modern coolants: Rotella ELC NF, Peak Final Charge (Global vs Pro?) or stick with Dexcool

J

johnmyster

Joined
Aug 4, 2015
Messages
379
Location
VA
I recently garden hose flushed the new-to-us 2014 Ram w/ Cummins and went back in with Prestone Dexcool. I suspected the coolant was 10-yr old factory fill, but may have been changed when prior owner did the turbo actuator. It was orange and the cap said "OAT" so I figured dexcool was the right stuff. The prestone bottle for dexcool says it is good for 2013+ FCA, so that's what I did. I do not have dexcool phobia, as it functioned fine in all my prior vehicles.

Come to find out, Mopar/Fiat Purple is the recommended stuff and Mopar Orange is/was G-05 HOAT (?) and I was ignorant to the deal.

I need to take the system back down to redo the famous upper radiator hose (road repair to get us home) and debating doing the lower hose and the water pump (for good measure) while I have it down. I will not use the dealer-only Fiat purple, and liked the ubiquitous availability of Dexclone orange OATs.

CONCERN: These trucks are known for silicate/sludge plugging of the heater core. Dash removal is required for heater core replacement. Mine seems fine, but would like to keep it that way long term. There is minor scale/residue on the ID of non-rubber passages that I've seen of the system and would like to prevent further buildup.

QUESTION: Do I keep it with Dexcool or go with a "commercial truck" coolant.

@2EHA
 
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Look into the John Deere coolant. I'm not familiar with your diesel but the JD stuff is well respected by the diesel truck community it seems.
 
What is the mileage?

There was some pathetic green stuff in my 2003 when I was restoring it and I replaced it with Rotella ELC, its been happy ever since. I am impressed with how long ELC supposedly lasts.

I'm not as familiar with 6.7's, but for 5.9 automatics there is a hose on the back of the engine for a trans cooler that would need inspection. I agree, do the lower hose and water pump pro-actively. I was impressed with the AC Delco water pump.

John Deere coolant is great too if a bit more pricey.
 
thastinger said:
Look into the John Deere coolant. I'm not familiar with your diesel but the JD stuff is well respected by the diesel truck community it seems.
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Many diesel applications have the additional hurdle of dealing with liner cavitation, a non-issue for the parent-bore diesel engines (typically) used in light-duty pickups. As such, some of the chemistry required for big trucks, equipment, and tractors is n/a for our application.

Sludging and blocking of oil coolers, and heater cores has been a vulnerability of some trucks (6.7 cummins, 6.0 PSD, etc.) and as such, has driven the paranoia of coolant selection, on top of OEMs (ford, gm, and fiat) wanting to use the same coolant they use in the rest of their cars.
 
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cptbarkey said:
What is the mileage?

There was some pathetic green stuff in my 2003 when I was restoring it and I replaced it with Rotella ELC, its been happy ever since. I am impressed with how long ELC supposedly lasts.

I'm not as familiar with 6.7's, but for 5.9 automatics there is a hose on the back of the engine for a trans cooler that would need inspection. I agree, do the lower hose and water pump pro-actively. I was impressed with the AC Delco water pump.

John Deere coolant is great too if a bit more pricey.
Click to expand...
Mileage is 80k.

I have a Cummins post-recall water pump under the back seat, should I have to do it in a campground somewhere. Instead, it was the upper radiator plastic y-pipe (dual radiator setup specific to 2013 and 2014) that bit me. My truck has a typical trans cooler setup: oil-water in the primary radiator outlet tank plus oil-air in the #3 position of the cooling stack.

Why did you select ELC vs others, including ELC NF?
 
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Price for the concentrate was really my only deciding factor at $18 a gallon. There were also a few positive anecdotes here on the forums.

 
Diesels are different. Supposedly they can suffer cavitation around the bore from the expanding and contracting due to firing under heavy load. The heavy duty diesel engine coolants have a nitrate or nitride additives that somehow counter this.
Other countermeasure are run 60% water being in Virginia it's doesn't get real cold no worries about freezing. More water cuts the viscosity. Lower coolant viscosity, less cavitation.
And higher pressure radiator cap.
Other considerations, if you're not running under heavy load for hours and hours on end for hundreds of thousands of miles, it may not do enough damage to ever make a difference.....
 
@johnmyster
I hear good things about Final Charge.

Don't use garden hose water, it leaves deposits. Use distilled or RO water.

Dexcool is an organic acid technology (OAT) extended life coolant. IMO good stuff.

I run Dexcool in all my gasoline powered vehicles, and have done so for as long as I can remember. Never a problem, but I dump and refill every 3-4 yrs.

My only diesel engine is a 12.7L Detroit. I'm currently running an OAT coolant called Detroit Diesel Power Cool Plus. Its simular to Dexcool but for HD diesels with liners. I don't know if your diesel has liners or not.

