Something's wrong with my car!

They come from everywhere. Sometimes they call first. Sometimes they just drive in. Sometimes they are given a ride on a tow truck.

Their reaction is always the same-shock and disbelief. "How could this happen? The vehicle is only 4 or 5 years old?"

"It was just at the dealer for a 60K service. Wouldn't they catch that?"

"According to the owners manual, the antifreeze is not yet due for service! What's going on?"

Other times it's an ongoing problem that resists clean up efforts. "It's been flushed several times, but it just keeps getting muddy". "Can't we flush it all out and put the green stuff in?"

If you have a General Motors vehicle manufactured after 1995 you probably have Dex-cool antifreeze. It starts out a beautiful orange color. It looks good enough to drink.

In the lab, Dex-cool has properties and characteristics that allow for longer life, less maintenance, and greater protection. But that's "in the lab". Under the hood, it's quite often  a different story.

Thick, gooey, sticky, heavy orange mud that is in the radiator, engine block, heads, intake manifold, heater, hoses, and recovery bottle. It's not very easy it get all out, but it must be done before the mud turns corrosive and starts to allow electrolysis, a much bigger problem!

Dex-cool mud seems to expand (my opinion) at times causing gaskets and seals to push out of place. When that happens, a leak repair is necessary as well as cleaning up the mess.

GM says:

 1) "There is no problem with Dex-cool."

    and

2) "It's just a bad cap"

   and

3) "You should be maintaining your maintenance free cooling system" .  

It starts out like this, and ends like this!