Dex-Cool vs. Regular Coolant

[TheV6Bird]

What is the difference between the two? This question kinda popped in my head, and you could never have too much knowledge, right? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Jason S]

dex-cool is suppose to cool that car a little more efficeintly, suppose to be harder to get hot i think, and it lasts a little longer. only prob is, it costs more than regular so when my water pump died, i converted over to regular coolant, and frankly my car runs a little cooler.

[Blizzard96]

Dex-Cool is silicate-free...

Green coolant has silicates...

I've heard both sides, but supposedly the green
is bad for cars that use Dex-Cool.

I just play it safe and stick with the Dex-Cool...

[chas]

i am not sure if one is better than the other as far as cooling. as previously mention green antifreeze use silicates to provide corrosion protection. the silicates also shorten the life of the water pump bearings/seals. green also has a short life -- 30,000 miles (24 months).

red uses 'organic acid techonology' to provide corrosion protection. this is supposedly to cause less wear on the water pump and its seals. it is also supposed to last 150,000 miles in 'normal service'. i find this difficult to believe. but when i did drain and refill at 60,000 miles it looked pretty good. still think i will drain/refill every other year.

[Magnus]

I use the green stuff... It's supposed to cool better. I use a 70/30 coolant/water mix.

I ONLY use distilled water. I'm also flushing quite frequently.

[OneQuickV6]

I have heard it said that the green stuff was known to cause more corrosion in aluminum stuff, such as heads, block, and radiators.

[TheV6Bird]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Magnus:
I ONLY use distilled water.<hr></blockquote>How many gallons do you use for a change?

[JAM]

If your car requires the newer dexcool you should use it. Maybe I am wrong, but I have heard that if you do not use the correct coolant it may cause extra wear on internal parts, and corode faster.

[Magnus]

If you switch from the orange to green stuff you have to do a COMPLETE flush.. I mean COMPLETE.. Run water though the system for a LONG time. Perhaps even pull the knock sensors to drain that location as well.

If you mix green with orange you get solid brown. Not good!

I think I used about 1 gallon of distilled water and 2 gallons of coolant (off the top of my head).

[99Camaro]

switching from dexcool to the regular coolant is bad for the vehicle. the dexcool has a different additive package in it compared to the green..i have seen the results of people switching over and its not pretty i wouldnt recommend it at all...yes the dexcool is a little more expensive but you can run it for 100k miles instead of 30k...

[Magnus]

Well ya, Dexcool is supposed to be long life.. Although I have heard MANY horror stories of dexcool completely eating the radiators up.

My coolatn gets flushed all the time. I'm weird like that. Just yesterday I drained a gallon of coolant. :(

[LHD]

Ok heres the skinny on it.

The dex cool is silicate free. Silicates basically are a type of water soluble lubricants. They do a fine job of lubricating the important stuff (ie waterpump) but they're tuff on aluminum, mainly the radiator. Heat cycles help brake down the silacates as well. Thats why the green stuff needs to be changed every 30k miles or so.

So then you have the silacate free dexcool style orange/brown. As was said earlier it uses an organic acid (not unlike citris) to perform its lubrication. The down side here is that silacate free antifreeze is a noticably thinner than the green stuff. This means that when you mix it with water its thinner and thus lowers the specific heat that can be absorbed. Also the "organic acid" technology that they use is not too kind to the gaskets they use in 90% of the gm cars. This is the reason that so many intake gaskets fail around the 60k mile mark.

Now should you have nice copper gaskets and an aluminum radiator you could use the dexcool with out worry, or should you have normal gaskets and a copper radiator (although more costly) you could use the old school green.