In my opinion, 2 years may be a bit too aggressive a change interval for my taste, but the bottom line is stick to a recommended practice (or sooner) change interval. 2 years on either anti-freeze should keep the system clean and in tip-top shape.

And in all honesty, it does not matter if you run DEX or the green stuff, it all should probably be changed at LEAST every 3-5 years. The chemical composition of each will break down, each does get "sludgy" and each of them can eventually corrode or clog.

Too many people ignore changing brake fluid, power steering fluid, transmission fluid and coolant. They all "wear" down. Good to make a point to cycle them out from time to time.

Brit, if you are concerned one flush will not clean out all the "crud" in the system, you can always flush it, drive it about 1000-3000 miles, flush it again and repeat until you are comfortable the sludge has been worked out (I think that's overkill, but it would do the job).

 

I've actually started flushing mine once a year because in the winter it starts to tell me the coolant is low when it isn't. Just gross looking and messing with my sensor.

 

thanks for the tips guys. & it usually likes to hover between the half & 3/4 mark. It's only jumped to the 3/4 mark a couple times & every time it does I go someplace where I can turn the car off for a bit to be safe or I get on the highway asap. I just know I wanna get this problem fixed before the hot summer gets here bcuz if it's doing this when it's only 20 degrees out I can't wait to see what it's gonna do on a 100+ degree day. & it sounds like the fans are kicking on.

So y'all think I should flush/clean it really good (I have Prestone Radiator Cleaner or something like that to use as the chemical flush option on the machine), put the new radiator in, & a new thermostat in...should I just go ahead & get the 180 outta the way or stick with the stock until I make sure the problem is fixed? & then flush it again in the middle of the summer to help get the rest of the crap out?

 

Flush your system, put in distilled water and run that and flush it, repeat, repeat.

No need to flush with coolant and waste that money.

If you are running the stock 195° and your fan speeds are still 212° then your car is okay according to what it sounds like in your posts.

 

If you have access to a car scanner that can read the temp from the computer, you may want to do so. I was just battling with a '97 Grand Prix that the temp guage says it's running hot (260 degrees of hot, yet I can still touch the engine and it ran fine). Looking at it with a scanner, the computer is reading 163 NOT the 260 the gauge says. So, the Grand Prix appears to have a bad instrument cluster. You may be dealing with something that goofy.

I don't yet hear a reason to change the radiator. Changing a radiator is time consuming and costly for what a couple of flushes might solve.

To add to Chibi, do a couple of flushes (I would run the first flush with a Preston chemical to flush through and help break up the crud in the system, followed with some straight water flushes if you are going to do it all in one day). Based on what you mentioned, you may want to consider changing your T-stat, as it may be hanging a little. I would stay with a stock rated T-stat.

 

I would switch to the 180° now since she has an L67 and plans to mod.

 

Ahh yeah the scanner is a really good idea, I can't believe I didn't think of that.. We have a couple that we use around the shop that should do the trick. Well I wasn't going to replace the radiator, that was my dad's idea & we got a brand new one for only like 90 bucks bcuz of my dad's shop discount. I guess he just wanted to be safe & get it all done at once ya know. He was going to buy a new overflow tank too but I just told him I would manually clean that out, or try to at least lol

I'll be hopefully going to the shop on Wednesday to try to work for some money so I guess I'll try to hook one of the scanners that they aren't using to the monte & check everything out to see what exactly is going on before I buy the 180 stat. Knowing my luck though, the monte won't be running as hot as usual that day lol I'll prob have to go into town with the scanner to a place where there are a lot of stop signs and check it all out there

 

if there is more than just a little bit of sludge build up on the rad cap and in the overflow i'd be worried that oil or trans fluid is getting into the coolant. trans fluid from the tranny cooler. and oil from a bad intake gasket or cracked head. if there is a large amount of "spooge" in the coolant that would be my concern.

my car has 188,000 km's and i only just flushed my system out at the beginning of december. i also filled it back up with a 60% dex-cool 40% distilled water mixture making it suitable for -45* C. for canadian winters of course.

my hoses, rad, waterpump are all original and are perfectly fine with the km's and age. coolant hoses and rubber/plastic components don't need changing for almost the life of any vehicle when dex-cool is used. and there is a conditioning and Ph restoring additive made by castle called cool-flo i highly recommend it if you change the coolant and use a dex-cool again.