It was causing premature water pump failures. Then the powers that be did some more reserch ( I think it might have been Exxon-Mobile) and came up with an improved formula.
Anyway...My car is a 98 coupe with 73,000 miles on the same fluid. Maybe I'll change it this year............just to be safe.

 

I had it in my 98 Buick for 53k trouble free miles, even switched my 91 Mustang to dex-cool when I installed a Ron Davis radiator three years ago. Works great!

 

First of all Dex Cool is not propelyne glycol.
There was a big push for PG years ago but it never caught on (it's supposed to be safe in case a dog drinks it and better for the environment).
DexCool is still Ethelyne Glycol based, it just has a different additive package.
The two coolants both have the same base but the additives are incompatible for extended life but for no other reason.
You can mix them to your hearts content without any problems.
Just remember you want to use 50/50 coolant/water mix.
If you don't want the dexcool in there drain it out and use the green stuff. It will just not look as pretty because of the mixture of the dyes.
Dex cool's main advantage is supposed to be it's extended service life, if you mix it with green the additive packages will blend and you will have reduced life coolant. No harm done, you just have to service it more often.

I have seen a lot of blazers and other cars with cooling system problems and have heard all kinds of speculation as to the cause. Everyone wants to blame dex cool, and I guess if you really want to that's fine.
I think the blazer problem was something in the engines or the water they were using to top off the systems. Some cars do build up a type of "slime" if the system gets low but all you have to do to prevent that is keep the system full.
There are any number of reasons why water pumps fail, probably the least of which is the coolant type. A lot of intake gaskets leak also but that is because of intake gasket design, not the coolant type.
There are some other problems with heater pipe connections but that is due to electrolysis, a normal condition that occurs when dissimilar metals are in contact with eachother.

So blame Dex cool all you want and spread all the rumors you want.
I am just making comments to dispell some of the myths out there.
Didn't mean to interrupt.. please... carry on.

EWill

 

hi tim how are you and the wife doing can't belive its been a year all ready that we met . as you can see in my sig picture i have new wheels and tires ! hope to see you around maybe we can met up at HP kevins one saturday ! :yesnod: :thumbs: :thumbs: :seeya

 

Thank you thank you thank you. I have seen so much rumor on Dexcool, it is unbelievable. GM and Texaco did a study and presented a paper a couple of years ago on Dexcool problems. The primary issue is due to low coolant that can be achieved in several ways. I have looked into Dexcool extensively, and I think it is superior to the "green stuff". The mechanic quoted in the first post doesn't have a clue, don't listen to him. Your cooling system has a lot of aluminum in it, and Dexcool is much better at protecting the aluminum then the other coolants. Here is the link to the GM paper summary:

http://www.imcool.com/articles/antif...l-macs2001.htm

and

http://www.imcool.com/articles/antif...ohnbrunner.htm

Just be careful of the "Keep it filled" portion, as our cars don' have overflow tanks but rather tanks under pressure that need expansion room. If you fill to the top it will overflow.

 

I don't know about the studies, all I know is that my S-10 truck has the pink and it has quite a build-up of crud in the radiator. Sid.

 

Sid,

I have seen many S/T trucks with cooling system problems. I find it odd that other vehicles with the same engine and the same coolant do not have the same problem.
I have never been able to put my finger on it but there is something special about 4.3 equipped S/T vehicles that is particularly bad. I don't blame you for being bitter about it but I honestly don't believe that Dexcool is the source of the problem.
I think the Dex had a reaction with something else they did to that vehicle's cooling system, again, not sure what.

EWill