Dex-cool picture of the day

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JHZR2

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1998 Chevrolet S10 ZR2. Owned since new. Never let anything but water or Dex into the radiator and tank.

Dex replaced once prior in full. This was approximately 2002. I then did a suck out and refill in the radiator in 2006.

The system works fine. I did the TSB to replace the OEM radiator cap, as this is one of the 45 degree radiator necks that is notorious for letting air in and causing gunk.

Heat works great.

The pic is kind of lousy, but overall, it is super clean, not a hint of dex sludge, and the finned area looks pristine... I just took a quick shot with dirty hands, but it looks better in real life!

IMG_1770-01.jpg
 
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That stuff is clearly ruining your engine. You should get it out of there immediately.
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Nice pic, thanks for posting. That looks clean as a whistle. Looks like no Dex issues for you! Exact opposite of the other Dex pic posted on the other thread. It does make me wonder if there is something more than the blamed Dex issue going on in the other thread.
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i bought a used S-10 pick up last year with 77k miles, the radiator didnt look bad, but i changed the dex cool anyway so i had a good starting point for record keeping purposes.

i had no gunk or any other issues.
 
I didn't bother to take a picture, but when we bought my wife's '01 Chevy Lumina with 159,000 miles (and the original Dexcool), that cooling system was SPOTLESS. Not a trace of crud or any deposit in the engine or radiator. So I'll agree that when Dexcool works properly, it works great.

Problem is that it hasn't worked properly for tens of thousands... maybe hundreds of thousands of vehicles. If all (or even most) Dexcool systems looked like yours after 10 years, then GM wouldn't have lost that massive class-action lawsuit.
 
I just changed the thermostat on my 05 Chevy Trailblazer with the I6 engine. Approx. 52,000 miles. Everything looked clean as a whistle. I did take a couple of photos, but haven't downloaded them yet.
Yes, I flushed it with water and put new "Deathcool" stuff back in! This vehicle is almost 5 years old. Manufacture date of 11/04

As for the class action law suit, did GM actually "lose" it or did they settle it? Big difference.
 
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Originally Posted By: oldmaninsc
I just changed the thermostat on my 05 Chevy Trailblazer with the I6 engine. Approx. 52,000 miles. Everything looked clean as a whistle. I did take a couple of photos, but haven't downloaded them yet.
Yes, I flushed it with water and put new "Deathcool" stuff back in! This vehicle is almost 5 years old. Manufacture date of 11/04

As for the class action law suit, did GM actually "lose" it or did they settle it? Big difference.


What difference in the real world? If they settled that means they thought there was a good chance they would lose.
 
My 2004 Silverado's coolant overflow tank is spotless and has had the coolant flushed and replaced with dexcool last June. I am still going to do a total flush again and replace it with a G-05 spec coolant anyways.
 
Originally Posted By: XS650
Originally Posted By: oldmaninsc
I just changed the thermostat on my 05 Chevy Trailblazer with the I6 engine. Approx. 52,000 miles. Everything looked clean as a whistle. I did take a couple of photos, but haven't downloaded them yet.
Yes, I flushed it with water and put new "Deathcool" stuff back in! This vehicle is almost 5 years old. Manufacture date of 11/04

As for the class action law suit, did GM actually "lose" it or did they settle it? Big difference.


What difference in the real world? If they settled that means they thought there was a good chance they would lose.


Not necessarily. Often companies settle suits instead of spending millions of dollars to defend themselves.
Yes they may have thought they would "lose" but not necessarily think they were "wrong". Happens all the time!
 
Run Dexcool if that's what floats your boat. If you do a good job of maintaining the vehicle, change the stuff regularly, catch the leaky intake gaskets before the become too big of a problem, avoid the slightest leak, never allow the vehicle to even come close to overheating, and make [censored] sure that nobody EVER adds anything other than Dexcool to the system... then you PROBABLY won't experience the same nasty sludge that has affected thousands and thousands of other GM vehicles.

Not sure why you'd want to take the chance or what benefit you'll get out of it vs. G05... but it's your vehicle. Do whatchya want.
 
Originally Posted By: onion
Run Dexcool if that's what floats your boat. If you do a good job of maintaining the vehicle, change the stuff regularly, catch the leaky intake gaskets before the become too big of a problem, avoid the slightest leak, never allow the vehicle to even come close to overheating, and make [censored] sure that nobody EVER adds anything other than Dexcool to the system... then you PROBABLY won't experience the same nasty sludge that has affected thousands and thousands of other GM vehicles.

Not sure why you'd want to take the chance or what benefit you'll get out of it vs. G05... but it's your vehicle. Do whatchya want.


