Looking for modern antifreeze recommendations

phnguyk wrote:
Orange stuff is crap, google it. Stick with a 50/50 green, its like trying to improve sliced bread.

Well, there are about 37 million GM cars on the road with it flowing around, and they might give you an argument. Yeah, for some reason, early owners of some Dex-filled cars got in to a snit about it, and various class action suits were filed here and there, but 99% have been thrown out. Like many other internet troubles, you can find a forum where EVERYBODY there has had trouble with Dex. But the other 36,999,500 owners who DON'T are not on the forum, so it kinda skews the numbers. Most of the problems can be traced to poor maintenance. I've read forum posts from people who had an eight year old car, never changed or checked the fluid, and when they had cooling system problems, they blamed the low fluid.

Same thing goes for Ford V10 headgaskets, Northstar engine headgaskets, BMW tranmissions, Volvo heated seats, etc etc etc.

I've had Dex in three different GM cars since 1999, and the LOWEST mileage of any of them is 178,000 miles. Not one single cooling system problem. Drain and change every four years.

When a manufacturer PULLS a product from the market because of failures, then maybe some caution is warranted. But GM has been putting Dex in their radiators for about 20 years now.

Now, that said, there is a GOOD and USEFUL warning about Dex - it should not be MIXED with the green coolant. The two formulations have different chemical and additive combinations, and they do not get along well. One will eat away the chemical coating that the other puts on cooling system surfaces.

Bottom line - if your engine went out the factory door with Dex, continue to use it. If not, continue with the "green stuff".

Here is a little article on coolant: Anti-freeze flush

The 'subscribe' button isn't working for me on this thread, so I'm bumping it instead :).

Naio wrote:
I didn't even know changing out antifreeze was a thing. Is it related to mileage, or every few years even if you have not been driving the rig?

I'm certainly not an expert on antifreeze but from what I understand antifreeze when new has additives in it to protect your cooling system from wear and corrosion, over time these additives wear out and the antifreeze should be replaced when they do. I do remember that you used to be able to get an additive pack that you could add to your antifreeze to restore the additives but don't see anything like that these days.

If someone more knowledgeable wants to speak on this I'd certainly be interested in knowing more.

Steve

I didn't even know changing out antifreeze was a thing. Is it related to mileage, or every few years even if you have not been driving the rig?

Hi all y’all,

First I’d like to thank the folks who’ve posted here, you’ve give me a lot to think about. After much consideration, I’ve decided to go with standard antifreeze (the green stuff). Some folks on the 460ford website suggested Evans Waterless Engine Coolant. It looked very interesting but I live and travel all over in my RV. If I lose coolant on the road somewhere, because of a leaking radiator hose for instance, I want readily available coolant and I don’t have room to carry a lot of extra stuff when I can use something that works and is easy to obtain locally. I went out and bought distilled water today since the local tap water has a huge calcium content (high enough to cause ongoing plumbing problems).

Thanks again for your responses, I really did give this cooling system issue a lot of thought before I finally wimped out and went with the old tried and true antifreeze.

Steve

Orange stuff is crap, google it. Stick with a 50/50 green, its like trying to improve sliced bread.

rgatijnet1 wrote:
If your system is thoroughly cleaned out, almost any of the name brand anti-freeze products will last close to 5 years. I would add a can of water pump lubricant to the antifreeze mix just for a little added protection. You can also use distilled water which helps a little bit, especially if your local water is high in minerals.

+1 - Ethylene glycol is ethylene glycol. Prestone's is no different than Peak's. Or NAPA's.

Yeah, the 1% of the mix that's proprietary additives might vary, but it's all perfectly good stuff. Just don't use tap water, because of the afore-mentioned mineral content. 50/50 mix is best. Full strength A/F or H2O is actually LESS protective of both freeze and boil-over than a 50/50 mix, which should be good to about -30F and +265F.

Change at 3 if you're really concerned, 4 if you're non-committal, and 5 years if you're not so nervous.

dan23 wrote:
Here's just one of (I expect) many threads on BITOG on the topic:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3645469/Coolant_Loss_2005_Equinox#Post3645469

Did I miss something in the thread. No mention of a problem caused my long life antifreeze. More about failed head gaskets in GM built V6 engines.:?

BigSkyBob wrote:

dan23 wrote:
Pfft. Given the opportunity, I would rather change antifreeze than deal with problems attributed to the newer long-life stuff.

I'm curious, what problems exist by using the long life coolants.

Here's just one of (I expect) many threads on BITOG on the topic:

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3645469/Coolant_Loss_2005_Equinox#Post3645469