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Green or Orange Antifreeze?

Again, Missy's right.
I had a brand new Chevy Equinox with Dexcool. FACTORY RECALLED for the coolant turning to stinky sludge. I read about the lawsuit, too.

Also, Stay away from Evans lifetime coolant, or any other propylene glycol coolant. The flash point to burn this stuff is 225°F. Our exhaust manifolds are much hotter than that. The link below is their MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET.
http://www.evanscooling.com/download/Evans MSDS NPG.pdf

Sorry I ever heard of them. An expensive lesson...:mad2:
 
Thanks for the replys, I guess I will stick with the green stuff. I am going to replace my water pump anyways with a 98+ h/o unit. The truck has had some shade of green ever since I owned it. When I first flushed it I had an orange green color come out, but I am sure it was rust. I cant remember where I heard, but the only reason I asked this question was because I heard the green stuff eats aluminum or something. But guess not… Well that’s good if I can use the green stuff, because I just flushed mine out a few months back, so I am just going to reuse it.
 
Missy Good Wench said:
I stopped using the red crap in the big rig last year. Nasty stuff and ya can't mix anything with it. If you lose some and can't get more and add water the sruff is JUNK.

I wont use anything but good o'll green that you mix 50/50 with water. If you have to add a bunch of water to get home or in to fix something, no problemo, just drain out some and add a little concentrate to get the freeze point back to where ya need it.

Cheap, easy to use, a no brainer, and the stuff wont hurt the aluminum radiators or heater cores.

The fancy ELC stuff just eats your wallet me thinks..

MGW
Click to expand...

X2. We have over 15 trucks in our fleet and every single one uses a 50/50 mix of the green. Ive heard way too many stories about the dex-cool and everyone I have ever delt with in the truck industry says stay away. The claims of extended time intervals between changes sounds good, but its not worth the risk of damage IMO.

When we took the 350 out of our 89 to rebuild it last year, my buddy at the machine shop said it had some of the cleanest water jackets he had ever seen. Especially for a truck. Now i know this is long before the transition to the Dex-cool, but it just goes to show how well the green works when it is properly changed and used.

So DieselSlug, If I were you, I wouldnt waste your money on the orange crap.
 
When I tore my engine down, I'd never seen such clean passageways in the entire cooling system. My truck had Dexcool when I tore it down; it got Prestone Dexcool when I put it back together.

I mixed 50/50 with distilled water.

If you change to green, make sure you flush, flush, flush.

I think if you change the green every two years, it would leave your cooling system as pristine as what I found in mine.

Don't use any of the "works with any coolant" coolants. They don't.

The problem with the gaskets was the stupid manufacturers using gaskets that were incompatible with the orange stuff. ...something about the rubbery gaskets they were using on the intake manifolds. There's no coolant contact on our intake manifolds. I didn't see any "rubber" on any of the gaskets on my engine.
 
Go to Valvoline website and products look at the different brands and the pdf on coolant chemistry and automakers. It makes sense that gasket materials and glues sealants etc must be compatiable with fluids in contact.

"Dexcool" is still being used by GM, Asian Makers, and some European makers.

I am not scared of color differences but am scared of coolant quality, water quality, and air interchange. This goes for most all fluids and most things in general. Get the freshest stuff and keep it clean and air tight packaged then follow recommended practices.

Dex-cool got a bad rap due to a few reasons. I wouldn't switch to it but wouldn't switch away from it either.

Besides air and "oxidation" the other thing is electrolysis that causes corrosion and I am not sure why some vehicles are worse than others even of the same make and model. Any discussion about that and why some have such problems and others don't. I propose its mostly the water quality differences.
 
Just good O'll Napa brand Ethylene Glycol coolant with 50/50 water.

Now if you live in a place that has nasty water with tons of minerals and other undesirables you may want to use filtered or distilled water.

The water thats used can effect the overall performance of things.

Minerals will cause sediment and will do basically the same thing that they do to the bowl in your Toilet. Add heat and it just gets worse.

The minerals attach to the inside of the radiator tubes and insulate them real good.

The Block, hoses and everything gets it but, the tubes are what sheds the heat and if they get insulated some, well this is self explanatory.

OH and yess, the non toxic stuff is also nasty and will make a mess in the system.

Some things are just going to be toxic, so dont feed it to the critters and or leave it where they can help themselves.

How much green stuff gets spilled onto the roads every year with all the crashes ??

Imagine how much of the stuff gets into waterways ????

Got to be a staggering number.

Here is my bottom line on coolants. If its costly, It still may not be any good.
If it sounds too good to be true, yup been there done that.

If the enviro freeks are pushing the stuff, definately leave it alone.

I just pulled the radaitor from the Burb and it had the top hose connector snap off.
I looked the core over real good and it was very clean inside.

Not worth repairing the thing though with a brand new OEM quaility Visteon unit at $235

Later

MGW
 
THEFERMANATOR said:
From what I have seen you need to be careful switching from the red dexcool to green anti-freeze. I have seen SEVERAL water pumps fail within months of doing this. The one antifreeze I will NEVER EVER run again is the PRESTONE universal SHIT!!! It is the absolute WORST there is and has caused me more grief than I want to admit. It provides virtually no corrsion or rust resistance and I think it actually promotes it. Run a good high quality anti-freeze of either color first and foremost, I personally like to stick to what came in them from the factory though. I reccomend and use ZEREX in ALL of my vehicles, and that is ALL that will go in them if I can help it from now on.
Click to expand...