Maybe because I think that MOST of the problems with Dexcool are way overinflated! Many cars do NOT have problems with leaky intake gaskets, and in many cases I think the gaskets were more the problem than the coolant. That's my opinion - which I'm entitled to.
If my vehicle can go almost 5 years with Dexcool, and the stuff that comes out looks as good as the stuff going in - why would I change to something else? Doesn't make sense to me. If it isn't broke I'm not going to fix it.

Over the decades I've seen a lot of "nasty sludge" - clear back in the day BEFORE there were umpteen different coolant formulas. It used to be the decision for antifreeze was what brand to buy and who had the best price, not all these different colors and formulas.

I've drained the radiator of vehicles (that had the old green stuff in it) that it took about an hour to empty because there was so much ugly brown thick sludge.

Yeah there are "thousands and thousands" of GM vehicles that allegedly had a problem, (I still think it was more of a gasket design problem) but how many 10s or 100's of thousands that didn't! Mine being one of them.

I report back in April of 2014 with an update!
 
I will be replacing the O.E. coolant in my Sierra this summer and I am going to refill with Dexcool.

My take on Dexcool is - if you maintain the cooling system well then Dexcool works very well, if you neglect it then you could end up with big problems. I would never neglect the cooling system in my truck.

As to the merits of GM's decision to pick Dexcool and subsequent decision to stay with it, there are arguments on both sides. In the real world cars are frequently not properly maintained and perhaps this fact should have led GM to switch to another coolant.
 
Originally Posted By: XS650
Originally Posted By: oldmaninsc
I just changed the thermostat on my 05 Chevy Trailblazer with the I6 engine. Approx. 52,000 miles. Everything looked clean as a whistle. I did take a couple of photos, but haven't downloaded them yet.
Yes, I flushed it with water and put new "Deathcool" stuff back in! This vehicle is almost 5 years old. Manufacture date of 11/04

As for the class action law suit, did GM actually "lose" it or did they settle it? Big difference.


What difference in the real world? If they settled that means they thought there was a good chance they would lose.


I found the answer to my own question. GM settled the lawsuit.

"GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said the company was not admitting any wrongdoing but is settling the case to cut down on legal bills.
"Our experience with Dex-Cool is that when the cooling system is kept full and properly maintained we haven't seen any problems," he said. "These kinds of things appear to be issues of low coolant, which isn't unusual with high-mileage vehicles, so we decided to agree to the settlement."

http://www.greenflagauto.com/comments.php?catid=1&shownews=322

Also I find interesting that ALL the vehicles in the class action settlement had a V6 engine in them. It states several times :

Any of the above models sold with an engine other than a . . . V6 engine are not included and were not eligible to make a claim."
http://www.dexcoolsettlement.com/

Also I found this gem:

"In May 2003, Automotive Cooling Journal reported that "cooling systems filled with OAT are extremely vulnerable to problems triggered by low coolant levels and trapped air." GM has allegedly alerted mechanics that vehicles operated for 15,000 to 20,000 miles with low coolant levels may be susceptible to the formation of a rustlike material in the cooling system."

http://www.lawcash.com/attorney/2574/general-motors-lawsuit.asp

Any idiot that runs their coolant low for "15,000 to 20,000 miles" deserves to be hit with a large repair bill. That is on the average a years worth of driving.
 
Originally Posted By: onion
I didn't bother to take a picture, but when we bought my wife's '01 Chevy Lumina with 159,000 miles (and the original Dexcool), that cooling system was SPOTLESS. Not a trace of crud or any deposit in the engine or radiator. So I'll agree that when Dexcool works properly, it works great.

Problem is that it hasn't worked properly for tens of thousands... maybe hundreds of thousands of vehicles. If all (or even most) Dexcool systems looked like yours after 10 years, then GM wouldn't have lost that massive class-action lawsuit.


the reason i got rid of the wife's lumina was because of the lower intake manifold gasket leak....that thing drank coolant like crazy... the original dexcool was nasty but most likely due to the system not being sealed/and or gasket degradation. when researching it, there were tons of people convinced it was the dex, but i thought that if it was the dex, then all GM's would be in trouble, not a few particular models---the 3.1 v6. also believed to have a cam issue
 
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the original dexcool was nasty but most likely due to the system not being sealed/and or gasket degradation.


Likely true. But the fact is that NO OTHER MODERN COOLANT will create the same type or quantity of nasty sludge as you'll get with Dexcool. If ANYTHING in your cooling system is less than perfect, and you're running Dexcool... then you're taking a chance on sludging the whole cooling system.

So for folks who are not only 100% confident that they can keep every single component of their cooling system in pristine condition AND who don't mind the FACT that their coolant slowly dissolves certain gasket materials... then Dexcool is the stuff for you!

But for people who live in the real world, I'd suggest looking into alternatives. Several are available, and they're relatively trouble-free.
 
Originally Posted By: onion
Quote:
the original dexcool was nasty but most likely due to the system not being sealed/and or gasket degradation.


