I got educated yesterday my wifes bonniville is in the shop. my mechanic said dexcool and ZDDP sans oil came short on destroying my engine!!! the gaskets are gone!! I had never heard of the dexcool issue, but thought i was safe with the oil in a 2000 3800 engine. turns out my full "roller" engine has plain old rockers. with no ZDDP and metel to metel the push rods were worn to a triangle. He said this is very common in these cars!!
Y'all are scaring me with all this talk about water being bad for a cooling system. That does it, from now on I'm using beer.
Antifreeze becomes contaminated and loses its additives. The loss of additives is what makes it corrosive. Antifreeze, contrary to popular belief, does not get old... BG products makes a additive supplement for antifreeze which brings it back to its protective state. You should change your antifreeze only if it has become contaminated with debris (hence the rusty looking water you may find in some vehicles). Put in the additive if it is clean. I have had the same antifreeze in my car for eight years now only putting the BG additive once a year and it is still clean and working well. PS: they recycle antifreeze...
I always thought the problem with Dexcool was lack of service... I.E. if people swapped it out every once in while there wouldn't be problems.. because the cause of the problems was it losing it's additives, and then things went to hell...
We have a winner, poor maintenance is generally responsible for cooling system issues. My girlfriends 2000 p***at uses an OAT based coolant (G12) and it has had 0 leaks. I changed out the water pump and flushed the system and no huge issues short of the fact that some dumb*** put green in with the pink and it turned brown and chunky. I know a lot of guys with 944's and such that run OAT as well and no issues. I plan to run G12 or dexcool in my 392. from the wiki "DEX-COOL specifically has caused controversy. Litigation has linked it with intake manifold gasket failures in General Motors' (GM's) 3.1L and 3.4L engines, and with other failures in 3.8L and 4.3L engines. Cl*** action lawsuits were registered in several states, and in Canada, to address some of these claims. The first of these to reach a decision was in Missouri where a settlement was announced early in December 2007.<sup id="cite_ref-14" cl***="reference">[15]</sup> Late in March 2008, GM agreed to compensate complainants in the remaining 49 states.<sup id="cite_ref-15" cl***="reference">[16]</sup> According to the DEX-COOL manufacturer, "mixing a 'green' [non-OAT] coolant with DEX-COOL reduces the batch's change interval to 2 years or 30,000 miles, but will otherwise cause no damage to the engine."<sup id="cite_ref-16" cl***="reference">[17]</sup> According to internal GM do***ents<sup cl***="Template-Fact" ***le="This claim needs references to reliable sources from November 2010" style="white-space: nowrap;">[citation needed]</sup>, the ultimate culprit appears to be operating vehicles for long periods of time with low coolant levels. The low coolant is caused by pressure caps that fail in the open position. (The new caps and recovery bottles were introduced at the same time as DEX-COOL). This exposes hot engine components to air and vapors, causing corrosion and contamination of the coolant with iron oxide particles, which in turn can aggravate the pressure cap problem as contamination holds the caps open permanently.<sup id="cite_ref-17" cl***="reference">[18]"</sup>
the engines that had the gasket failures weren't even because of the coolant... they had plastic gaskets with silicone inserts, the plastic would break, and the silicone would squeeze out, then the dexcool (that had never been changed) corroded the aluminum... The gaskets were the main problem, swap them out with Fel Pro's problem solver gaskets and no more issues, replace them with factory GM gaskets and the car would be back in about 2 years... My dad went to a school in Dallas for some automotive cl***es and one of the topics they discussed was Dexcool and it's "problems" which after reading the pages and pages and pages of their study, the problem was lack of maintenance.. I have the packet laying around some where if some one would like me to upload it.. Also, if you wondering about your coolant, wix makes test strips that are pretty handy.. I'm pretty sure most parts stores have them..
Man, thanks for the heads up. I almost screwed my engines up with the oil deal, now we have deal with anti-freeze! Up here we live on all sorts of anti-freeze, now my poor engines have to suffer, I can only imagine what it will be like for my kids in 10 years.
Nailed it. The additive treatment maintains a neutral balance. Depending on the composition untreated antifreeze can become acidic and cause corrosion or go the other way to the alkaline side and create scale which reduces heat transfer. I work on diesel generators and see both. You can get your antifreeze ****yzed from programs such as the one Caterpillar has and you'll know in a couple of days what the story is. I see more temperature related failures due to neglect of the cooling system than anything else. One thing I'd like to add, if you are going to add treatment make sure you get the right kind for your coolant. In extreme cases mixing them can actually cause the coolant to jell according to the guys at Caterpillar. Then you're screwed...
