how important is coolant?

[userfriendly]

Not sure if I should post here or open a new thread.

Is there a difference between ethyl glycol and dexcool? I heard somewhere that there are problems with dexcool but am not clear on what they are. Can someone please elaborate.

Also if the manual specify use dexcool and for some reason ethyl glycol was used what will happen? I think this is what happened to my car. So far its ok but I sometimes see the temp guage going higher after long drives. It's normally at the 1/4 position but after a 2 hour drive or going up hill, it sometimes creeps past 1/2.

[Psylocke]

Not sure if I should post here or open a new thread.

Is there a difference between ethyl glycol and dexcool? I heard somewhere that there are problems with dexcool but am not clear on what they are. Can someone please elaborate.

Also if the manual specify use dexcool and for some reason ethyl glycol was used what will happen? I think this is what happened to my car. So far its ok but I sometimes see the temp guage going higher after long drives. It's normally at the 1/4 position but after a 2 hour drive or going up hill, it sometimes creeps past 1/2.

Don't use Dexcool on cars that didn't originally come with Dexcool. The chemicals works very differently. Flush it out completely and use original coolant.