Quit using Dex-Cool

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Dex-Cool ate the intake gasket in my GMC Yukon. It also ate the oil cooler in my wife's Saturn V6. Both cars have green antifreeze in them now and have a lot more miles than when they ran with the orange junk. We'll be buying a new SUV next month and I'll be changing antifreeze but quick.




Dex had zero to do with your yukons intake gaskets failing. I can guess the plastic carrier cracked where the silicon seal was imprinted and caused it to shift. I have changed over 5 sets of these gaskets on different vehicles and it is usually the same thing everytime. Now and then you actually get a failure at the intake valve area and use oil like mad.

Go ahead and change the anti-freeze but it is my guess you will void the warranty on the cooling system.

Orange junk...No it is like perfom preventive maintenance. With the intake gaskets that was bad engineering on GM's part.

If Dex is so bad how do you explain the thousands of vehicles on the road with zero problems?



How do you explain the oil cooler on the Saturn? The plastic was not cracked. The silicone seal around the water port was worn away. I changed it myself. I've put 120,ooo more miles on the truck with that gasket in place and no more problem. I change coolant in both vehicles every fall.




I don't own a saturn but I would sure look for any TSB's to explain it and get it fixed. But it appears to me that you wanted it done for free out of the warranty cycle. You and me both know that happens rarely if ever.

But since you said the gasket was worn away how do you explain DEX doing it?
 
BC , NYE, BJ5 ,
So far , with a very flawed search and a very limited one at that , I have not found anything related .... yet . No recall , no complaints no investigations and no cluster/posts that fit the 98 Yukon , and the 2001 Saturn Vue as described . Of what is doable from here I only have about 30% done so gotta get the other 70% before I would draw any conclusions - hope to do this tomorrow . NYE , I'm not here to beat up your posting - but that said , I've had outstanding results using DEX since it came out including in installations that I expected to have a problem with . You could say I'm still trying to find where you should not go with DEX . BJ5 , do you have any of those TSBs or blog discussions your post references , and if so , do they specifically cover a 5.7L 98 Yukon ? If they do would you please post them or their number ? BC , BJ5 for now lets just stick to NYEs 1998 Yukon - expand later if useful . ( With what I've got to work with its to d*** inefficient for me to look around at all possible 5.7L installs at once . NYE , what age ie time on both at mileage stated . Anything else coolant history related ?
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NYE,
Just got this one , so make above 30 to 15% . You know , for all the time I've been around tranny coolers of what ever sort etc , I've seen plenty where some aspect of the cooler itself was SNAFU so how did you eliminate all the possible failure paths ? ( Also disregard above references to Vue . )
 
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NYE ,
I don't know why I thought you had a Vue , my apologies for screwing up both year and model .
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Just to confirm : 2001 Saturn L300 4DR 3.1L V6 75, 000 miles @failure . Age at failure TBD .
Just in case , This is A/T right ?
 
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julian ,
Yeah , that could matter and how . This is why I beginning to question trying to get technical in some of these posts -lack of even the barest information and then people disappear . Maybe we need an example of how to post the min. info needed and some sort of semi half assed standardised format ?
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Its not just the overcooling , but its the overcooling plus all the other that paints the picture . There are some ugly possibilities .
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When mixing coolant and water use deionized water. Heard this from a guy who sells oil and coolant. Distilled is good but, deionized is the best water to mix coolant with.
 
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NYE ,
I don't know why I thought you had a Vue , my apologies for screwing up both year and model .
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Just to confirm : 2001 Saturn L300 4DR 3.1L V6 75, 000 miles @failure . Age at failure TBD .
Just in case , This is A/T right ?




Yes, you're exactly right. The car was approx. four years old at time of failure.
 
After 6 1/2 years (bought new) I finally was able to get my antifreeze changed, also with hoses and thermostat. I bought the orangeyellow capped Peak 50/50 at Advance thinking it was Dex-Cool. The mechanic whom put it in for me (I looked over the procedure in Chilton and under the hood and decided it was a bit too involved.) said that It will be ok to use the stuff I bought, and he likes the green better also. I also had provided a bottle of the Super Flush, so I'll not have to be concerned about any ill effects he said. I am going to hopefully trade this car in in another 2 or three years anyway.
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My '98 K1500 with the 5.7L vortech (same engine as a '97 Yukon unless the yukon had the 4.3) had LIM gasket failure. When I was reading chev truck bulletin boards at the time, it seemed like 3/4 of owners were having this same problem (and the other 1/4 just didn't know it).

