Kost universal coolant..

[rcy]

Hi. Anyone heard of this stuff? Here's a link with some specs.

http://www.kostusa.com/wordDocs/9025.pdf

My van (1999 Dodge Caravan) came with green coolant in it. About a year ago, with the car being almost 4yrs old and never having had a coolant change, I flushed and filled it myself with Havoline Extended Life pre mixed coolant. This stuff says 'Dex Cool approved, but I'm not sure if it is Dex Cool. Anyway, after doing this, I developed an intake gasket leak and a recent UOA showed glycol in the oil. Now the gasket is metal, so I'm not sure if the leak is because of the coolant or just coincidence. Anyway, I had the system power flushed today and the shop that did it replaced it with the Kost Universal cooalant. This stuff is green in colour, but I don't think it's the traditional green stuff one could buy 15 years ago.

Is this stuff OK to use in my Caravan? Would the Havoline I had in there been OK, and the gasket leak just coincidental?

Thanks.

 

[Ray H]

About "DEX-COOL Approved" - if any brand antifreeze/coolant concentrate is identified as "DEX-COOL Approved", a licensing fee has been paid to GM for use of that company's trademark. "DEX-COOL" is a GM trademarked performance specification, NOT a specific formulation*. As it turns out, GM doesn't make antifreeze. Had you gone to a GM dealership and forked over $16.00 for a gallon of Mr. Goodwrench DEX-COOL Antifreeze, you'd have gotten exactly the same juice you bought under the Havoline name simply because Havoline is the supplier and bottler of the Mr. Goodwrench product. The Havoline/Mr. Goodwrench DEX-COOL antifreeze has been implicated in gasket chemical incompatiblities on certain pre-2000 models - especially in the presence of air in the cooling system. And, not just GM engines. On the other hand, had you bought Prestone's, or Peak's, or Zerex's "DEX-COOL Approved" antifreeze, they're somewhat different formulations, but still licensed as meeting GM's performance specifications for warranty purposes. Being somewhat different chemically, they may or may not be compatible in engines of those suspect model years.

Without researching the various OEM specs in that product spec. sheet for the Kost antifreeze (even though it's green, not pee yellow [used in current Fords], or orange [used in current Mopars], but both chemically identical), the presence of nitrites, low silicate content, and no phosphates suggests that this stuff might be a G-05 clone (that and the Cummins acceptance for heavy-duty diesel applications). Seems from my read that this Kost juice is a good alternative for your Mopar.

*This past summer, Prestone and WalMart both introduced "universal" extended life antifreeze/coolants that were NOT identified as "DEX-COOL Approved" and priced commenserately lower. Carefully reading the ingredients list on the backs of these jugs identified them as having identical chemistry with the previously available Prestone "DEX-COOL Approved" product. However, both the new cheapies are dyed green, not orange. These are non-licensed "dexcool" generics for all practical purposes. The WalMart product uses exactly the same alpha-numeric coding protocol as used on the Prestone jugs which suggests to me that WalMart's product is made for the retailing giant by Prestone and shipped in bulk to Alsip Packaging in Illinois for bottling under WalMart's SuperTech label. I was sufficiently confident in my casual sleuthing that I used the new WalMart antifreeze for a changeout in my aluminum blocked Sonata V6, six months ago. No problems so far.