Originally Posted By: BigD1
Yes it was overblown to the tune of a class action lawsuit that GM settled because they knew that Dexcool contained a known plasticizer, and it was slowly eating the plastic intake gaskets that GM was using on their engines. This had nothing to do with maintenance. GM freaked up, and it's that simple. That's all water under the bridge now, but don't act like it did not happen because it did, and that's a fact.
Lots of stupid stuff goes to court because it benefits the lawyers. The DexCool case was filed in California...surprise. GM decided to settle with $24 MILL rather than letting this drag on. It doesn't mean the plaintiffs were right, did proper maintenance, etc. All it proves is that GM felt it was best to settle. Just because there's a class action lawsuit doesn't mean it has merit or any basis in reality. Hysteria seems to be the primary driver of many of them. And then everyone piles on to get some free money.
Class action lawsuits have become a feeding frenzy for lawyers against the auto makers. All it takes is 5-10 people out of 2,000,000 car owners with a perceived "problem" and all 2,000,000 cars are recalled. No one ever intended for cars to be 100% flawless and without risk of any sort. If you don't want to be hurt in a privately owned automobile, then don't drive one. Walk to work or take the bus. Owner/operator error is probably the real cause of most automobile issues.
68,000 people filed DexCool claims. And I wonder what high percentage of them just did shoddy maintenance on their cars and blamed GM? (ie mixing different coolants, allowing leaks to fester, never changing their coolant and keeping it full, allowing coolant to overheat by not keeping up on other systems, keeping on old worn out radiator caps/seals, etc.). Even if all 68K complaints were legit that's still out of 47 MILLION cars built by GM from 1995-2004. Clearly, DexCool was working for 99.86% of GM car owners. My '99 is in that group. It hasn't had any problems with DexCool. I read hundreds of DexCool threads in 2012 deciding if I should stay with it in my '99 SS. And after weighing all the evidence and eliminating the hype, I decided it was best to stay with it. 17 years on DexCool without a leak of any kind. You can review the LS1Tech site DexCool threads below. For the higher mileage V6 engines that had coolant issues years down the road, I suspect they'd have had those same issues using regular old green coolant. But, why not blame the DexCool for all the failures?
LS1 Tech Dex Cool threads
This is one of the posts in those threads:
The problem with dexcool is the owners of the cars. dexcool only corrodes things when mixed with plain water or green stuff. if you mix dex with distilled water, it will last 100k miles like its supposed to. the reason for the class action lawsuit is because joe down the street takes his 2000 GM vehicle with dex to valvoline to get the oil changed, and they notice the level in the radiator is a little low so they top it off with their finest green [censored] and thats where the problems begin.
unfortunately, not everyone knows this and that is where most of the problems with dexcool come from. my car has never had anything but 50/50 prestone dex put in it and distilled water if it gets a tad low, and my radiator as well as inside my engine look brand new. 
