I went with my friend to look at a car with her. Went for a test drive, popped the hood and checked the fluids. The coolant reservoir was caked with dex crud, the reservoir looked like it was filled with beef stew, all brown and nasty. The car is an 04 with only 46k miles and the coolant was shot. She is probably going to buy the car b/c the price is right..my question is..what can be done to clean out all that gunk? I doubt a drain and fill will do anything.
DEX-COOL Crud in 04 Impala
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Originally Posted By: parimento1
I went with my friend to look at a car with her. Went for a test drive, popped the hood and checked the fluids. The coolant reservoir was caked with dex crud, the reservoir looked like it was filled with beef stew, all brown and nasty. The car is an 04 with only 46k miles and the coolant was shot. She is probably going to buy the car b/c the price is right..my question is..what can be done to clean out all that gunk? I doubt a drain and fill will do anything.
It's possible that the brown stuff is merely GM cooling system sealer pellets. In that case, there's nothing wrong with the system.
I went with my friend to look at a car with her. Went for a test drive, popped the hood and checked the fluids. The coolant reservoir was caked with dex crud, the reservoir looked like it was filled with beef stew, all brown and nasty. The car is an 04 with only 46k miles and the coolant was shot. She is probably going to buy the car b/c the price is right..my question is..what can be done to clean out all that gunk? I doubt a drain and fill will do anything.
It's possible that the brown stuff is merely GM cooling system sealer pellets. In that case, there's nothing wrong with the system.
JHZR2
Staff member
right, or the PO could have taken it to an unknowledgable shop, who mixed old fashioned green as a top-up. The new engines are not prone to dex-crud like the older ones that were not designed for it from the start. Dex is not a poor coolant in an of itself, the fact that the prestone type universal fill coolants are effectively dex indicates this as well.
JMH
JMH
Would mixing regular green with dex cool make it into sludge?
Originally Posted By: parimento1
Would mixing regular green with dex cool make it into sludge?
Not always from my experience. The GM 3.4 from that model year wasn't immune to intake leaks, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone added the tablets as added insurance.
Would mixing regular green with dex cool make it into sludge?
Not always from my experience. The GM 3.4 from that model year wasn't immune to intake leaks, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone added the tablets as added insurance.
JHZR2
Staff member
regular high silicate green does form dex sludge. Back in the late 1990s when dex came out, many shops would top up with green, only to have the silicates precipitate out and make a brown sludge.
Didnt help if thre were manifold leaks, as air will cause the degradation and discoloration of dex too.
Tablets were at least at one time used as OE safeguards. May still be. Regardless, get to the bottom of the issue sooner rather than later.
JMH
Didnt help if thre were manifold leaks, as air will cause the degradation and discoloration of dex too.
Tablets were at least at one time used as OE safeguards. May still be. Regardless, get to the bottom of the issue sooner rather than later.
JMH
It's all in your imagination. Dexcool NEVER spontaneously turns into nasty brown sludge- that stuff runs perfectly well for 5 years/100k miles... says so right on the jug!
So you were probably delusional, along with tens of thousands of apparently schitzophrenic GM owners. If you see that temp gauge rising, then you're hallucinating. Nonexistant sludge (no matter how visible you THINK it is) can't clog radiators... even if the tubes APPEAR to be blocked. Ignore it:
http://www.sancarlosradiator.com/images/dexmud31.jpg
Just top off with some more Dexcool™ and drive on your merry way.
By the way... if it turns out that for some unforseen reason there IS dex-sludge in there... then it's entirely your fault. The vast majority of GM owners are incompetent boobs who manage to turn their perfectly good Dexcool into imaginary mud.
So you were probably delusional, along with tens of thousands of apparently schitzophrenic GM owners. If you see that temp gauge rising, then you're hallucinating. Nonexistant sludge (no matter how visible you THINK it is) can't clog radiators... even if the tubes APPEAR to be blocked. Ignore it:
http://www.sancarlosradiator.com/images/dexmud31.jpg
Just top off with some more Dexcool™ and drive on your merry way.