Bottled drinking water is chelated, meaning that the hardness is placed back into the water in a controlled format. The original process of RO or distilling will pull out nearly all biological and chemical properties leaving a universal solvent that is so free of ions that it is reactive, the water will pull ions out of anything in order to achieve a balance including us, this is potentially deadly and can cause stroke and brain damage. The re invigorated water has a carefully profiled addition of salts and metals desired by the human, in regards to your car, it would not have a clue as to the difference between tap and bottled human consumption water. Some applications call for the use of a stripped water so that the additive formula can react in a controlled and precise way. If a bottle of anti freeze calls for de ionized or distilled water it is safe to ***ume that they have engineered the product to function using that type of water. Water that is 0-0 is impossible to attain by us, as the scale goes lower the water becomes more infinitely reactive, thus pulling the ions from the containment vessel no matter the structural component. We also have no matrix to chemically get us to absolute 0-0.
One of grandpa's neighbors thought antifreeze was too 'pensive (a McCormic 10-20 would hold more than 5 gal) he used kerosene in the radiator in winter. Don't make em like that anymore, old farmers that is.
+1 ... They have these machines around here that dispense RO water for irons and humidifiers for 25-cents a gallon, they also dispense RO-treated drinking water. I use the drinking water grade for all my vehicles. Even the stuff for irons is "neutralized" by exposure to the air within hours. High purity water used in semiconductor plants is stored in vessels with a nitrogen blanket to keep it from reacting with the air.
In the book "We were the Ramchargers" it talks about a race where they knew the motor was done, so to fix a potential cooling issue leaking water into the oil pan, Dan Mancini suggested filling the radiator with oil. They did, it worked and they won the race. But, since oil's not 99 cents a quart anymore, I doubt I'll try that one! I have worked off and on on aircraft and heavy equipment (don't ask) for the last 15 years. One thing I learned is check your antifreeze at LEAST yearly... use a refractometer if possible, as the 'hydrometer' style isn't always accurate. You'd be surprised how quickly coolant breaks down, whether it's polypropalene (food grade, safe to ingest, new style) or ethylene glycol (green stuff, supposedly sweet but always bitter tasting to me). Whoever suggested the 'dip strips' was right on the money, but be careful to read the instructions- they will change colors the longer you let them sit- so if the sample says 15 seconds, if you wait a minute your results will be skewed! JK
I seriously looked into the water filtration business a few years back, I have very extensive knowledge of the toxic problems and properties that are often overlooked within our water. The up front first problem is the wide variety of different sources and thus the differing requirements needed to bring water to any type of standard. When water is treated with RO it is sent through a micro membrane, it removes particulate size of any item say above 10 microns, this can and does include calciums, nutritive and essential metals, microbial life, and toxins, in some cases it may or may not be able to remove toxic or invasive pharmaceutical by product. The RO is backed up by a carbon based filter which removes odor and freshens the water product. This water would need to be buffered and have its ions replaced or it is toxic. Distilled water takes the process even further leaving the water absolutely stripped except for exposure contaminant after the process, distilled physically removes the water as steam from its container and condenses it as a liquid in another vessel, also toxic. One of the most over looked and potentially dangerous situations that results from filters, all filters is lack of maintenance, as the filter removes virus and spore pathogens from the water it traps them, they decay, and you essentially drink worse water than if you had no filter. Getting the flu feeling a lot lately?, check the filter on your fridge dispenser. Either of these 2 types of water if left exposed to the elements will be virally recontaminated if left exposed, it is impossible to re ionize them by this same method, it takes roughly 2-4 ounces of dry powder to rejuvenate one gallon of water after it is stripped. It is true that it requires some very unique and special storage to keep water at a base for experiments and processes as it is wide open to atmospheric contaminates. You can also have water that has a high dissolved mineral content that is acidic and you can have water that is alkaline with a low dissolved mineral content, it just matters as to what specifically is in suspension. An example would be acidic salt water with a low ph. If you drink too clean of water you will fatally damage yourself.
Well this is all very confusing. Ethylene, propylene, silicates, long life, distilled, non-distilled, anodes.. Anything new for 2013?
When I took my 1952 Hemi apart I couldn't even see the impellers on the water pump. It was just one big rust deposit. When I bought my 1936 Ford the radiator was filled with plain water. I bought it in 2011 and the previous owner filled it with water and never ran it for 8 years. It was nasty!!!!! I will never run an engine without antifreeze as it also has an anti rust additive. !!
This thread got me thinking. Doesn't freeze much in my area, maybe a few low 30F mornings a year. So my 10 or so vehicles, half pre-65, all pre-2000, have various stages of some to none antifreeze, and the ones that do haven't been changed in years like you're evidently supposed to do. In other words, they all need attention. 10 vehicles x 2 gallons x $10-$15 = $200-$300. 50 gallon drums go for about the same. But I want to get the right stuff. The other option is to just run water, water pump lube and an anti-corrosive. I've never had one freeze on just water.
I would not run G12 in that hemi (I think it's up to G14 now) The Nissan dark green antifreeze is the best "old style" antifreeze/coolant you can get nowadays. The part # is L248SP, around $25 a gallon. Do not mistake if for their "blue" (long life) antifreeze - don't get that (see right image below) ..................yes.................................no
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