GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

i noticed on the matrixvibe site they were discussing that coolant should be done at 15k miles. is this part of our scheduled maint. what all should be done at 15k? And if coolant is part of that service then is it a check or a system flush?-Phil

speedy response there silver!!!what does everyone else out there do?-Phil

It all depends on the coolant you use, in my opinion. I never get the cheap stuff (that tends to break down quicker), and go with the Prestone Extended Life antifreeze. It is made to go for 5 years/150,000 miles. So far I haven't owned a vehicle long enough to test that claim, but it always looked clean and tasted yummy. If you go with the cheap stuff, like Walmart Supertech, I would change it much more often. 15k sounds way too early though. I would stick to more like 30k+ with regular ethylene glycol coolant, but thats just me.

Quick Silver is right on. Those dealers will be happy to hold your wallet for you. There should be nothing to change on any car at 15,000 except the oil. The carmakers keep telling us that the quality of their vehicles is so much better (it is), so why do we need to spend a King's ransom on maintenance? Refuse to be hoodwinked.

ill bet the gm dealer trys to sell you dexcool(the 5 year red stuff) to make some cash off you

I use the green stuff unless the car uses a special coolant like my VW ($12 a bottle) and change it every 2 years. Don't forget to used distilled demineralized (sp?) water Jason

(sp?) = I was unsure of spelling!And you are correct on the water type. I have never had to do to much with my cooling systems.

50K is fine. 15K is wasting your money. Cars these days are very efficient and don't need tending to as much as older vehicles out there

when I had my Stang ....... I changed the Coolant and put a cleaner/flush agent at year 7........The Poop that came out was not funny and it reeks..my buddy would also tell me to start the engine and we would feed it with fresh water, a ton of garbage comes out, according to him the coolant flush will clear up the rad not what is trapped inside the engine!...I bought expensive coolant looked like Phospherous glow in the dark stuff, changed the thermostat at the same time, as a back up....that rad was like factory new! ...lol....in Any Case........75K is perfect. the coolant in my vibe is the RED ONE, So I will not mix it, Will just go to Toyota dealer and get a Gallon when its time.......Also I new this trucker onne and he told me he never dilluted the rad fluid...to this day this makes no sense to me, according to him there would never be contamination if it was used directly!

"...but it always looked clean and tasted yummy." I don't want to sound like a scold here, but since antifreeze IS sweet smelling, not at all unpleasant, and about 3 tablespoons is enough to kill you via to kidney failure, it might be just as well not to make repeated references to drinking it, however jokingly intended, JIC there's someone on the planet that is unaware of this fact...

Just to clear something up, does the vibe need the special glowing red coolant or can we use the normal green one that i have used on all my previous cars. The manual says you need to use the one that meets to GM specification 1825-M (ref. 6-32 in the Vibe manual, but I honestly dont know what the hell that one is.

quote:Just to clear something up, does the vibe need the special glowing red coolant or can we use the normal green one that i have used on all my previous cars. When I bought my Vibe, they told me to use the red stuff, because mixing what's already there with the common green antifreeze would cause it to gel. I usually don't trust the dealers, expect them to tell me stories to be sure I buy genuine GM parts from them at high markup, but the stuff that's in there now is red so I'll use the same stuff, just to be sure.I'm no chemist, anybody else heard of gelled coolant from mixing types? edit - file upload for viewing elsewhere, not applicable to this thread

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quote:I don't want to sound like a scold here, but since antifreeze IS sweet smelling, not at all unpleasant, and about 3 tablespoons is enough to kill you via to kidney failure, it might be just as well not to make repeated references to drinking it, however jokingly intended, JIC there's someone on the planet that is unaware of this fact... As pointed out by Madbill, I was joking about drinking antifreeze. Don't drink it or taste it...it is extremely toxic. But if you are stupid and you will actually drink antifreeze...please buy "Propylene Glycol" (Sierra), instead of "Ethylene Glycol" coolant. It is far less toxic, and the taste is still just as yummy. It will also keep your pets safe.

From what I've seen, the Vibe/Matrix comes with the Dexcool coolant that last 100,000/5 years and you should not use the green stuff. Regular coolant on it's own is corosive and therefore GM and other car companies have stopped using it.

If you mix red and green you loose the long life benefit of the red fluid. If you go to havoline.com under products, they make Dex-cool which is the AC Delco extended life antifreeze! It says they are compatible but for the reason stated above they don't recomend it!

As I understand it, mixing in long life coolant won't turn the rad contents to jello or anything, it just won't be long life unless you throughly flush out the conventional coolant first.

quote:I swore GM had a problem with their coolant eating away engines on some S-10 and Sonoma High Riders?All I know is the standard stuff gets nasty rather fast. So if you don't flush it out often enough, I'm sure you can run into troubles like deposits or corrosion. Those extreme problems are probly from people who never, ever flushed the coolant or just put water in when they are low.