By the way... if it turns out that for some unforseen reason there IS dex-sludge in there... then it's entirely your fault. The vast majority of GM owners are incompetent boobs who manage to turn their perfectly good Dexcool into imaginary mud.
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Hey Onion have you been taking pics of my customers cars?
Holy SH__ thats the same color the crud was in the guys car.
You don't say.
Well, let not your heart be troubled. You'll find plenty of folks on this board who will assurre you that the Dexcool in their 2006 GM looks perfectly translucent, and therefore this simply never happens- and even if it did... it must've been caused by incompetence on the part of the owner or a mechanic.
Not sure why a 4-year-old car would've had anything done to the cooling system anyway. That DexCrud is good for 5 years, right?
About flushing that stuff out: I've dealt with more cases of Dex-Sludge than I care to think about, and I've NEVER come across a really effective method of flushing it out. Lots of time with aftermarket flushes and a steam cleaner MIGHT render the cooling system relatively functional... but often enough, the radiator will have to be taken apart and rodded. In all likelyhood, that vehicle is doomed to roam the earth with some visible amount of sludge in the cooling system for the remainder of its days.
IMO, you'll be buying problems with that vehicle. If you buy it anyway and shell out the time and $$ to get the cooling system cleaned out, then refill with G-05.
Well, let not your heart be troubled. You'll find plenty of folks on this board who will assurre you that the Dexcool in their 2006 GM looks perfectly translucent, and therefore this simply never happens- and even if it did... it must've been caused by incompetence on the part of the owner or a mechanic.
Not sure why a 4-year-old car would've had anything done to the cooling system anyway. That DexCrud is good for 5 years, right?
About flushing that stuff out: I've dealt with more cases of Dex-Sludge than I care to think about, and I've NEVER come across a really effective method of flushing it out. Lots of time with aftermarket flushes and a steam cleaner MIGHT render the cooling system relatively functional... but often enough, the radiator will have to be taken apart and rodded. In all likelyhood, that vehicle is doomed to roam the earth with some visible amount of sludge in the cooling system for the remainder of its days.
IMO, you'll be buying problems with that vehicle. If you buy it anyway and shell out the time and $$ to get the cooling system cleaned out, then refill with G-05.
I've got an 04 Sierra with original dex-cool. Looks just like the day I bought it.
The odd thing is I haven't had a single issue with the fiance's 01 cavalier (2.2L).
It had approx 6 yrs and 100k on it when I finally changed it. Not a single amount of crud found flushing it. Put in some new Stuff and it's been fine for 15,000 miles. Not a single cooling issue.
Must be lucky
It had approx 6 yrs and 100k on it when I finally changed it. Not a single amount of crud found flushing it. Put in some new Stuff and it's been fine for 15,000 miles. Not a single cooling issue.
Must be lucky
Yes, you are.
To be fair, when we bought my wife's '01 Lumina two years ago, the cooling system was squeaky-clean. It had the original Dexcool in it, and it looked great. At the time, the car was 4 years old, with 159,000 miles.
Of course, the intake gaskets were starting to leak (due IN PART to the Dexcool). I immediately fixed that, flushed the system, and refilled with G05.
But it's been my experience with Dexcool systems that if all conditions are perfect, nothing keeps a cooling system cleaner than Dexcool. Except for some well-known seal compatibility issues with Dexcool's main corrosion inhibitor, 2EHA, Dexcool works quite well as long as the cooling system is in perfect condition. So long as you don't mind certain gaskets being chemically attacked, and your cooling system never even THINKS about a minor leak, overheating, or the addition of any coolant that isn't Dexcool... you might just be ok.
In the real world, though, cooling systems ain't always perfect. I've seen GM vehicles less than two years old, with less than 50k miles that already had Dex-sludge. There probably was a minor leak, allowing air to enter the system... and one could SAY that therefore it wasn't caused by Dexcool. But the fact is, NO OTHER MODERN COOLANT will turn into this nasty sludge at the drop of a hat... at least I've never seen anything but Dexcool do it. Add to this the fact that Dexcool CAUSES some gaskets to leak- creating the conditions required to turn Dexcool into dex-sludge- and you can see why I wouldn't run Dexcool in my own vehicle if the stuff was free.