Likely true. But the fact is that NO OTHER MODERN COOLANT will create the same type or quantity of nasty sludge as you'll get with Dexcool. If ANYTHING in your cooling system is less than perfect, and you're running Dexcool... then you're taking a chance on sludging the whole cooling system.

So for folks who are not only 100% confident that they can keep every single component of their cooling system in pristine condition AND who don't mind the FACT that their coolant slowly dissolves certain gasket materials... then Dexcool is the stuff for you!

But for people who live in the real world, I'd suggest looking into alternatives. Several are available, and they're relatively trouble-free.


Show me proof of your statements. As I mentioned I've had Dexcool in my vehicle for almost 5 years. No leaks ANYWHERE and everything is clean. So how long before it starts eating my gaskets? Another year? 2 years? 20 years? LOL!

I understand you don't like the stuff, but all I've seen from you is your opinion. You ignore all the vehicles that have ran many years on the stuff and talk about all the vehicles that didn't go far.
This sounds a lot like the "Pennzoil causes sludge" way of thinking.
How about the original poster of this thread? How do you explain how clean his system is - after 11 years?
 
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The evidence has been posted on this site over and over. There's a link on one of these recent dexcool threads (I think the OP was by Critic. I'm not interested enough to look it up) that includes testimony given in the Dexcool lawsuit- to the effect that GM was well aware of Dexcool's incompatibility with certain gaskets AND the fact that Ford and Chrysler decided not to use Dexcool for exactly that reason.

As for the sludge issue... well- there's that class action lawsuit. Or better yet, just do a quick yahoo image search on "dex-sludge" and you'll get row after row of nasty sludge pictures. I've seen enough cases in person to convince me.
 
Originally Posted By: joel95ex
Originally Posted By: onion
I didn't bother to take a picture, but when we bought my wife's '01 Chevy Lumina with 159,000 miles (and the original Dexcool), that cooling system was SPOTLESS. Not a trace of crud or any deposit in the engine or radiator. So I'll agree that when Dexcool works properly, it works great.

Problem is that it hasn't worked properly for tens of thousands... maybe hundreds of thousands of vehicles. If all (or even most) Dexcool systems looked like yours after 10 years, then GM wouldn't have lost that massive class-action lawsuit.


the reason i got rid of the wife's lumina was because of the lower intake manifold gasket leak....that thing drank coolant like crazy... the original dexcool was nasty but most likely due to the system not being sealed/and or gasket degradation. when researching it, there were tons of people convinced it was the dex, but i thought that if it was the dex, then all GM's would be in trouble, not a few particular models---the 3.1 v6. also believed to have a cam issue



Like I said, my wife's lumina was a disaster, but the only engine I heard complaints on was the 3.1 V6 which is in several different vehicles like minivans and sedans.... I don't recall trucks being affected. I wasn;t gonna wait around for a lawsuit, i just flushed it and traded it. I really think it was a result of the system not being sealed since the LIM gasket was shot. they rededigned the gasket shortly after I traded the car.
 
Originally Posted By: onion
The evidence has been posted on this site over and over. There's a link on one of these recent dexcool threads (I think the OP was by Critic. I'm not interested enough to look it up) that includes testimony given in the Dexcool lawsuit- to the effect that GM was well aware of Dexcool's incompatibility with certain gaskets AND the fact that Ford and Chrysler decided not to use Dexcool for exactly that reason.

As for the sludge issue... well- there's that class action lawsuit. Or better yet, just do a quick yahoo image search on "dex-sludge" and you'll get row after row of nasty sludge pictures. I've seen enough cases in person to convince me.


Right. And I suppose you know the history of all those cases? How many people didn't check their coolant level, or added in various other coolants? You've seen enough - huh? LOL That's funny.
I've seen a LOT of vehicles and owned a couple that had no problems with Dexcool - even over 100K miles.

The class action lawsuit means NOTHING! Somebody had enough money to hire a lawyer. Big deal! And if Dexcool was sooo bad, why were only the V6 engines included in the lawsuit?

How many hundreds of thousands of V8 and 4,5 and straight 6 engines did GM make? Probably even into the millions?

I've replaced gaskets on cars with the V6 engines after people changed from Dexcool to another coolant. They still had the same problems. I'm just not convinced Dexcool is so bad. You just keep spouting your opinions, and you have done NOTHING to even come close to refuting it!

Actually, quite the opposite. Weren't you the one that said:
". . . but when we bought my wife's '01 Chevy Lumina with 159,000 miles (and the original Dexcool), that cooling system was SPOTLESS. Not a trace of crud or any deposit in the engine or radiator. So I'll agree that when Dexcool works properly, it works great."
Soooo - when does Dexcool start eating the gaskets and causing the sludge. At 160,000 miles? :)

End of discussion for me. Good luck!
 
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