I learned first hand that regular green antifreeze and red Dexcool eat engine bearings upon the slightest contact.
Dexcool not only is blamed for eating away your intake gaskets and then leaking into your oil thus causing bearing failure in short order, but it is blamed for eating head gaskets to the point of leaking and blowing and it is blamed for eating holes in non-brass OEM freeze plugs. I read somewhere that there are about 4 BILLION dollars worth of pending lawsuits against GM for the Dexcool fiasco. Look it up on Google or Dogpile.com for yourself... search for "dexcool class action" or "dexcool lawsuit".
With some GM motors like the 3.1L V6 and the Vortec smallblocks, coolant leaking into the crankcase is just a matter of time. So why gamble with bearing dissolving ethylene glycol?
I have found that Propylene Glycol is the way to go. Propylene Glycol is found in Peak's Sierra brand coolant, Prestone's Low-Tox brand and is the only coolant that Amsoil sells. Propylene Glycol is also used in most deoderant sticks as a moisture binder and in Purell hand disinfectant among many other uses including use in some foods! It will not kill you if you drink it and it is bitter to the taste so your cat or dog will take no intrest in it. It does not kill fish and is not very harmful to the enviroment.
Never drink any Propylene Glycol based coolant tho, the rust inhibitors and water pump lubricant additives are what will make you so sick that you will wish you had ingested ethylene glycol instead.
Propylene Glycol is not good for your crank, rod and cam bearings but it is several hundred times less corrosive to them than ethylene glycol. You have lots more time to discover it is leaking into your crankcase BEFORE severe damage occurs. Maybe months longer?
Propylene Glycol coolants are a little more efficient than ethylene glycol because it has a little less viscosity. It robs a little less horsepower to pump it. The heat transfer is almost identical between the two.
The downside? You need about 67% Propylene Glycol and 33% water to equal a 50/50 mix of ethylene glycol in terms of freezing and maximum boil over protection.
Sierra and Low-Tox go for about $10 a gallon in Atlanta, nearly the same as most Ethylene Glycol coolants.
I use Amsoil's Propylene Glycol clear yellow that costs about $25 a gallon because it is rated for 7 years or 250,000 miles in a gas engine and 750,000 miles in a big rig.
My question is, who can test my Propylene Glycol mixture from time to time so that I will know my cooling system is in good order? I have the Sierra brand propylene glycol percentage tester that Pep Boys sells so I know my mixture is the right percentage... but I'd like to test this coolant every 3 or 4 years and maybe 100,000-150,000 miles or so to make sure it is still good.
Dexcool not only is blamed for eating away your intake gaskets and then leaking into your oil thus causing bearing failure in short order, but it is blamed for eating head gaskets to the point of leaking and blowing and it is blamed for eating holes in non-brass OEM freeze plugs. I read somewhere that there are about 4 BILLION dollars worth of pending lawsuits against GM for the Dexcool fiasco. Look it up on Google or Dogpile.com for yourself... search for "dexcool class action" or "dexcool lawsuit".
With some GM motors like the 3.1L V6 and the Vortec smallblocks, coolant leaking into the crankcase is just a matter of time. So why gamble with bearing dissolving ethylene glycol?
I have found that Propylene Glycol is the way to go. Propylene Glycol is found in Peak's Sierra brand coolant, Prestone's Low-Tox brand and is the only coolant that Amsoil sells. Propylene Glycol is also used in most deoderant sticks as a moisture binder and in Purell hand disinfectant among many other uses including use in some foods! It will not kill you if you drink it and it is bitter to the taste so your cat or dog will take no intrest in it. It does not kill fish and is not very harmful to the enviroment.
Never drink any Propylene Glycol based coolant tho, the rust inhibitors and water pump lubricant additives are what will make you so sick that you will wish you had ingested ethylene glycol instead.
Propylene Glycol is not good for your crank, rod and cam bearings but it is several hundred times less corrosive to them than ethylene glycol. You have lots more time to discover it is leaking into your crankcase BEFORE severe damage occurs. Maybe months longer?
Propylene Glycol coolants are a little more efficient than ethylene glycol because it has a little less viscosity. It robs a little less horsepower to pump it. The heat transfer is almost identical between the two.
The downside? You need about 67% Propylene Glycol and 33% water to equal a 50/50 mix of ethylene glycol in terms of freezing and maximum boil over protection.
Sierra and Low-Tox go for about $10 a gallon in Atlanta, nearly the same as most Ethylene Glycol coolants.
I use Amsoil's Propylene Glycol clear yellow that costs about $25 a gallon because it is rated for 7 years or 250,000 miles in a gas engine and 750,000 miles in a big rig.
My question is, who can test my Propylene Glycol mixture from time to time so that I will know my cooling system is in good order? I have the Sierra brand propylene glycol percentage tester that Pep Boys sells so I know my mixture is the right percentage... but I'd like to test this coolant every 3 or 4 years and maybe 100,000-150,000 miles or so to make sure it is still good.