To be fair, when we bought my wife's '01 Lumina two years ago, the cooling system was squeaky-clean. It had the original Dexcool in it, and it looked great. At the time, the car was 4 years old, with 159,000 miles.
Of course, the intake gaskets were starting to leak (due IN PART to the Dexcool). I immediately fixed that, flushed the system, and refilled with G05.
But it's been my experience with Dexcool systems that if all conditions are perfect, nothing keeps a cooling system cleaner than Dexcool. Except for some well-known seal compatibility issues with Dexcool's main corrosion inhibitor, 2EHA, Dexcool works quite well as long as the cooling system is in perfect condition. So long as you don't mind certain gaskets being chemically attacked, and your cooling system never even THINKS about a minor leak, overheating, or the addition of any coolant that isn't Dexcool... you might just be ok.
In the real world, though, cooling systems ain't always perfect. I've seen GM vehicles less than two years old, with less than 50k miles that already had Dex-sludge. There probably was a minor leak, allowing air to enter the system... and one could SAY that therefore it wasn't caused by Dexcool. But the fact is, NO OTHER MODERN COOLANT will turn into this nasty sludge at the drop of a hat... at least I've never seen anything but Dexcool do it. Add to this the fact that Dexcool CAUSES some gaskets to leak- creating the conditions required to turn Dexcool into dex-sludge- and you can see why I wouldn't run Dexcool in my own vehicle if the stuff was free.
Originally Posted By: Buffman
The odd thing is I haven't had a single issue with the fiance's 01 cavalier (2.2L).
It had approx 6 yrs and 100k on it when I finally changed it. Not a single amount of crud found flushing it. Put in some new Stuff and it's been fine for 15,000 miles. Not a single cooling issue.
....
There is nothing odd about that. A product can never fail, fail 1% of the time, 10% of the time, any percentage up to 100% of the time.
If something as important as engine coolant screws up 1% of the engines it's in, that would be a big black eye for the manufacturer....And you would have a 99% chance of not having a problem with it in your car.
I suspect Dexcool is worse than 1%
The odd thing is I haven't had a single issue with the fiance's 01 cavalier (2.2L).
It had approx 6 yrs and 100k on it when I finally changed it. Not a single amount of crud found flushing it. Put in some new Stuff and it's been fine for 15,000 miles. Not a single cooling issue.
....
There is nothing odd about that. A product can never fail, fail 1% of the time, 10% of the time, any percentage up to 100% of the time.
If something as important as engine coolant screws up 1% of the engines it's in, that would be a big black eye for the manufacturer....And you would have a 99% chance of not having a problem with it in your car.
I suspect Dexcool is worse than 1%
Hi
The so called "sludge", usually a brownish red mass of deposits inj the recovery bottle and underside of the rad cap, is iron oxide.
It would appear that the either this W chassis's rad cap as allowed air into the system or the car has a LIM leak.
Our 2005 Colorado with the 3500 I5 has no such issue with Dex. This engine is aluminum and appears to have no issues with air ingress into the system.
BTW, GM stopped using sealer tabs at the factory in 2000, although they are still used at the service department level.
The so called "sludge", usually a brownish red mass of deposits inj the recovery bottle and underside of the rad cap, is iron oxide.
It would appear that the either this W chassis's rad cap as allowed air into the system or the car has a LIM leak.
Our 2005 Colorado with the 3500 I5 has no such issue with Dex. This engine is aluminum and appears to have no issues with air ingress into the system.
BTW, GM stopped using sealer tabs at the factory in 2000, although they are still used at the service department level.
Well, she decided not to buy the car after taking it to her mechanic, it was obviously involved in a small accident but no frame damage or anything. However, her mechanic told her to stay away. it was a 2004 Impala for 6100 bucks witrh 46k miles. I didnt think it was a bad deal but oh well...
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