My boss has a 2002 Firebird/TransAm with the LS1 motor in it. If you pull the cap off of the overflow bottle and look at the stick that is down in there it is all brown/orange/rust color like I have seen many times before. He just had it flushed at approx 30,000 miles and it now has 43,000 on it and is this brown/orange/rust color and looks bad. What is everyones feelings on switching to the older style green type antifreeze or should he stick to dex cool. I know there is alot of negatives out there on dex cool if you look around some on the net as well. He had engine troubles due to piston slap and they put in a new long block for him around 5000 miles and then gave him a 100,000 engine warranty for the troubles. Does anyone know if switching to the green will void the warranty as well?

Thanks
Andy

I think on any 96 and newer vehicle you have to stick with the dex-clog...so I am told. Something about the radiator and heater core aren't compatible with the green stuff.

Dex cool has to be used, Mixing any older glycol green will clog the radiator quickly. I've seen it many times. Some flushes work great and some don't. Really spend some time getting it to temp and cooling it down, some cleaners will leave residue, but murk in the bottle is not that uncommon.

I just bought a '98 Z28 in Dec '04 and my mechanic strongly suggested that I get rid of the dexcool so I did, no problems so far but we will see come summer time. He claims the local chevy dealer is also changing over to the old green stuff but not making a point to advertise it. I looked at several cars before purchasing mine and all of them had the same brown crap on the dip stick that goes in the over flow tank, one of the cars was a '99 with only 19,000 miles on it. When I looked in the radiator of these cars they didn't look too bad, no major build up but the over flow tanks were horrible.

had to have the wifes 96 blazer flushed out it looked like it had potting soil in it. the guy at radiator shop said you should still use the dex cool because they didn't use head gaskets only some type of silicone. and the green could desolve that and cause water to leak into cylinder. but i know people who have flushed and used the old type with no problem but i was afraid to risk it so it has the orange crap in it.
i'd check about the warranty before switching over to old type

The green stuff has a silicate in it that coats everything it touches. The dex cool doesn't.

The sludge is probably from the dexcool coming into contact with air in the cooling system. This can happen from leaks in the cooling system, but can more commonly happen when engine work is done and the cooling lines aren't bled afterwards.

I have flushed Dexcool out of a lot of GM cars and trucks and have never seen one come back because of the green coolant.

I flushed out the Dexcool in my Tahoe years ago and so far not a problem.

I've been thinking about this as well... I'm putting a '95 LT1 in my '69 malibu. The engine has dex-cool, and the chevelle's radiator has the green. I'm thinking I should flush the engine... :confused:

Andy,
The biggest problem with DexCool seems to be when it gets low due to some type of leak, and then air gets into the system. It will turn to "mud" real quick. My 99 Tahoe still has the original DexCool in it (65k miles) and looks fine. I checked it last week before a trip to Boston for the weekend.
As far as changing to green, there is nothing wrong with doing it. If you mix the two, it will also work fine, but you will lose the long life properties of the DexCool. Personally, I just have not had cooling system problems with any of my vehicles. My wife's 84 Riviera just turned 120 K miles and I have flushed and filled with Prestone twice in the twenty years since we bought it new. Once at 50k and again last summer at 108k miles. Still has the original hoses on it !

On my '98 S10 4.3L I didn't have any heat or very little. At the time I had 53,000 miles on it.The heat would pick up when I'd rev the engine and blow cold at idle. I had the cooling system fushed which cost me $130.00 and it didn't help one bit. I then changed the thermostat and back flushed the heater core two seperate times myself. That still didn't help. I read on a S10 forum about problems with the orange stuff. I changed it out for the green and now my heater is really pumping. No problems so far, it's been about three to four months back now.