Long time reader and occasional poster. Now it is my turn to ask for help. Let me give you an idea of what is going on with my car. Just bought a 2002 Firebird 3800 Auto with 91k on the clock. The car seems to be in very good condition. Oil changes look to have been taken care of because the motor is very clean inside. Other maintenance looks to have been left alone since everything looks to be original which may be better than someone messing with it and using the wrong fluids etc., so I assume the coolant is 10 years old. Hoping someone else that had an experience with these cars may chime in. I want to replace the coolant since I know these cars had coolant issues with the Dexcool. What I want to know is should I stick with fresh Dexcool since I will not let it get low or leave it in forever or should I switch to something else? I would prefer to keep away from any of the AM/AM coolants since I have no idea what I am putting in my car. If I was to go with any of the over the counter coolant I would probably use Peak Global since I have read that it is a decent product and does not attack gaskets.
Since the car is new to me I want to flush it out with distilled water and put coolant back in it and drive for a while to see if it is using any coolant, worried about intake gaskets. I do not see any smoke or leaks at this point. I am more than willing to replace the radiator and WP if I need to but want to make sure the rest of the system is clean before putting new parts in. The coolant is clean, looks like the WP has not been touched. What I do see in the radiator is that there is some oil possibly floating in the coolant, something is floating in the coolant but not much of it. What is floating is clear but it does not seem to combine the little floating bubbles like oil usually would to make a coating across the surface of the water neck. I know sometimes the Dexcool would eat the tranny cooler if it has not been replaced at the specified interval. The radiator does have a light coating on the inside of it. I imagine from the Dexcool itself doing the whole peanut butter thing. I am a mechanic and have fixed many cars with serious dexcool problems so I know what the bad ones look like and this really is a very light coating. The overflow bottle really does not look to have much going on in there as far as sludge. It is a dipstick type of overflow in this car and it has some residue but not sludge of any kind. I had a new Camaro Z28 back in 2000 with the same overflow setup and it had similar residue so I consider this to be fairly normal.
So my question to you guys is do I clean it out and use fresh Dexcool? Do I use an OEM coolant from a different manufacturer such as Toyota red or an Asian non silicate Green? Not sure how my car would feel about the P-OAT coolant. I also do not want to introduce silicates since the car has never had them before and I am not sure if that is the best bet at this point. Do I just go ahead and do the intake gaskets and replace the radiator to prevent future problems and be done with it? Sorry for the long post, any comments would be appreciated.
Since the car is new to me I want to flush it out with distilled water and put coolant back in it and drive for a while to see if it is using any coolant, worried about intake gaskets. I do not see any smoke or leaks at this point. I am more than willing to replace the radiator and WP if I need to but want to make sure the rest of the system is clean before putting new parts in. The coolant is clean, looks like the WP has not been touched. What I do see in the radiator is that there is some oil possibly floating in the coolant, something is floating in the coolant but not much of it. What is floating is clear but it does not seem to combine the little floating bubbles like oil usually would to make a coating across the surface of the water neck. I know sometimes the Dexcool would eat the tranny cooler if it has not been replaced at the specified interval. The radiator does have a light coating on the inside of it. I imagine from the Dexcool itself doing the whole peanut butter thing. I am a mechanic and have fixed many cars with serious dexcool problems so I know what the bad ones look like and this really is a very light coating. The overflow bottle really does not look to have much going on in there as far as sludge. It is a dipstick type of overflow in this car and it has some residue but not sludge of any kind. I had a new Camaro Z28 back in 2000 with the same overflow setup and it had similar residue so I consider this to be fairly normal.
So my question to you guys is do I clean it out and use fresh Dexcool? Do I use an OEM coolant from a different manufacturer such as Toyota red or an Asian non silicate Green? Not sure how my car would feel about the P-OAT coolant. I also do not want to introduce silicates since the car has never had them before and I am not sure if that is the best bet at this point. Do I just go ahead and do the intake gaskets and replace the radiator to prevent future problems and be done with it? Sorry for the long post, any comments would be appreciated.
