Dexcool problems

[Irish_Alley]

Well my 04 imp has been leaking antifreeze pretty steady. seamed to be coming from the radiator cap and getting on the supercharger belt and going all over the place. so after cutting the overflow hose down a couple inches to make sure it didnt have a hole i replaced the cap.
drove it home no problem thinking the problem was fixed i drove the car to look at a property with a Realtor, the bid had to be done that day so i was in a rush. got about 15 minutes from the house and my dic displayed a message in read saying "engine hot" (my temp gauge, fuel and tach doesn't work right when its cold outside) so i pulled over and pop the hood its all covered in antifreeze worst than before. so i promptly call the Realtor and tell her its a sign and im not going to bid on the house. luckily i had a jug of antifreeze in the car added half of it and drove home.

went to the parts store to get all the parts i would need (supercharger gasket and intake gasket. took it all apart and when it came time to clean up the intake i noticed something not right.


i took other pictures but this is the only one that automatically uploaded to photobucket. it doesnt do it justice but the way the heads are set up is there are 4 water passages but on the intake theres only 2. this is one of the passages that are blocked off there was so much crud in the water jacket i guess air was trapped in that passage idk. but the aluminum intake had been eaten away by the dexcool and by time i cleaned all the corrosion out there was a hole in the top side of the intake and it had to be TIGed back and ground down flush.

on each of the old intake gasket each water jackets were broken i couldnt tell you where the leak was coming from cause before all this i had coolant on the top of intake and appeared to be coming from the intake

drove it home and the main leak is fixed but the little one by the rad cap is still there. its either a cracked hose or cracked radiator

[LTZ C20]

Sorry to hear that Irish. Looks like you got it all fixed up and working again tho. If your car has alot of miles on it and the gaskets have never been done and the coolant has never been flushed then this sorta thing is possible and on any vehicle.

Dexcool is some pretty good stuff, GM has been using it for a long time and still uses it in brand new engines. That's the first time I've ever seen it do something like that but anything is possible with cars lol. I'll ask some of the guys in the shop on monday if they've ever seen something like that before. Maybe there was something else goin on??

I will say the engines in those impalas, supercharged or not are a pretty darn good engine. We don't see alot of problems with them, the transmissions are pretty well done too overall compared to some other engines and transmissions.

Glad you got her goin again tho.

[Irish_Alley]

the trans are crap lol. well some are i have to shift mine manually to change the shift points or it will slam into 3rd gear. ive heard of the dexcool and ait mixing will eat the gaskets and gm has had problems with this. but i havnt heard of it eating aluminum either.

[LTZ C20]

This may be wrong but in regards to your shifting manually, you may want to have the pressure control solenoid checked. They can cause a slip/bump feeling and/or a hard up/down shift. Our trans guy has replaced alot of those solenoids.

Just an idea anyway.

[VileZambonie]

Dexcool and aluminum are the devil. Worst thing GM ever did to aluminum and composite engines. Cavitation and electrolysis with Dexcool = aluminum termites. If it's a rigid flange, you can always clean it up with a wire wheel and fill it with JB weld. Let it setup over night and grind it down. Now if it's the cylinder head mating surface forget about it but intake, waterpump etc those areas are fine to repair in this manner.

Check for electrolysis Irish or you may end up doing it again very soon

[zieg85]

I've seen aluminum water pumps corrode.  Right or wrong, if I intend to keep a vehicle I purchase that has that coolant I flush it thoroughly and put the green stuff in it...

[LTZ C20]

Sounds like you guys don't like Dexcool much lol. Honestly tho, being at a GM dealer, we don't see those problems. Dexcool can turn into jello but it has to sit for a long time. I've really interested in this now, I'm gonna go askin around Monday and see what I find from our techs.

I'de like to know if they see that. I'm sure I would have heard about something like that happening by now.

[zieg85]

Sounds like you guys don't like Dexcool much lol. Honestly tho, being at a GM dealer, we don't see those problems. Dexcool can turn into jello but it has to sit for a long time. I've really interested in this now, I'm gonna go askin around Monday and see what I find from our techs.

