Antifreeze green/orange topic

I have a 2001 Buick that came with the orange antifreeze. During an intake manifold change, I switched from the orange stuff to ethylene glycol a.k.a. the good, old green stuff. This was 100,000 miles ago and there has been no problems due to the switch.

I plan on doing this to the rest of the fleet in the future because the green stuff is permanent and the orange stuff is supposed to decline and be changed. Has anyone had problems doing this?

There was a problem with not changing out the dex-cool stuff as it would allow electrolysis, long before it was supposed to. There"s at least 4 different antifreeze types here now and they don"t really mix well. Good old green stuff is still okay, just change it out every few years and run a bunch of ground wires ie/rad to block etc. The reddish pinkish stuff from chevron is good stuff. I hope I helped a little.

The old radiator repair man here who is just retiring says the red, orange stuff is a good weed killer and not much else.
Richard in NW SC

Hi, I had a 1999 Buick LeSabre with 3.8L V6 until
Jan 2014 that had dex cool (orange) and I changed
and flushed it every 5 years. Never had a problem
with intake manifold leaking but know many others
that had problems but don't know if they changed the
dex cool as recommended.

JimB

as long as you flush it out good you will be ok , the orange does not mix with any of the others colors, there is a bad reaction and it turns to a brown nasty goo.

Antifreeze/coolant. Wow, this is right up my
alley. I am the coolant engineer for John Deere. I
can tell you books on coolant.

Basically about 99% of all long life coolants use
2-ethylhexanoat acid as one of the OATs or organic
acid technologies. The reason for this is it is
effective corrosion protection and its cheap.

The problem is cooling system seals and gaskets
need to be designed to work with it or they
shrink, become brittle and crack. This is why so
many gasket problems came up in the early 90s when
extended life coolant came on the market.

Long life coolants don"t need to use 2-ehn to be
effective. John Deere is one of few that use other
OATs so this isn"t an issue. So I can recommend
Cool-Gard II engine coolant from you local John
Deere dealer.

If your system is older than about 2000 and not
designed to work with newer coolants like Dex-
Cool, either use the traditional coolants or look
for a long life coolant that doenst contain 2-ehn.

The good news is 2-ehn is a hazardous product. So
it must be listed on an MSDS. Most don"t advertise
the chemistry on the label, because it would
mostly confuse people anyway. It also isn"t
typically a selling point.

On the electrolysis issue, extra grounding on
things can make the issue worse. That isn"t the
answer. Believe me. Keeping a good coolant it is
about the best solution.

If you want to know more, my email is open and I
will help anyone with questions.

So yall still using dyed G05?

I had an 01 LeSabre, close to 300000, never had anything but DexCool in it. Since when is the green permanent? Never saw one marked "Last for Eternity" on the bottle.

I changed a '97 gm truck to the green stuff.
Flushed it out real well and used a green coolant
that's good for aluminum engines. Been in there
for about 5 years and never a problem. From what I
understand, the Dex-Cool doesn't react well with
air(or anything really), so a poorly designed
intake gasket and an over-flow tank that isn't
overly air tight didn't do any favours. I don't
see any benefit to the Dex-Cool. It has to be
changed out as often as the green stuff anyways,
so why bother with it? I would use either the
green stuff or Prestone All Makes and Models
LongLife Concentrate.

You seem to think Dex-Cool is something other than ethylene glycol. Although there are propylene glycol antifreezes (e.g. Sierra), Dex-Cool is still based on ethylene glycol.

By "green stuff" I assume you mean an antifreeze that uses inorganic (silicate) corrosion inhibitors, such as old-style Prestone. The newer antifreezes such as Dex-Cool use organic corrosion inhibitors, although there are several different chemistries in use. The main reason manufacturers have switched from inorganic to organic antifreeze is the longer life of the latter. You have it backwards: silicate antifreeze has a shorter life than organic. Coolant life wasn't that important back in the days when cast iron ruled, but cars made in the past thirty years use a lot of aluminum, and people weren't changing antifreeze as often as they should, so the OEMs switched to longer-life organic antifreezes. If you want to use silicate antifreeze, better change it often.

The term "permanent" used in the past to describe antifreeze doesn't mean it does not need to be changed. It came about when ethylene glycol antifreeze was introduced. Prior to that, alcohol was used as an antifreeze. Since alcohol as a lower boiling point than water, it would boil off and had to be replaced every fall. When permanent (ethylene glycol) antifreeze was introduced, nobody had even conceived the need for corrosion inhibitors or 100,000 mile antifreeze change intervals.

Toyota says to use their long life coolant (red stuff). It works great for me.

I prefer the old green stuff myself but it has nothing to do with performance. Doesn't matter what you use the only way to keep the cooling system clean inside is to change it every few years.

I have always used the prestone green stuff.
And I mix my own and only use distilled water to prevent mineral buildup in the radiator core.