So I just finished flushing my radiator and replacing my thermostat in my 89 RS 305 TBI, after I was done I put in the GM approved Dex Cool aantifreeze. Now I have a friend that is telling me ohh no are you sure you can use Dec Cool in your Camaro? So now he's got me all worried I'm going to ruin my Camaro with the Dec Cool in it. Is there anyone else out here that uses Dex Cool or should I flush it out and put something else in, if so what should I use??!!??!!??

 

Been using Dex-Cool for 11yrs now with no problems since my engine swap. Only changed the coolant twice and everything looked good.

 

GM has been using this coolant for how many years now? you will be fine, everyone has something bad to say about everything. yes there are a few people that blame their engine problems to dex but in the end GM is still putting it in cars from the factory. there is no way they would put coolant in their vehicle deliberately to cause problems.

 

There's an issue with Dexcool that hasn't been well documented, but I had this happen to my own 01 5.3 silverado. I had a heat issue two winters ago. If I kept the heat on low it was fine, but any higher it would taper off to nill. I called up my good friend who owns his own shop and ran it by him. He told me that Dexcool will gel if there's oxygen introduced into the system quite frequently. He said bring it in and we'd power flush it with his machine.

So I did and what I saw was amazing! There was literally chunks of this clear jello crap coming out of the system.....I've never seen anything like it! We flushed the entire system thus way and I'd venture to say there was a large Tupperware container full of that crud in my cooling system.

Now I don't know if this is just a northern thing because of the temperature variances, but I put in the Prestone all in one coolant and haven't had an issue since.

Personally I'll never use that garbage again.

 

Look at these....

http://www.leftlanenews.com/old-gm-s...ol-owners.html

http://www.imcool.com/articles/antif...l-macs2001.php

 

my father is a GM tech for 30+ years, numerous vehicles owned and built and none has been filled with anything other than dex, maybe we are just a bit but never had an issue

 

Works fine in these older motors, subject to 2 things:

1. The presence of any residue of the green stuff will produce the gel effect as well
2. It leaks more readily, specifically it will go through the typical paper / fiber gaskets, so you'll see it build up around all those; the one on the back of the WP, the water outlet, etc.

 

Mixing green & red coolant is a big NO unless you want problems.

 

REMEMBER noobs working at the fast lube (fill in names of places)
topping off with the green .... sweet!!

with out ever asking or looking to see it done...

then a month down the road you have probs...

got to love min paying jobs

 

I can't even find Dex-Cool anymore. Everything the stores sell here is green and compatible with both the old and the new styles.

 

I bought mine at Walmart. 12 bucks

 

FYI, Most of the "all makes all models" coolants are the same coolant as dexcool, they just color it gold or yellow. Prestone all makes is the same chemistry as dexcool.
I have seen dexcool gel up like you say, but is normally in very neglected systems. If you read your service manual, the dex cool is good for the first 5 years or 100k miles. Then 3 years and 60k thereafter.

You said you had an issue with your 01 2 years ago, that's about 5 years over due for a coolant flush!
Don't neglect your cooling and blame the coolant!
Dex cool will not harm your 3rd gen, I would only say don't mix it with the old coolant. If your going to switch, do a full coolant flush so you have all one type of coolant in your system.
I run Peak global Lifetime coolant in my 86 T/A, it is an extended life coolant, but a different chemistry than dexcool. It is one of the best coolants on the market right now.

 

Dexcool came out in the mid 90's, so i'm pretty sure he wasn't using it before then..

personally, i won't put that crap in anything i own. the green stuff has a long track record of working without any issues since approximately the time Moses was parting the Red Sea, and the DexCool has a nice track record of causing problems in less than 2 decades of use..

 

At the time my truck only had 55,000 miles. I never neglect my vehicles, if anything I'm a little over the top with my vehicle maintenance of my vehicles.....ask my wife! Every oil change I check every greasable joint on the vehicle, even the new crappy non- greasable ball joints and such.

Everybody has their own opinions and experiences. I'm just stating mine. My good friend who owns a very prosperous shop for being an honest guy stated it gelled because every time I check my fluids I would introduce air into the system, causing the issues I had.

 

In a GM car 96 and up used Deathcool as a factory fill !

 

Neither my Suburban, Cierra nor Bonneville had problems running Dexcool, and they were well past 200k when I got rid of them.
I also had run in in my Cherokee, for about 75k with one flush within that time. It actually ran cooler than it did on conventional AF.

IMHO it's all about how we keep up our cars; never heard of problems when people actually checked their own fluids and made sure they were full

 

This is correct I would never use dex cool because of all the known issues with it. I had a 2003 corvette Z06 that was only 4 years old with around 10k miles on it and it developed a leak at the water pump gasket. I took all the dex cool out and just replace it with prestone after reading the horror storys on the net. There are people who have had problems and the there are people that will eventually have problems.