Running Dex - Peak mix

[OriginHacker21]

2004 2.2L Ecotec 140horses. (Pontiac Sunfire) - 69955 miles (99% highway).

Currently running a Dexcool + peak antifreeze (50/50) mix. Basically what happened was: pulled the plug on my radiator - out came 4 qts of pumpkin orange crack with tons of floating rust? particles. I cleaned out the plastic reservoir. Then dumped about 2 gallons of water through the radiator. Then put in a whole 1 gal (4 qts) of Peak coolant in (pre-mixed).

My manual states that engine holds bout 8-10 quarts of coolant. So my guess is - the 4 other quarts are still in the engine. Yes, I know - I spent 3 hours (seriously) looking around for an engine coolant drain plug but couldn't find it.

Turned on engine - drove around the block till engine temperature went up - parked in garage - turned the cap to let out the air - checked coolant level = still the same (near full) - and it still had its pretty bright green color.


Question: How long should I run before doing another drain/fill? Any comments? Thanks - Paul

 

[edhackett]

Drain, flush and refill as soon as you can. If the Peak antifreeze is a conventional formulation, the anti-corrosion additives are incompatible with the Dexcool additives. Each type depends on a certain level of additive to provide corrosion protection. Your mix has diluted each additive type to a level where neither will provide adequate protection.

Ed

 

[The Critic]

Buddy, what did you do this time?

The vehicle holds 8.7 qt of coolant total.

The easiest way to flush the system in this case is to drain the radiator and refill with water, as it will remove about 45% of the system fluid volume. Run the car until the mixture circulates, and repeat three times. This will leave you with about 15% of the old mix in the system...equating to about 7% pure antifreeze.

At this point, dump in a full gallon of concentrate Prestone DexCool (silver jug) or the Prestone All Makes All Models fluid (familiar yellow jug) and top-up with as much water as you can...then you would have a 50/50 mixture.

You can mix DEX-COOL with conventional GREEN, NON extended-life antifreeze just fine, but you will limit the working life of your new mixture to that of the conventional coolant. In short, you new "mix" will need another drain and fill in 2-3 yr/30k miles, unless you flush everything out as I instructed, then you'll be able to go the full 5-yr/150k miles or so.

 

[wiswind]

Make a visit to Peak's website to find out what you put in.
They have an excellent website....and they sell several types of coolant.....and list a lot of information on each one.
What you put in could be a "traditional green" or their "universal"
If it is a silicate and phosphate free coolant....it will be pretty close to the Dexcool that is in there.

 

[toocrazy2yoo]

Take it from the Critic. Couple of distilled flushes, re-fill with Prestone DexCool. We're ALL assuming the cooling system is tight? RayH likes the SuperTech Dexcool clone, he's been running that in some pretty severe conditions for pert-neer 3 years.

 

[OriginHacker21]

Many thanks to TheCritic and everyone else who provided information.

I drained the radiator - flushed it (poured about 1 gal of water through) - filled it up with water - drove around till car got hot. Drained radiator - flushed with water - filled with water - drove around till car got hot. Did this 1 more time for a total of 3 times. The third time - you could barely see any green in the coolant - but you could see the rust? specs of whatever was in there...

Then put in pure Peak (not mix) - after that 1 gal - it wouldn't take anymore fluid - it is about half of a inch over the full mark - drove that 5 miles - checked again - still at mark.

Tomorrow I start my 220 mile/day driving again (work).

Noticed that the engine is averaging around 184F whereas before it averaged 195F. Also, before all this - I could park my car and leave the engine running and the temperature would climb up to 225+ rather quickly (turning on the high fan cooling it down to 200F). Now, after all this - I had my car sitting for about 2 mins and it held at 188F. !!!

Very happy.

Thank you all for everything. Places around here wanted close to $100 for a coolant flush/service.

-Paul

 

[mazduh30]

Remember to test the freeze point and Ph(-34c with a Ph of 9.5-10) 50/50 use distill water since it is Ph neutral.
Too much coolant is a bad thing.

 

[OriginHacker21]

How do you test the freeze point? Live in CA here - winter gets down to 50F(brr).

I assume I need some chemical testing stuff for the PH level.