Thread: Dex-Cool Contamination w/Pictures

I was reading about Dex-Cool today and the many reports out there of its evil effects. Having experienced this first hand, I thought I would post up some pictures. Dex-Cool resulted in the demise of my radiator, the blockage of my heater core, I ended up replacing the water pump trying to figure out the unusual heating of the engine (never over heated, just never cooled right).

I eventually installed a coolant filter to get the residual stuff out, switched to green all makes and models coolant and havent looked back.

In trying to figure out what was blocking my radiator, I tried draining it to see what would come out. So plugged was it that even with the drain plug fully open and out, it would only drizzle out. I pulled the upper hose and sucked out coolant with a fluid extractor. Below is some of the sediment that I got out. It is Dex Cool sludge that has hardened and settled to the bottom of the radiator and eventually partially plugged it.

Another View:

In an attempt to save my radiator, hoping that the Dex Sand, as I call it, would get stirred up enough that I could trap it, I installed a coolant filter to try and catch all the gunk. Below is a picture of what I caught with the filter after just 5 minutes of running the engine.

It wasnt a couple weeks later the radiator finally gave up and I had to replace it. I had to clean the filter everyday after driving to and from work until the radiator failed and was replaced.

Below is a picture of my coolant filter. Its actually on backwards in the picture and I had to turn it around so that the U part of the screen faced the coolant flow from the engine. That screen would be about 40% full of Dex Sand, along with all the sediment trap caught (pictured above) and as I stated required daily cleaning.

After I changed out the radiator and installed green coolant, it was still another month before I got the majority of what remained out of the system. Now I can go a month or two before having to clean the filter and even then its minor compared to what it was. All cooling systems produce debris (scale, calcium build up, etc) so its not a bad idea to have a filter on the system.

Think about it. They filter your fuel, your oil, your air, why not the coolant?

Oh, I will eventually put up a how-to for installing a coolant filter. Its really easy and doesnt take a lot of time at all and worth every penny. I will never own another car that doesnt have a coolant filter on it.

my head hurts!!! lol

that really sucks! I had picked up my GT and had asked the guy if he had changed from Dexcool to green. he said yes. well I can smell coolant coming through the heater core when it gets really hot....but doesnt over heat. I pulled the radiator cap to look. the cap is just nothing but sludge....and the coolant looks like a mixture of straight green, and dexcool. needless to say I will flushing it out here ths next week.

I still have dexcool in the GTP.......never had a problem.

Yeah, if there is sludge present, I would be concerned that sediment may be building somewhere.

I didnt think I had a problem in the GTP either until the thing just didnt cool like it had. I guess its a crap shoot. All I learned is to never use Dex Cool again. Anything that sensitive to air doesnt belong in a cooling system where there is always going to be some air present to say nothing of the air present as a result of any cavitation.

I thought of that, and I even went as far as to buy some to compare and they weren't even close. I crushed up six of those suckers and it didnt even come close to amounting to what I got out of the system. What you see in the picture above is about a third of what I got out of the cooling system altogether.

It was a nightmare.

I never seen good things with dexsludge myself. Its just a selling point for LOW maintenance along with no tune up till 100K. Every car is low maintenance, just ignore it until it breaks. Thats what alot of people that don't care or know any better do.

i switched over to green about 3 years ago. where did you get the filter and how much was it.

It is a Tefba filter, made in Australia. I think I paid about $50 for it IIRC. There was a vendor here in the US, where I bought mine from. He decided to retire and is no longer selling them.

I contacted the company directly and was going to sell them myself, but I never got the interest in anyone wanting one so I didnt pursue it. Most people never think of filtering their coolant and in all fairness, I never saw the need to do so until my incident with Dex Cool

I have drawings and stuff that I have made wanting to build my own to see if I could do it any cheaper but again I just havent pursued it.