Pontiac coolant problem

You have a 3.4 motor with a leaking intake? That's the fix. Unless I assumed too much!

There is at least one (probably more) class action law suits against GM about intake manifold leaks. The alleged cause is DEX-COOL coolant.
The brown sludge is also mentioned as being caused by DEX-COOL.
I would try the dealer and see if your car is recalled because of a defective gasket.
The suit covers GM cars with 3.1, 3.4, and 3, 8 liter engines as well as 4.3 liter from 1995 to 2006.

Leave it to the lawyers, must have smelled $$$. I have serious doubts of that relationship. The 5.7. 2.2 & 2.4 motors use that as well.

I do not doubt the lawyers are there for some large monetary settlement, and it is odd that all GM cars using DEX-COOL are not included (at least in this lawsuit).
However, DEX-COOL has been getting a bad reputation over the years, especially the "sludge" issue.
Cars built at GM's NUMMI plant in CA. (Vibe, Corolla, Tacoma) use Toyota red, and although "RED" is a "long lasting" coolant, Toyota still says to change it at 24,000 miles and to use "RED" not DEX-COOL.
Have you ever seen this "sludge" issue in GM cars equipped with DEX-COOL?
No flame intended, just curious.

AHHHHH!!!!!!I just spent 20 minutes responding and made a mistake and lost everything!!!AAAHHHH!!!! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

I'll get back to this later, I do want to throw this issue around, and not feeling flamed at all. :D

IMHO, The Dexcool is being added to the lawsuit as there will be another defendant added to the case; that means another money source. Much like the Firestone and Frod explorer lawsuits. If the lawyers went after the GM design team I would be more acceptable of it.

The 3.8 intake manifold itself had a problem with a hot spot where heat became a cataylist for the errosion of it, had it been just the dexcool, we would see damage in more places I would think. The 3.1 and 3.4 motors had a poorly designed intake gasket design, Fel-pro has seemed to of solved it with metal gaskets. The 3.1 motors had this problem before Dexcool was put into systems. The 3.4 motors that are having problems with the intake gaskets are not always coolant related failures. Many suffer a breach in the gasket that sucks and burns oil, sometimes fairly quickly to the point of a dry sump and seized the engine from no lubrication We are pretty sure the designer of today’s auto are divorced women previously married to mechanics.

Seems that in the early years 95-99 roughly, we saw a fair amount of Dexcool troubles of sludging. Some where only slugde in the neck as a TSB refers to. When we started flushing the coolant didn’t look so bad. Others were very dirty at 60,000 miles. Some to the point of several flushes to clean it out. I have wondered if GM made a formula change to the dexcool. But, why some engines and not others? One thought is that in the early years, there were a lot of unknowns and mis-conceptions of the new coolant. What did owners or technicians unwittingly do or not do that may have promoted this situation.
I haven’t seen problems in a while. I don’t know that I’ll ever truly know.

I do know that mixing the coolant types will reduce the lifespan to the lowest common denominator, in which case I would probably revert the system to the 2 year coolant.

Now fast forward to 2005 and here in 2007, Gm has gone to another new coolant, this one BLUE in color. We had a Chevy Aveo in the shop with a low coolant reservior, with a blue color fluid in it. I brought the customer into the bat and asked hime where he puts the washer solvent. After a dirty look, he pointed to the washer reservior. I showed him the coolant bottle and he says he never checked at anypoint, let alone adding anything to it. He further stated that he has only brought the vehicle to us and to a dealership that just recently closed. So we proceded to check the manual, it says, “only add the proper coolant” UUHHH, YEAH! So I went to the spec page for the coolant, it just says it meets astm m1825 standard. HHMMM, I’ll call the dealer. This is where it became both humorous and scary at the same time. This Parts Guy say’s Yeah, “there’some new stuff in thier using, I think it’s the same as Dexcool.” Then he yells to a tech at the counter about it. I hear the tech say, “I think it’s the same, I dunno”, another one yells out, “I think it’s a 2 year coolant”, Someones else says “Yeah, that’s what I thought”, Then a condescending voice says, “Should say it right in the owner’s manual”. The Parts guy says he has to research it. So I research the astm m1825 on the internet and it illudes to it being a 2 year coolant. 1/2 hour later the dealer tells me the same thing.

I pretty much agree with what you are saying, however, I think DEX-COOL does have more issues than you state.
The DEX-COOL haters say it is more sensitive to any contamination than other coolants (including air), will not last over 2 years and when it comes in contact with certain gasket material can be corrosive.
One thing GM will have to explain is if DEX-COOL is as good as they say, why change to blue?

On the other hand I think the plaintiffs will have a hard time proving a direct correlation between DEX-COOL (alone) and engine failure (gaskets). But I think they will have an easier time with the sludge issue.

I do agree that design or manufacturing is more likely the root problem (something GM will NEVER admit). They most likely will take the low road and blame techs, owners, ocean currents :).

Did some more research and found no less than 14 lawsuits against DEX-COOL and GM.

The law suit I mentioned is trying to consolidate all the lawsuits into a class action representing some 40 million cars.

In any event, not a good thing for GM.