Thinking I need to do a radiator flush. What type of coolant should I put in it? I've heard bad things about Dexcool with people calling it death cool and all. But then I've heard that its recommended for GM motors. Any advice would be a great help. Thanks guys.

 

Never had a problem with DexCool.

 

No gunky buildup?

 

To be honest I just use whatever canadian tire has on sale when I need to replace my rad fluid, been a few years now with no issues and no buildup

 

Thanks guys.

 

The myths about DexCool are out-dated information. Yes, it WAS bad and GM re-formulated it. If neglected, just like good ol' green, it will gunk up and other bad things.

The REAL problem if you ask me is nylon gaskets, green or Dex, the gaskets are destine for failure 100-150k miles usually.

 

Thanks for the info Maniac. I wasn't aware that this info was old. Good to know. So these nylon gaskets, is that all the gaskets in the 3.8 series 2 engine or certain ones? I'm sitting at 132k miles so this worries me.

 

Yeah the Death Cool thing was circa late 90's, early 2000s when they first introduced it. My Camaro had it when I bought it and I converted it to green, mostly because it was cheaper but because it did eat the LIM gasket and was gunked up at the radiator as well. That was mostly because it was 12 year old coolant (P.O. was a lady that traded in the Camaro for a Nissan Rogue). I would have kept it Dexcooled but 2 bottles were $30 whereas 2 prestone bottles were $20, plus my Cutlass uses the green stuff so it was just easier to have a bottle for both cars.

So what I'm trying to say is do whatever you feel is convenient. Whatever you do, you need to flush the cooling system entirely.

The "nylon gaskets" piece he's referring to are more commonly called "plastic gaskets" and they were used in the lower intake manifold (commonly called "LIM"). Both the 3800 and the 60 degree engines (3x00) used plastic gaskets at the LIM. If you can't verify that your engine has had this work done before, you have the plastic LIM gaskets. When it's time to change gaskets, you'll have to buy the metal gaskets. Once they're in you don't have to do anything to the engine with those gaskets unless you do a head gasket job or tear up the engine again for some other reason. The head gasket on the 3800 is metal as normal and that's not known to fail. On the 3800, the plastic elbows under the belt tensioner are known to fail, so if you tear up the engine to get to the LIM, swap those elbows to metal ones as well.

 

Yes I do have plans on replacing the elbows not sure if that was done by the PO. But I do want to look into that. Thanks for the info. Is there any way to tell if my LIM gasket is plastic or metal?

 

I'd use whatever your car is recommended to use. If it recommends Dexcool, it should say somewhere in the engine bay. I don't remember the owners manual ever saying in anything I owned.