the summary first: Dexcool and long life coolants are not permanent fill products. Dexcool formula has been revised in the last 13 years. Problems with it have been addressed (but not always the way customers want) as they have occured. Some problems were caused by inferior or incompatible products used with dexcool and not the coolant itself (example: gaskets and cooling system sealant). Other brand universal long life formulas are different from dexcool brand and are as good and better than dexcool. A antique tractor was desingned to run with marginal quality "water" with routine maintenance and has no plastic or exotic parts in the cooling system. You should use distilled water with all coolant. Proper maintenance cannot be replaced with a "long life" product-that goes for oil, coolant, filters and anything else that has to do with maintenance. I prefer the traditional stuff but i do not have anything requiring extended life. If you want, use dexcool or equivalent. You could also look into "fill for life" (semi-permanent) coolant technology for all your vehicles. http://www.fleetchargeantifreeze.com/faq.htm#7 wet sleeve and all modern heavy duty diesels require it anyway.
-karl f
In my opinion, DEX-COOL is a "useful-life fill" from a marketing perspective. a 5yr/100,000 mile service looks good if you market it from the traditional car purchasing paradigm (concept, set of rules, system, thought process) where a car is traded off by 3 years/50,000miles. the original owner and even the second owner have one less maintenance cost in the first 2 years of owership (reccommended change interval for green coolant). By the time the car hits 100k or 5 years elapse, the car is well out of warranty and is considered an old car that did what it was designed to. Any repair of failures or required maintenance at that point may exceed the value of the car, but it's time to replace it with a brand new one, you can afford it with monthly payments and a brand loyalty discount or if not, how about this 50kmile / 2yr old car that just came in? That whole system is flawed because it only considers the upper and middle classes: who else has that kind of buying power at $20,000 new, $10,000 used?!
Also from a marketing standpoint, you can throw in an evironmental spin: no coolant changes for 5 years, that's 7 gallons of coolant per car times a million that doesn't get disposed of during 5 years, saving the earth from nearly 10 million gallons of used coolant... they convieniently omit that most coolant is recycled and reconditioned.
One of the online car communities (for 94-96 chevy caprice/impala ss) I am part of has discussed dexcool so much I shudder at the mention of it. These cars were cast block and cast heads (like a tractor). The 94 and 95 models used green and 1996 got the Dexcool fill. Dexcool cars were having cooling system issues the prior model years did not have. The basic problem was sludge forming in the first 18 months, blocking the heater core and other smaller passages. Owners complained as much as if they had the gasket problems of the 3100. Many flushed and went to green when the warranty was up or before if they were brave. As time went on, the more technically inclined members said they talked to a few gm people and they all concluded the issue was the sealing tablets added on the assembly line were reacting with the dexcool additives. By that time, pretty much everyone went to green that had concerns. supposedly there was a change in assembly line procedure, but the group quit monitoring the situation when our model was discontinued in fall of 1996. They still seem to advise flushing, replacing heater core, and going to green; although some are using dexcool with no more problems.
I have seen what looks like mud in gm vehicles using dexcool and chryslers with extended life turn to mud in 2-3 years, sold all kinds of felpro 3.1 intake gaskets at work. I am leery of extended life cooling products for those reasons, but believe that there are also untold stories behind those experiences. Felpro says gm's original gasket design for 3.1 was inferior material, and the new style gm is marginally better. The observations of mud could be caused by lack of proper maintenance (including poor quality water), low level, overheating, or the use of an additive that reacted with the coolant. many people should be following severe service intervals and do not, and many don't even follow the minimum basic intervals!
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