[jduke44]

I have a 2000 Chevy Venture. GM says to use Dexcool antifreeze. Is this really necessary and why? Thanks.

[RickJ]

There are often back room deals that cause manufacturers to recommend certain brands (of oil, antifreeze,etc.)

The only differences between brands of antifreeze are the type and/or quantity of anti-corrosion additives used. Ethylene glycol never wears out but the corrosion inhibitors do. [source]

I've always stuck with whichever name-brand antifreeze is on sale at the autoparts place and never had a problem in my 26 years of driving.

[jduke44]

The link talks about changing the antifreeze every 2 yrs. Apparently, that is why they made the 5/150 (dexcool) stuff so it will last up to 5 yrs 150,000 miles.

I personally don't make a practice of flushing out my radiator or changing the fluid. I have a small leak somewhere so that is why I have to add more. In your experience, do you change the antifreeze periodically?

I bought into the dexcool because ever since I bought the vehicle, which was used, had something go wrong every year. Gm paid for a couple things out of warranty because I griped long enough to them about their piece of junk vehicles. Of course, I didn't say that. I don't want any excuse to have something else go wrong but like you said, I would like to buy whatever is on sale. Thanks for the quick reply and website.

Update: I read a little furthur and found a link that talks about a class action suit against GM for this dexcool. There's claims that it cause sluge and does damage to your water pump. I don't believe this! Here I try to do what GM tells me and it could ruin my car. I really hate GM. Here is the link if your interested. Thanks again for the site. I guess I know what antifreeze I am going to use.

http://www.girardgibbs.com/dexcool.html

[RickJ]

Now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever flushed/changed antifreeze. Typically I've had 2 vehicles and kept them 3-5 years... so that's a lot of cars and a lot of years. Either I'm just lucky, or the need to change it is over-exaggerated...

[lilfyre]

Now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever flushed/changed antifreeze. Typically I've had 2 vehicles and kept them 3-5 years...so that's alot of cars and alot of years. Either I'm just lucky, or the need to change it is over-exaggerated...

I have had my truck for 17 years, it has over 300,000 miles on it, I have never flushed the radiator, I am on my second one, I am either lucky or it does not really matter, and I use what ever antifreeze I can get the cheapest, I do change the oil every 3000 miles religiously.

[jduke44]

I don't know now what to do now. Apparentl there is a whole discussion on using red or green. The guy says if it came with Dexcool in it keep using it. My car is used and the anitfreeze is red but that doesn't mean it is Dexcool according to this article. I bet if I continue to use it and something happens, they are going to say it is because I didn't change it. But then again, it willl take me forever to get to 150,000 miles. If nothing else I learned something today. Thanks again for your input.

[Wayne-1]

I was advised by my machanic not to mix the green stuff with the orange stuff because the green stuff will thicken and block-up the small pipes in the radiator!

[thebriggsdude]

Dexcool (dexcrap) is gm made coolant, it's a organic coolant, and didn't like the already bad sealing intake gaskets in some gm v6's ( like the 4.3, 3.1 )leaked into the oil, toasting the bearings if not caught and fixed, though newer gaskets seemed to have fixed it maybe... dexcool doesn't like air in the system, that's why newer ones have pressurized overflows, ones that didn't, it would turn yucky, and don't mix it with regular green, it'll clog the heater core up after a while.. eventually the rest, if I were you, have the system flushed, and use low silicate regular green ( napa stuff is good, made by valvoline anyway ). Have it drained and refilled every 3 years or so, it'll be fine... though the reason for dexcool, no silicates and is longer life... low silicate ethylene caused water pump seal damage, so they say... and one of my cars is a 80 caprice (267v8)... water pumps still going, and its tripped 2 times.. dexcool comes in different colors, ones orange... get the right color dexcool, if you go that way, for the vehicle. Hope this helps...

[jduke44]

This did help however, I wish I saw this before I did anything. I went out and bought the dexcool(dexcrap) going against what I originally was going to do. My wife and talked about it and decided since we have been having problems with other issues of this vehicle that we would go with the recommended. I read the link rick gave me and the an article a guy wrote said that usually if you have it in there from the beginning it shouldn't hurt anything. I am hoping that is true or at best what you had said about them improving it. I have heard it from more than one source (non-mechanics) that they never flush there radiators because it can loosen junk in the radiators or cooling system causing more problems.

dexcool (dexcrap) is gm made coolant, it's a organic coolant, and didn't like the already bad sealing intake gaskets in some gm v6's ( like the 4.3, 3.1 )leaked into the oil, toasting the bearings if not caught and fixed, though newer gaskets seemed to have fixed it maybe

I have 2000 Venture, I sure hope this is a gasket that has been updated. I know I read a lot about their head gaskets going bad at around 50000 miles.

Anyway, thanks for the input, I will keep these things in mind for the next time.

[thebriggsdude]

I remember seeing federal mogul (felpro) gaskets that were made for the leaky intakes, gm made newer type gaskets, also gm came up with what they call seal tabs you add to the cooling system. Those non mechanics are right in one way, if the system was mistreated, and not drained and refilled like it should have been, flushing may knock some stuff loose inside. I don't know what year they used the newer gaskets on the intakes though. You can make a search on that.