I had mine flushed at the dealer about 7 years ago and am still on the original water pump, which I believe to be the true original pump from the factory. I had them put green in it.
 
all the flushing of any color anti-freeze will never allow anyone to get straight distilled water and anti-freeze into the engine. there will always be some non-distilled water left in there unless the engine is stripped down. like someone said in an earlier post, ever look at the toilet bowl after water sits for a time. here in southwest BC we have some of the best water available, especially in chilliwack which has won awards for it's quality water. you go up north to Vanderhoof and you can smell the chlorine out of the tap. It was so bad I bought bottled water just to drink. ED
 
I usually just use the non mineralized water that comes in gallons from the local grocery to mix with my anti-freeze. Haven't really had a problem with that.
 
I think the last time I added coolant I used some of the stuff that says it can be mixed with anything. I had a few gallons given to me and used it when I flushed and pressure washed my radiator last year. So I think I've got nothing but universal in there, iirc. Seems like I've had to top it off a couple times too, with no sign of it getting in the oil or coming out the tailpipe. WOnder if maybe it can evaporate faster?
I've read different things about the different colors and the dangers of mixing, I seem to remember a red/green mixture could crystallize and plug everything up.
I guess I should have gone with old reliable green. Great, one more thing to worry about and no time to fix it.
 
Green it is in all my engines, been trouble free for as long as i can remember.

Red ,orange,yellow,clear and god knows what else is on the market today does only confuse people.

When dexcool dries up,all you got left is a pile of powder.Whats up with that!

Diff Antifreeze for gasoline or diesels is another myth i dont believe in

If antifreeze gets to the brgs it F's them up regardless what friggin colour it is.
 
Detroit Dan said:
I think the last time I added coolant I used some of the stuff that says it can be mixed with anything. I had a few gallons given to me and used it when I flushed and pressure washed my radiator last year. So I think I've got nothing but universal in there, iirc. Seems like I've had to top it off a couple times too, with no sign of it getting in the oil or coming out the tailpipe. WOnder if maybe it can evaporate faster?
I've read different things about the different colors and the dangers of mixing, I seem to remember a red/green mixture could crystallize and plug everything up.
I guess I should have gone with old reliable green. Great, one more thing to worry about and no time to fix it.
Click to expand...

I've noticed this as well in every car I put it in in the past, every few months you have to add a 1/2 gallon to em to top em off as they are always low with no signs of leakage. I also noticed that it seems to vapor off quickly at a low temp as compared to the old green stuff.

bison said:
Green it is in all my engines, been trouble free for as long as i can remember.

Red ,orange,yellow,clear and god knows what else is on the market today does only confuse people.

When dexcool dries up,all you got left is a pile of powder.Whats up with that!

Diff Antifreeze for gasoline or diesels is another myth i dont believe in

If antifreeze gets to the brgs it F's them up regardless what friggin colour it is.
Click to expand...

The gas vs diesel anti-freeze myth has some facts to it. It comes down to the silicates in the anti-freeze though. Cheap anti-freeze had high levels of silicates(sand) in them and would cause cavitation and erosion to the cylinder walls. If you don't believe this then go read on the FORD forums about the early 7.3's. Diesel's with high compression actually emit like a sound wave off the cylinder walls whenever the cylinder fires, if the anti-freeze inside the cooling jackets has high silicate levels it actually acts like a sand blaster and wears holes through the cylinder walls. Diesels always have required low silicate anti-freeze for this reason. It had nothing really to do with it being a diesel, but more so to do with the high compression and high cylinder pressures and the actions it has on the cylinder walls in the cooling jackets.
 
The big rigs with removable cylinder liners need to have the coolant checked every year and the stuff tested. If it needs it, there is an additive that can be added to stop cavitation errosion

MGW
 
Last edited:
Edzzed said:
all the flushing of any color anti-freeze will never allow anyone to get straight distilled water and anti-freeze into the engine. there will always be some non-distilled water left in there unless the engine is stripped down. like someone said in an earlier post, ever look at the toilet bowl after water sits for a time. here in southwest BC we have some of the best water available, especially in chilliwack which has won awards for it's quality water. you go up north to Vanderhoof and you can smell the chlorine out of the tap. It was so bad I bought bottled water just to drink. ED
Click to expand...

Deionized water from a reverse-osmosis filter would do well too. I bought some hard water test strips and our water is off the scale. I don't dare put the crap in my truck. I started from a fresh engine and radiator, just had to flush the heater core. Come time to flush and replace, I don't know what I'll do. Of course, if this engine follows past experience, the coolant will outlast it. ...has already done so twice.
 
THEFERMANATOR said:
I've noticed this as well in every car I put it in in the past, every few months you have to add a 1/2 gallon to em to top em off as they are always low with no signs of leakage. I also noticed that it seems to vapor off quickly at a low temp as compared to the old green stuff.



The gas vs diesel anti-freeze myth has some facts to it. It comes down to the silicates in the anti-freeze though. Cheap anti-freeze had high levels of silicates(sand) in them and would cause cavitation and erosion to the cylinder walls. If you don't believe this then go read on the FORD forums about the early 7.3.. Diesel's with high compression actually emit like a sound wave off the cylinder walls whenever the cylinder fires, if the anti-freeze inside the cooling jackets has high silicate levels it actually acts like a sand blaster and wears holes through the cylinder walls. Diesels always have required low silicate anti-freeze for this reason. It had nothing really to do with it being a diesel, but more so to do with the high compression and high cylinder pressures and the actions it has on the cylinder walls in the cooling jackets.
Click to expand...
i aint talking bout ford,these where a poor excuse for a diesel.

In any case, i have not had any trouble with cavitation in any diesel i ever owned or still own.they where plenty in forty years. I've heard of it(cavitation corrosion) but it aint a concern to me.

I have seen only one alluminum gas engine block that was corroded trough the cylinder walls.That was a 6 cyl in a franch renault rambler my brother owned yrs ago. Never knew what caused it.
 
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