Oh, and as always, what does the owners manual say :)
 
jetman said:
@johnmyster
I hear good things about Final Charge.

Don't use garden hose water, it leaves deposits. Use distilled or RO water.

Dexcool is an organic acid technology (OAT) extended life coolant. IMO good stuff.

I run Dexcool in all my gasoline powered vehicles, and have done so for as long as I can remember. Never a problem, but I dump and refill every 3-4 yrs.

My only diesel engine is a 12.7L Detroit. I'm currently running an OAT coolant called Detroit Diesel Power Cool Plus. Its simular to Dexcool but for HD diesels with liners. I don't know if your diesel has liners or not.

Oh, and as always, what does the owners manual say :)
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Those Cummins don't have cylinder liners.
 
The 2013+ trucks uses purple OAT, which turns orange.

I've read (for what it's worth) that Dexcool works well.

In the near future, I wanted to flush the heater core on my 2017 3500 and was looking up compatible coolants.
 
jetman said:
@johnmyster
I hear good things about Final Charge.

Don't use garden hose water, it leaves deposits. Use distilled or RO water.

Dexcool is an organic acid technology (OAT) extended life coolant. IMO good stuff.

I run Dexcool in all my gasoline powered vehicles, and have done so for as long as I can remember. Never a problem, but I dump and refill every 3-4 yrs.

My only diesel engine is a 12.7L Detroit. I'm currently running an OAT coolant called Detroit Diesel Power Cool Plus. Its simular to Dexcool but for HD diesels with liners. I don't know if your diesel has liners or not.

Oh, and as always, what does the owners manual say :)
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FC Global and FC Pro seem to be different things. Then there's the JD Coolant, Zerex HD, and Rotella. My head spins.

I do use distilled.

I do flushes with the garden hose. I break the system at any accessible junctions, flush through the block, the radiator(s), the heater core, the EGR cooler, turbo, etc. After every segment I can get to runs clean in both directions, I blow the system down with compressed air to get as much water out as possible, I reassemble. I then fill 50% of system volume of concentrate, and then balance with distilled. Over the next few drives, as the system burps and mixes I monitor using hygrometer and top off to get where I want with either concentrate or distilled.

If I do take this system down again to do a water pump and/or lower coolant hose tee, I'll do an additional flush with something like Ford VC-1 or Fleetguard Restore Plus, since these trucks are known for silicate/deposit sludging of the heater cores.

The manual says to use Fiat proprietary purple, which appears to be an OAT without 2EHA. It was adopted in 2013 for all FCA vehicles, not specifically because it was good for this truck. That said, these trucks are known for silicate/deposit sludging of the heater cores, and I'd rather use something that I can find one the road if needed, so you do the math. I'm willing to carry a gallon of concentrate in the camper, in case I have a repeat of this weekend, but I can't be a rolling parts house. I've got a low mileage example, and I'm proactive about maintenance.
 
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BrianF said:
The 2013+ trucks uses purple OAT, which turns orange.

I've read (for what it's worth) that Dexcool works well.

In the near future, I wanted to flush the heater core on my 2017 3500 and was looking up compatible coolants.
Click to expand...
So your 2017 truck factory fill is (now) orange?
 
It's definitely not purple! From what I last saw, it's kind of a rusty orangey.... I'll see if I remember to snag some photos of the degas.
 
oil pan 4 said:
Diesels are different. Supposedly they can suffer cavitation around the bore from the expanding and contracting due to firing under heavy load. The heavy duty diesel engine coolants have a nitrate or nitride additives that somehow counter this.
Other countermeasure are run 60% water being in Virginia it's doesn't get real cold no worries about freezing. More water cuts the viscosity. Lower coolant viscosity, less cavitation.
And higher pressure radiator cap.
Other considerations, if you're not running under heavy load for hours and hours on end for hundreds of thousands of miles, it may not do enough damage to ever make a difference.....
Click to expand...
This is a problem for wet sleeved engines and not cast in block ones
 
I don’t have w sword in this fight, from what I know, Rotella is a straight OAT, without nitrite. If we’re talking the new Pro-Series Final Charge(BTW, I’m using it in light-duty Toyota applications - no 2-EHA is a big plus for RTV longevity, though newer sealants are more resistant to it), it’s a HD take on pHOAT that has the blessing of Cummins and Detroit Diesel. Prestone Command Cor-Guard is in a similar vein. The whole reason why Prestone went with pHOAT but pushed it hard on the consumer side is because of controlled atmosphere brazing, and phosphates offered the best protection for those. They’re also more stable than nitrite/borate but they don’t tolerate hard water. The OATs do protect without the need for SCAs to fortify regular IAT green. Ford is running Dex/Prestone in all the things, Cummins/CAT likes NF OAT, Detroit is aligned with what Mercedes uses in cars to a point.

If it was me with a diesel pickup, I’d have no problem running Final Charge Pro-Series or Prestone Command Cor-Guard.
 
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