Do I need to Backflush the system?

[Need4Camaro]

My Dex Cool turned into Dex Crap and is just a bunch of brownish mud in my system, I flushed the radioator a few times but everytime I start the engine, boom it's back!... Brown antifreeze, I let it run for hours and couldn't get it all out. It's not as brown as it used to be but I don't like the color of it at all...I used Prestone's "mix with any antifreeze". Am I going to need to backflush the system? Who can I get to do it and how much do I expect to pay?

[iGoRa]

You mean you have a brown mud on the radiator cap and walls??

[l1tech]

After this happens you need something short of a miracle to get rid of all the "mud". If you have ever torn down an engine that this has happened to you will find that you literally have to spoon the crap out of it. the best advice that I can give you is to keep flushing the system with nothing but water and then refill with regular (green) antifreeze/water.....but only after the old dex-cool ahs been throughly flushed

[96RS Alex]

I have the exact same problem as you do Need4Camaro but I cant do anything about it yet until I receive my Hypertech 160* thermostat in the mail. Im gettin concerned that I have to rip out my heater core also as I'm betting that it's packed with mud as well. However my 96 RS is running good for now & as they all say... don't fix anything that's not broken. I'll post my findings later this month, should be a good learning experience and save a ton of money in the process for mods later. I've seen many posts on this subject after doing a search and found it's not that hard to do but you need to have a lot of patience dealing with it. The part about the new Prestone mix you mentioned made me wonder if I should follow that or stick with DexCool like the owners manual says to but that's another debate! Hang in there man, I'm sure there's a better answer than mine.

[shenanigans]

honestly why the hell did they ever use this crap?

[l1tech]

If you understand how dexcool works and the proper way to take care of the system it is an outstanding coolant/protectant. the problem is that air breaks down the coolant and you get the resulting "mud" mixture.

[LwnGy83]

Dexcool sucks... as soon as I got my 97, I switched that crap out, b/c I had major problems w/ it in my 94. Just keep flushing it man. if you search, there is a good walk through on how to do a thorough flushing. check it out.

[Dizturbed One]

Take the good advice and flush the red stuff. Replace with the green stuff.

Dexcool IS a great coolant and protectant, but leaves you open to too many problems.

You simply cannot go through life trusting that you will never have to crack your radiator cap for some reason.

I have seen this stuff in torn down motors, it is not pretty. I have nightmares of cleaning the heads on Dexcooled motors.

I'd switch to antifreeze before you have problems.

[FirebirdHatesRice]

Yeah it got me pretty bad too. It was so bad in my system that you couldn't even get heat and my t-stat was clogged shut. I had my radiator professionally acid washed, and then after that I attached the prestone backflush kit to my heater core hoses. It was necessary to backflush the system for a good 10-20 times before everything came out running clean. After the backflush I filled it back up with dexcool...probably a bad move, but its been working perfect ever since. I'd recommend just backflushing it yourself as many times as necessary to get everything clean and then just refill...you should be fine.