I'de like to know if they see that. I'm sure I would have heard about something like that happening by now.

I would be willing to bet it is fine for 5 years or so which dealerships may see cars.  Older cars that independent shops get, 10 year or older is where I get that info from.  It could be lack of regular flushing intervals, I just know you didn't see it with the green stuff.

[VileZambonie]

I worked at a GM dealer. We had tons of dex cool and electrolysis issues causing major failures. Google it, you will see lawsuits, images, thousands of complaints. It's no secret

[jaredts]

Do you have the plastic intake gaskets?  Did the new ones come with small metal spacers in them?  Just a little too much heat and the plastic gaskets settle, get too soft, whatever.  The fix was to add some metal spacers in the gaskets so they couldn't crush down and also to use new intake bolts with pre-applied threadlocker.

[Irish_Alley]

think oem gaskets are the plastic ones. i replaced it with the metal ones with thick rubber gasket built

the shifting is prob the pressure control solenoid but i much rather manually shift than rip the trans apart lol. i did have a shop look at it once but of course it didnt do anything for them so they couldnt even guess what it was

i dont think theres much if any of dexcool left i did replace it with the green stuff but idk if theres still a chance of damage

Sounds like you guys don't like Dexcool much lol. Honestly tho, being at a GM dealer, we don't see those problems. Dexcool can turn into jello but it has to sit for a long time. I've really interested in this now, I'm gonna go askin around Monday and see what I find from our techs.

I'de like to know if they see that. I'm sure I would have heard about something like that happening by now.

I would be willing to bet it is fine for 5 years or so which dealerships may see cars.  Older cars that independent shops get, 10 year or older is where I get that info from.  It could be lack of regular flushing intervals, I just know you didn't see it with the green stuff.

i do think that most problems come with old dexcool in the system rather it being gumming up the radiator or heater core then you have this problem. i have only had this car for 3 years and it should of been the first thing to go but i never got around to it

[Engineer]

Keeping the coolant changed is key with any color antifreeze.

I have used Dex-Cool with excellent results. My '97 Blazer has 300,000mi on it with the original engine and transmission. Dex-Cool the whole time.

The GM intake gaskets were failing before Dex-Cool. I remember doing an intake gasket on a 1988 K2500 350 TBI with green from the factory.

I also put a cylinder sleeve in a Ford 7.3L diesel that electrolysis had eaten through the cylinder wall. Again, green anti-freeze.

If you guys want to switch out your Dex-Cool for any substitute I am not against that. I have heard for years why Dex-Cool has gotten the blame for every mechanical malady there is but I have not seen it. I'm also the guy who has been using 10% ethanol in my lawnmowers, weed eaters, and chainsaws for 20 years without any failures too. Just lucky I guess.

[LTZ C20]

We do see cars much older than 5 years too. We have customers who have been faithfully bringing there vehicles to use for over 10-15 years, since they bought the vehicle. I have an 03 tahoe that still gets serviced at my work. We have a guy who is an engine guru, been working on all GM engines for over 20 years and he still says it's ok to use Dexcool.

I'm gonna have to go with Engineer on this one, regular service intervals, fixing problems when they occur And using quality parts is the best we can do for our vehicles. Whether the coolant is green or red or yellow or purple, sometimes crap happens.

How many miles are on the car Irish?

[VileZambonie]

GM lost a lot of customers who had to pay for not 1 but 2 heater cores or had to replace intakes or cylinder heads or radiators,or water pumps, timing covers etc. Coolant turning into essentially rusty mud, aluminum degradation and erosion. I wasn't complaining as a technician, it sure did keep me busy and keep my wallet fat.

I run coolant that has stood the test of time with proper corrosion inhibiters in my vehicles. Toyota was another one who didn't learn from GM's mistakes.

Do a google image search for dexcool damage and the like. There's plenty of perfect examples

[roundhouse]

It's called " red death "for a reason

As soon as the warrenty expires it starts destroying the engine

First thing i do when I buy a GM car is flush out he red death and put antifreeze in t that wont destroy the engine


What genius thought it was a good idea to use plastic for manifolds???
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