GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

what are your opinions? what would you use on a first gen?

I would use what the engine was designed for, Toyota red. Pink would work, but it's more expensive and only comes pre-mixed so it's more of a pain to do a full drain and refill. Dexcool is fine for engines designed for it, but Japanese engines were not. It would likely be fine, but why chance it to save a few bucks?

I bought a jug of Toyota pink pre-mixed coolant a while back from the Toyota dealer. If I remember correctly, it was around $20.00. But at this point, I only got it to top off our Vibes if need be. We're nowhere near the mileage for a drain and fill or anything major like that (both Vibes are currently just under 42,000 miles).

owners manual says dexcool and vehicle has dexcool in it.

general consensus would rather dump dexcool and replace w toyota specific coolant?

Use what's in the car. My car had Toyota Pink from the factory, so when it was replaced I had them put Toyota pink back in.

Toyota Red needs to be diluted with water to make it perform correctly. Toyota Pink is premixed. They are likely the same formula but it was easier to just do pink.

If your car has dexcool in it, then use dexcool. If this is the case someone has already gone through the process of flushing the cooling system and changed the car to dex-cool, really no need to change it back.

bluneon wrote:owners manual says dexcool and vehicle has dexcool in it.

general consensus would rather dump dexcool and replace w toyota specific coolant?

The owners manual says put Dexcool in because it was written by GM tech writers. They perform the same, but the toyota stuff and the GM stuff shouldn't be mixed.

This has been the topic of many posts over many years. My 2003 manual said to replace coolant at 24,000 miles or 2 years whichever came first. I decided to "average it out" and sought replacement at 3 years 18,000 miles. The Pontiac dealer said the OEM was DEXCOOL, but if it did that would be what, 5 years 50,000 miles? My memory s that the OEM looked more pink than Dexcool orange. Anyway, after some research I allowed them to replace it with Dexcool. The sludge problem reported for Dexcool was not likely to show up if I replaced it every 3 years. Sold the '03 in Feb. 2009 after I bought a new 2009 in Jan. 2009. The '09 manual says replace coolant at 5 years. That will be Jan. 2014 for me but I only have 27,000 miles on the odometer. I really have not paid any attention to the color of the coolant in the '09 until I read this post - it is definitely "pink". So is the "pink" a 2 year coolant or a 5 year coolant? While I ache for and can afford something new and different my tightwad genes tend towards keeping the '09 Vibe for a long time so I think I will probably have the coolant change done at a Toyota dealer.

pink is 5/100,000 mile coolant

Here's what I've been able to gather when I was looking into it a few months ago. 1st Gens came with Toyota red, which is a three year, 60,000 mile coolant. It comes full strength and needs to be diluted with distilled water (50/50 for US, 60/40 for Canada). It can be had from dealers for $25-30. 2nd Gens came with Toyota pink, which is a 5 year, 120,000 mile coolant on the factory fill, then 3 year, 60,000 thereafter. It comes pre-mixed (If you buy it in Canada, it's mixed stronger). It can be had from dealers for $20-22. Dex-cool was never put in Vibes from the factory. If your Vibe has Dex-cool in it, it was changed and someone followed the original GM manual. The Japanese specifically prohibit 2-EHA (the controversial additive in Dex-cool) from their coolants, so most people recommend not using it in Japanese designed engines. Since GM itself didn't follow the manual on the factory fill, personally I think that's a good idea. I've never read of anyone specifically having problems with it in Vibes when it was put in, but there you go. If it's already in there, it's likely better to stick with it unless you want to do a full coolant flush. Mixing coolants is never recommended.

mixing toyota pink/red with dexcool = baddd....if you do it'll sludge & gunk up the cooling system quickly.

I flushed my red crap out & replaced it with regular green prestone cuz I don't see the point in spending $20 for proprietary toyota crap when I can get standard coolant for $8 a gallon.

The main reason they use these "specialty" coolants is so they can extend the lifetime of the coolant between flushes & thus claim the cars are "maintenance free" as well as extend their warranties to 60,000 miles. Fewer maintenance intervals = cheaper cost to maintain the warranty for the manufacturers. My old VW Jetta had "lifetime transmission fluid" which turns out to be a complete lie. If you look at the EU owners manuals it shows 60k fluid intervals but the american market got specially formulated auto trans fluid that is supposed to last the "lifetime of the car". My car had 140k miles and probably its original trans fluid & the trans was slipping bad. Flushed it out & replaced it and the trans shifted much better but the damage was already done, it shuddered quite a bit when you roll back on the throttle.

Re the 5 yr/120,000 miles - one would think that miles would make some difference, e.g. that the coolant would be o.k. after 6 years and 30,000 miles.

jake75 wrote:Re the 5 yr/120,000 miles - one would think that miles would make some difference, e.g. that the coolant would be o.k. after 6 years and 30,000 miles.

More than likely it would be and they're covering their butts. Coolant degrades both from age and heavy use, but there's probably a finer line to ride between the two.

So just to get clear on this--I just bought an 04 vibe and have never changed the transmission fluid (in any vehicle for that matter). I'm thinking I'm going to make the attempt myself (YouTube is a wonderful teacher...lol).

So...how do I tell which type of fluid is already in the car? Because from what I'm reading, you folks are all saying I should drain and refill with the same type, rather than go with one particular brand over the other. Correct?

canadave wrote:So just to get clear on this--I just bought an 04 vibe and have never changed the transmission fluid (in any vehicle for that matter). I'm thinking I'm going to make the attempt myself (YouTube is a wonderful teacher...lol).

So...how do I tell which type of fluid is already in the car? Because from what I'm reading, you folks are all saying I should drain and refill with the same type, rather than go with one particular brand over the other. Correct?

Transmission fluid or do you mean coolant? As for transmission fluid, 03-08 used Toyota T4 fluid and that is what I would use. For coolant, it should be the Toyota red coolant and again, that is what I would use. I need to change my son's coolant also in the next few weeks as he is moving out of state. It has never been changed and it is about 7 years old, 65,000 miles.

You know, I'm embarrassed now, because I read the whole thread and thought it was about transmission fluid, which is what I'm interested in learning more about Anyway, thanks for the tip, T4 fluid it is and now I know more about coolant, too!

shaeet wrote:mixing toyota pink/red with dexcool = baddd....if you do it'll sludge & gunk up the cooling system quickly.

Well, I'd hope you'd completely drain and perhaps flush the cooling system with water when changing coolant. A full drain and flush isn't too bad except for taking the alternator off to replace the thermostat, the laternator was wedged on pretty tight and took a prybar.

I did Toyota red and mixed it 50/50 with distilled water. When I was flushing everything out with water, it took a long time for the water to run clear. I was at around 75k and 5 or 6 year old original coolant at the time.