Chevron supreme 10-30, 97 Buick 3.8 V6 4000mi

[m2200b]

Buick 97 3.8 V6 with 101,850 miles

Aluminum 3
Chromium 0
Iron 14
Copper 14
Lead 6
Tin 0
Molybdenum 80
Nickel 0
Manganese 1
Silver 0
Titanium 0
Potassium 37
Boron 23
Silicon 6
Sodium 10
Calcium 1492
Magnesium 10
Phosphorus 587
Zinc 728
Barium 0

Sus Visc @210F 59.5 Flashpoint 370F Fuel
Blackstone: We are sorry to say it looks like the engine has developed a minor anti freeze contamination problem. Shows in Potassium. The level isn't enough to hurt anything and your wear looks fine. Normal 10-30 viscosity without water or fuel. If you keep your oil change intervals short, this may never turn into a problem for you.

My comment - Well I'm running 3000 mile OIC with 49 cent Chevron while adding gm tabs to see if I can get GM's famed mainfold leak slowed and some better numbers.

 

[Al]

Golly gee Batman..what a surprise..a GM antifreeze leak. But I think you are doing the right thing with the tabs..keep us informed. When did yhou put the tabs in?? And don't forget even if you stop the leak you will get 15 to 20 percent of that potassium and sodium on the next analysis. Good luck

 

[T-Keith]

If the car still has the original DEXCOOL, which I'm guessing it does, flush it out and put in some fresh coolant. The DEXCOOL has most likely destroyed your lower intake gaskets like mine. It's not an engine problem, it's a DEXCOOL problem.

-T

 

[Gary Allan]

You gotta love the side effects of advancement of mulitple technolgies in concert with each other. All in perfect harmony

I don't know how the world survived before Deathcool came on the market

 

[refuse2]

Would you put the dexcool back in it or use the plain old green. My local radiator shop told me as soon as mine is out of warranty to change it out before I have problems, so I was curious as to what you guys think.

 

[Al]

I would replace it with a good quality antifreeze like Nissan or Toyota brands. But maybe for now just use regular cheapo green until you get the problem resolved. Now the Toyota.Nissan stuff is expensive.

 

[Cutehumor]

a little

but I've read alot of posts accusing dexcool for the intake gasket failures for GM vehicles. I have had dexcool in a 96 Pontiac sunfire 2.2L 128k miles since new. UOAs are posted. no coolant leaks (knock on wood) I thought it was the intake gasket design that were plastic?

 

[Mach5]

I would think that the intake gasket issue would not be a problem on an inline 4 like the 2.2L; it would tend to show up on a V6 or V8.

 

[Ryan00TJ]

Hey your UOA looks kinda similar to my Mother's old 3.8L..... http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=001921#000000

I went with a Dorman replacement intake manifold to fix the problem. She sold the car not too long after so we never really got to see from a UOA if it fixed the leak or not.

It's not a DexCool problem on this motor. I've seen many LS1's over 100K on Dexcool with no problems. It's simply a bad engine design that routes a hot EGR tube through a plastic intake manifold.

m22oob, The replacement of the intake manifold is not hard at all if your mechanically inclined.

 

[Gary Allan]

But isn't Dexcool more destructive when a intake leak occurs? Isn't it something to do with the sili-something or other

 

[T-Keith]

Ryan00TJ I have been through this problem as well. The LOWER intake gaskets failed. The EGR tube was just fine when I replaced the lower intake gasket at 100k. 200 miles later the EGR tube burns out. I replaced it with a Dorman one and again is burns out shortly after. The problem IMO, is when an air pocket gets trapped in the upper intake. This problem is most likely DEXCOOL related, as was mine.

You likely cannot get "normal" green antifreeze. Everything is extended life now. I'm using that and changing it every 3 years. G05 is supposed to be good stuff as well.

 

[T-Keith]

To all the GM bashers. Show me a UOA with a strong antifreeze leak and only 6ppm lead in a non-GM vehicle.

 

[ekpolk]

quote:

---

You gotta love the side effects of advancement of mulitple technolgies in concert with each other. All in perfect harmony I don't know how the world survived before Deathcool came on the market

---

"Deathcool" -- I like that, but I still like what the tech at my Buick dealership called it -- Rustcool. . .

 

[ekpolk]

Posted by T-Keith:

quote:

---

To all the GM bashers. Show me a UOA with a strong antifreeze leak and only 6ppm lead in a non-GM vehicle.

---

TK, I'm a lot more GM-friendly than the hardcore bashers, but I can't resist this bait. Answer: very difficult to comply, since so few of the others leak like the GM engines do. . .

 

[ekpolk]

. . .and a helpful post. There are aftermarket intakes that are supposed to be immune from these problems. Might be worth a look if you're going to act on this. Good luck with it either way.

 

[m2200b]

Thanks for the input on my girlfriend's leaky GM
3.8. I do her other GM 3.1 also and test them both whenever I see any coolant drop. GM pretty much earned these bad threads as it made this great motor fail from 1995 to 2003 before actually fixing it for most of its owners.

 

[Mackelroy]

somewhere on this site was a write up of known failures with the plastic intake and gasket combo. The result it wasn't the dexcool but the intake and gasket design combo itself. I had a 98 chev with dex cool and did have the intake leaks. But Toyota basically has the same antifreeze and does not have leaking issues. Afriend had the 454 chevy and had intake leaks as well.

I also have 38,000 on my motorcycle running strictly dexcool since new, no issues at all

It isn't dexcool, it's GM's design has poor seal

 

[Winston]

One of the components in Dexcool affects the plasticizers in plastic parts. OTOH I think Dexcool works well in most cars, unless they tend to leak coolant. Thus, it is probably a bad idea to put it in these wonderfull GM V6 engines.

 

[D189379]

So has GM fixed this gasket problem on the series 3 3800 engine?

 

[T-Keith]

Again it's a plastic gasket and DEXCOOL problem, so changing the upper intake will not help. However do not plug in the EGR until you are sure all the air bubbles are out of the system.

For some reason the newer intake gaskets are metal.