HOPE YOU FLUSHED YOUR DEXCOOL?

[commanche1]

on the 4.3 liter engines in the years 1996 to 1998 the DEXCOOL is destroying your engine. we tore my radiator apart to see how bad in my 1998 chevy k1500 at 36,000 miles. unreal. i never in my life saw a radiator so badly plugged.i can imagine what is back in the block and heater core.gm has a tsb out on it ,takes them 8 hours to clean your system. why has gm not recalled our vehiciles on this?i am over warranty now by 3 years.you can read about this if you enter DEXCOOL PROBLEMS in the search.i hope my engine does not go because of this. i am having my truck flushed every year to try to get rid of it. my mechanic says the prestone flush WILL NOT get rid of it.you have to use a cleaner that chevy garage has. they will act like they know nothing about this but they do. take care

[volfan]

is it just on the 4.3eng or any other with dexcool?

[03GMCinBC]

Do you have a copy or link to the TSB you are talking about?

 

thanks

[commanche1]

i think just the 4.3 liter engines for 1996 to 1998.you can do a search on the net not here. enter DEXCOOL PROBLEMS. believe me, i have seen radiators tore apart for 35 years but i never saw such a mess as i had in mine.i did not even no i had a problem until i read it on the interenet.why has gm not told us about this?

[etex211]

A piece of advice that I received from my radiator man:

 

All antifreeze will maintain it's freeze protection indefinitely, but it loses it's corrosion protection over time. He recommends doing a drain and fill once per year, no matter what kind of coolant you use......don't pay any attention to those 5 year/100k miles claims.

[commanche1]

www.dexcool problems.com

[asepgrad98]

any type of coolant will cause problems if you dont change it for 6 years. Do a flush every 3 years and you will not have problems with dexcool.

[commanche1]

mine was changed just a little over 3 years and i had 36,000 on it.dexcool says 5 years 150,000.could not believe the mess that i saw when we tore the radiator down.it filled a bucket half full with this yellow powder that came out of it. it was brown looking inside and i could not see anything.when i drys it turns bright yellow in the air.i also kept my radiator full. gm is saying we left our water down low that caused it. bulls234.if it was down i would have seen the mud in their sooner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.i drained my radiator down so i could look at it. unreal what i saw.loaded with mud looking brown peanut butter.if my WATER was down i would have seen this.unreal how they are avoiding this. i agree, i am changing my dexcool every 2 years not 5 years as on the bottle and rec. by gm.

[commanche1]

it seems that it is happening to years other than 1996 -1998,i did not know that. please read the dexcool info as their was some vehiciles 2002 with 15,000 miles who had major problems with dexcool. TSB i read was for years 1996 -1998.1 even showed the cap rustng from dexcool with only 15,000 on the vehicile, nasty.many are changing back to green stuff but you have to flush all the orange out.there is sites that explain this .

[MCourson]

We have ran dexcool in 7 GM vehicles and put on a total of ~250,000 miles and never have had a problem. We even run Dex Cool in the '57. If you keep it flushed (we do it every 2 years) it will be fine.

 

EDIT: This is what we have run it in:

57 5.7 (engine new in 99)

99 5.7

01 4.8

02 5.3 (2)

03 6.6

04 5.3

[commanche1]

you may be right but a lot of people are having problems with it at 15,000 miles?why did gm say 5 years 150,000 miles? why are they not admitting or contacting us to get it out in 2 years?why is texaco putting 5 years 150,000 on the bottle?why are they not calling me or sending me a letter to warn me of this? why are they saying no problems but put out a TSB on it in 2001 to gm dealer on 8 hour repair to correct it only on the ones under warranty?why do dealers act like they no nothing about this problem?this is not funny. you notice i am very mad.

[asepgrad98]

commanche1,

sounds like you have been taking the conspiracy web sites too seriously. The problems your truck has would have happened even if you changed it to green on day 1.

[MCourson]

Only related TSB I could find

 

00-06-02-006A FEB 04 Cooling System - Coolant Information

[MS3DALE]

We have only seen problems here at the dealership on 4.3 V6's in the S10 Blazers,we haven't seen any problems on S10 pickups or full-size trucks,yours is the first one other than a Blazer that I've heard of.

I don't agree with leaving coolant in for 5 years/150,000 miles however,I never ran my DEX-COOL longer than a few years or 60,000 miles in my other trucks that had it.

[ness5575]

i flushed out my coolant at 4.5 yrs/ 100k and it looked like new. I couldnt tell any difference between the old and the new - looked the same, smelled the same, etc.

sorry to hear that you are having problems, but i think that all this dexcool stuff is one of the most overblown issues on gm products (right above engine knock!)