If you have an extended warranty, you will void it. If someone tells you to use a coolant OTHER than the one recommended by the car maker, DON’T listen. But if you mix coolants, or use the wrong coolant an get a leak or clogged heater core down the road, who’s going to suspect it’s the fault of the coolant. Gates has seen water pump failures in as short as 7 days, although most other failures won’t show up for a long time. Mixing different types of coolants can cause gelling and even premature water pump failure. I’m not aware of a single car maker that condones the use of a universal coolant in all of their models and engines. So the big name brands came out with “universal coolants.” Yeah, guess what? There’s no such thing. The big name coolant manufacturers felt left out of this game and somebody had to make a coolant that could be sold at retail auto parts stores. Is there such a thing as a universal coolant that work with all makes, all models?

Ford has several different coolants and you must use the correct coolant in each engine, simply because every engine has a different combination of seals and plastic materials. The current situation is that you cannot even use a single coolant for an entire manufacturer’s lineup. And each company formulated their coolants to work with the types of metals, gaskets, and seals used in each particular engine. Other carmakers adopted a Hybrid Organic Acid Technology (HOAT). The silicate passivates faster than organic acid so it provides rapid protection. Honda came out with a blue organic acid coolant supplemented with a low-silicate formula. And now there are other organic acid based coolantsĪfter GM came out with Dex-Cool, ALL the car makers jumped onto the reformulation bandwagon. But, running ANY engine when it’s low on organic acid type coolant cause form sludge. The “rusting” usually does NOT affect newer aluminum engines. When cast iron engines run low on coolant, the organic acid technologies oxidize and cause iron oxide deposits. But after a thorough investigation, it turns out that the only time sludge builds up is if the engine is low on coolant. Specifically, shops reported sludge buildup, especially in cast iron engines. Shops reported other problems with DexCool engines besides the 3.1 and 3.4-liter engine. So contrary to the ranting, DexCool IS the recommended coolant for GM engine. GM still uses Dex-Cool coolant and there is no longer a problem with gasket coolant interaction. GM has since redesigned the gaskets that the problem has now been fixed. Everyone assumes the problem was Dex-Cool, when in fact, the problem was the type of gasket material combined with the use of Dex-Cool and reusing the old intake bolts. So it’s true that DexCool caused gasket leaks, but the real problem was incompatibility between the plastic and the coolant. The bottom line is that owners sued GM in a class action and won a settlement to reimburse them for the gasket failures. But the shops would never admit to their mistake and blamed the coolant. So if you don’t use new bolts and follow the torque directions TO THE LETTER, you’re going to get another leak.

The problem with the newer plastic gaskets is that they’re fairly low torque (because they’re plastic). Wrong! Dex-Cool wasn’t the cause of the leaking gaskets At the time, many shops re-used the old intake manifold bolts with the new gaskets and then re-installed DexCool, only to see the gaskets fail again. The repair involved pulling the intake manifold and replacing the gaskets with a re-designed style. The problem was so extensive that it affected just about every 3.1 and 3.4-liter made in the late ‘90’1 and early 2000’s. For some reason (and NO ONE agrees on why this happens) the gasket material and Dex-Cool interact with one another, degrading the plastic gasket and causing leaks. At the same time, GM also started using plastic intake manifold gaskets with a silicone bead around the ports. That’s when GM introduced Dex-Cool coolant, an organic acid coolant technology (OAT) to replace silicate coolants.ĭex-Cool, like other modern coolants is about 95% polyethylene glycol and 5% organic acid.ĭex-Cool is rated with a 5-year, 100,000 mile lifespan. When car makers switched to aluminum engines and radiators and away from cast iron components, they also switched to long-life coolants. Second, the passivating feature doesn’t last very long -max 2-years or 24,000 miles. First, it’s somewhat abrasive, so it’s tough on water pump seals.

Using dexcool coolant in a audi