"Nedmoorebush" <u29203@uwe> wrote

First of all, it is total BULLSHIT that you cannot flush the system well
enough to
change the coolant. Whoever said that is a total idiot. Like everything
else,
there is a proper way to do things, and a totally wrong way to do things,
and all
else in between.

Second, the orange OAT type coolant, or Dexcool, is not necessarily the best
product that ever hit the shelves, and has not lived up to hype in many
cases.
If you are trying to keep a warranty intact, then use it, and change it
every two years or so.

The traditional green coolant is a very good formulation for most
applications. It
has been used for years with few and rare problems. Alloys in cars havent
changed
a lot in years. Water is water, for the most part. So read between the
lines.
If you use green coolant, it is still wise to flush your system and replace
the coolant every
two years or so.

It is really cheap to maintain a cooling system, and dumb to let one go to
rot on you.

The self proclaimed engineers here are totally misinformed. Materials in
cars have changed considerably over the years. If your car calls for dexcool
use it as that is the chemical base the car is designed for. Color doesn't
matter it is the chemical makeup that does and the car engineers know more
about what it than the "engineers" here.

"Nedmoorebush" <u29203@uwe> wrote

"Woody" <TheDuck (AT) pond (DOT) net> wrote

It is rather clear that you know about neither.

Nedmoorebush wrote:

How long has the green coolant been in the vehicle? If it's been
in the engine for pretty much any length of time, you can flush all
the green out and use the dexcool, but the dexcool will no longer
have the extended life. So then it's a matter of deciding whether
it's worth flushing the green out, or just use green from now on
and maintain it using an older coolant flush schedule (every two
years, 40K kilometers...etc).

Ian

"Woody" <TheDuck (AT) pond (DOT) net> wrote

This is common misconception about many things that comes up periodically.
The engine was not designed for the chemical base of anything. The engine
was designed to perform - period. The coolant choice was later made based
on other factors, but the engine was not designed for Dex-Cool, or anything
else. It is somewhat head-in-the-sand-ish to default to the idea that the
designers know more than anyone else on matters like this.

--

-Mike-
mmarlowREMOVE (AT) alltel (DOT) net

"Mike Marlow" <mmarlow (AT) alltel (DOT) net> wrote


Thanks, Mike.
The engineers never made this decision in the first place. Engines and
their auxiliary
systems still use more or less the same types of metallurgy they always did.
Cast iron, aluminum, brass, lead solder, and occasionally some bits of 'pot'
metal or zinc castings.

The coolants and additive packages came about in a secondary manner.

I am sure you remember the really lousy aluminum-silicon castings made by GM
a number of years
ago. Mercedes Benz still uses aluminum silicon technology, although the
development of the
metallurgy is much better now.

Companies like GM often adopt a proprietary system like Dex Cool. It is
sometimes for marketing
reasons as much as for technical and reliability reasons.

My, perhaps blunt, comment was that it is not a big trick to flush out a
cooling system so that you can
put whatever you want back in it. And I stick with that. You can get the
system as clean as you need it
to be.

And you can choose what you wish to put in it, but it is wise not to mix
systems if the formulator says
not to do so.

There have been so many complaints against DexCool that I would not feel
hesitant to replace it with
HOAT technology or even the old green juice.

As I mentioned much earlier, we have purchased the packages which go into
Dex Cool, blended it with
glycols, and used them in commercial systems because the customer wanted the
environmental benefits
of the OAT. In these systems, it was a somewhat inferior system, definitely
not a longer term or superior solution.

HOAT is reputedly better.

Apparently I stepped on the sensitivities of Woody, but I dont retreat very
much from what I have posted.