weird colored antifreeze

While looking at this lumina yesterday, prior to buying it, I removed the rad cap looking for oily evidence of a head gasket problem and noticed this orange colored stuff. I figured it was somekind of modern antifreeze so dismissed it. My other cars are 70's and early 80's so they have the green coolant. Anyway I'm reading horror stories about this orange dex-cool this morning. Am I supposed to flush this out and put in the standard green coolant? Have I bought a lemon with corroded everything? The coolant looks clean and clear and doesn't have the brownish color others talk about but I don't know if the dealer flushed it out to hide a problem and installed new coolant. The rad cap looks perfect as apposed to pictures on the web showing severe corrosion.

My '97's had Dexcool in it for 140,000 miles...looks fine.

Personally I think the horror stories are exaggerated...someone's always looking for a way to blame something for their lack of maintenance...

My '97's had Dexcool in it for 140,000 miles...looks fine.

Personally I think the horror stories are exaggerated...someone's always looking for a way to blame something for their lack of maintenance...
:iagree: I've owned a bunch of vehicles that use DexCool in the cooling system, and have kept the coolant alone. Many of the "issues" blamed on that coolant have other causes, such as poor gasket design/ materials, etc. If you properly maintain your system and keep an eye on it, it should be worry free. Air infiltration is a big issue that can cause problems with this coolant. I don't recommend changing out the coolant for the old ethylene glycol based (green coolant) as it's a different technology. The Dex Cool is an OAT (Organic Acid Technology) based coolant and has a different protection package incorporated within to protect your modern engine .

All GM vehicles from 1996 models up use Dex-Cool. It is orange in color or a variation of that color.

I too have never had one problem with Dex-Cool which is a Texaco Production licensed to GM.

Good thanks for the advise. I don't think I have anything to worry about. Oil and antifreeze looks perfect and no residue or brown gunk in the overflow tank.

I think most of the problems were actually intake gasket failure which a lotta mechanics incorrectly blamed on the coolant, kind of backwards logic.

There is some evidence that mixing old style coolant and Dex can cause the anti-corrosives in both to be weakened...I remember it was common to see them with mixed coolants when they first came out, people didn't understand that Dex was something different yet...may have caused some from the first years of Dex use to run without sufficient corrosion protection and caused some of the problems attributed to it...

Dex does turn into something unholy fast when exposed to oil though...