River_Rat_459
06-24-2012, 12:14
Hopefully someone can enlighten me.
I've got a 2003 Chevy Trailblazer with just over 100,000 miles on it. About a week ago, it started to run very hot as I was driving with my wife to a dinner date. I didn't get hot until right before I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. Nothing was leaking and nothing boiled over. We had our dinner, which gave ample time for the engine to cool off.
I noticed the coolant was low, so we drove to a nearby Target where I got some Prestone 50-50 mix coolant. I topped it off, added some to the recovery tank and off we went for a drive in the country with no other issues. I checked on it the next day and the day after that, and it seems okay. It's a little low, but it's been really hot this past week and my wife runs it with the AC full-blast all of the time, so that probably explains it.
Now to the point of my post: I checked the manual to see what the capacity is so I can make sure I have enough. Since it's 100,000 miles, it's due for a flush and fill. The owner's manual has a warning about using ONLY Dex-Cool coolant, and not to mix it with regular coolant.
Ruh-roh.
I'm going to completely flush the system this week and refill it. My question is, does anyone have any experience with this issue? I've searched several forums, and most people say to get rid of the Dex-Cool and use the regular coolant regardless of what the manual advises. Apparently Dex-Cool is somewhat corrosive and there was a lawsuit over it sometime ago. But other posts say that the issue was resolved and GM still insists on using Dex-Cool.
Can someone help a brother out here?
I've got a 2003 Chevy Trailblazer with just over 100,000 miles on it. About a week ago, it started to run very hot as I was driving with my wife to a dinner date. I didn't get hot until right before I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. Nothing was leaking and nothing boiled over. We had our dinner, which gave ample time for the engine to cool off.
I noticed the coolant was low, so we drove to a nearby Target where I got some Prestone 50-50 mix coolant. I topped it off, added some to the recovery tank and off we went for a drive in the country with no other issues. I checked on it the next day and the day after that, and it seems okay. It's a little low, but it's been really hot this past week and my wife runs it with the AC full-blast all of the time, so that probably explains it.
Now to the point of my post: I checked the manual to see what the capacity is so I can make sure I have enough. Since it's 100,000 miles, it's due for a flush and fill. The owner's manual has a warning about using ONLY Dex-Cool coolant, and not to mix it with regular coolant.
Ruh-roh.
I'm going to completely flush the system this week and refill it. My question is, does anyone have any experience with this issue? I've searched several forums, and most people say to get rid of the Dex-Cool and use the regular coolant regardless of what the manual advises. Apparently Dex-Cool is somewhat corrosive and there was a lawsuit over it sometime ago. But other posts say that the issue was resolved and GM still insists on using Dex-Cool.
Can someone help a brother out here?