What color is your antifreeze?

For years, almost all antifreeze was green. Although there were quality differences between brands, most green antifreeze was compatible or interchangeable.

But not anymore. Antifreeze now comes in almost any color of the rainbow. Green, red, blue, orange, yellow! And one other thing has changed.

Never-Never-Never mix different colors of antifreeze. Mixing can destroy the corrosion protection of antifreeze, and can produce mud and sludge that corrodes and destroys cooling system seals, hoses and metal surfaces.

To avoid cooling system problems, always flush your cooling system and install new antifreeze every two years - no matter what the owner's manual, under hood sticker, or salesperson may tell you.

The entire industry (including us) is seeing cooling system leaks and damage in cars and trucks with mileage as low as 40,000 miles. Much of this is because the antifreeze has not been changed every two years. Orange antifreeze (called Dexcool), which is used in Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Cadillac cars and trucks has been particularly problem plagued. We are doing one to two engine jobs per month (costing $600.00 to $4,000.00 each) for problems caused by neglected Dexcool systems.

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