It was such a big problem, there were TSB's posted, strategies for getting GM to fix them outside warranty, and DIY's of how to do it if you couldn't get a remedy from GM.




JIM 5 ,
Went to my local public library and used Alldata .
Found nothing in there TSB or other wise to support this post in regards to either a 1998 Yukon or a 1997 Yukon . Maybe I missed something .
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I did not look up any other in regards to these TSBs you mention .
If its not too much to ask , would you mind providing something in the way of a TSB # ?
If you can't find it either , how about a link to a forum as you mentioned that discusses this as you described ? At this point , I'd be interested in any year , any 5.7 , any vehicle .
 
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NYE ,
I don't know why I thought you had a Vue , my apologies for screwing up both year and model .
color.gif

Just to confirm : 2001 Saturn L300 4DR 3.1L V6 75, 000 miles @failure . Age at failure TBD .
Just in case , This is A/T right ?




Yes, you're exactly right. The car was approx. four years old at time of failure.




Well ...., I'm not so sure of that . In looking this thread over , ..... should be ;

2001
Saturn
L300
( 4DR Sedan )
( " 3.1L V6 " )
AT
Age @ ENGINE oil cooler failure : 4Years
Mileage @ " " " " : 60,000 Miles
 
How do you explain the oil cooler on the Saturn? The plastic was not cracked. The silicone seal around the water port was worn away. I changed it myself. I've put 120,ooo more miles on the truck with that gasket in place and no more problem. I change coolant in both vehicles every fall.

NYE , so the silicone seal around the water port references the Yukon and not the Saturn correct ?
IE , could read ;
How do you explain the oil cooler on the Saturn ? And , how do you explain that on the Yukon the plastic was not cracked .............
 
NYE ,
I also looked up the Saturn on Alldata . Nothing that directly covers what you had happen .
I think Buzzcut's idea that you look over the TSBs for the Saturn are a good idea .
The reason why I say this is two fold .
1)It would take too much to type here .
2)The weight and feel of it , as well as one TSB and one nonTSB warning " strongly suggest " to me that " mixing " and " matching " various coolant fluids and additives are not necc . a good idea here . Like many Euro sourced engines of many kinds , they seem to have some very specific dos and don'ts in mind .

Let me put it this way ; if this was a familly members car and this happened I'd want to know everything about the maintanence history in general ,and the cooling system in particular .
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We've owned both vehicles since new.

The Yukon experienced lower manifold failure.

The 2001 Saturn L300 with 3.1 V6 lost it's internal oil cooler.

Throughout my life I've built offshore boat engines, diesel engines for generators, pumps, compressors, etc...
I've seen all sorts of parts failures. Sorry my grammar caused some confusion. I didn't mean to get everyone all crazy, I was just saying I don't use Dex Cool either and stating why.
 
This DEXCOOL hysteria seems to be all over the net. In truth it is simply mechanical failures or lack of maintenance. I have several hundred thousand miles on several vehicles and the cooling system looks almost spotless when I flush and refill. BTW don't buy into that 100-150k flush and refill interval, that's when you'll run
into problems. Use some common sense.
 
Yep , although I'v seen plenty at or even a little past 5 years - no problems what so ever .In fact I've deliberately tried to make something go bad with it plain and with WW - nothing . ( I'm excluding ones under the old TSB . )
I " think " people are getting some very specific incombatability issues . Ever time I've seen one wrong its always been something else - usually way too long , or the wrong kind of Green/DEX/Additive mix . And I 've caught I don't know how many people unintentionally mixing back in 96 thru 02 .
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I wish I knew the whole story on GM's decision to cease using DexCool as the exclusive factory fill last November (2006). Clearly the sheer volume of complaints followed by the class action lawsuits played a significant role in their decision. As I have not looked under the hood of any post November 06 assembled GM products I am curious to know if they went back to the old etylene glycol based green coolant.
 
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