Adventures in a thermostat!

I picked up a new thermostat to put in my 2000 Chev Silverado 2500. The thermostat did come built into the housing, which is OK. It's not attached to upper rad hose but the lower one right at the water pump. That's OK too. I just had to take the air intake tube off to get at it. You have to scrape your hand on the rad shield to get at one of the bolts on the thermostat hosing but it's not too bad. I couldn't find a drain on the rad anywhere, so I called a repair shop. No drain on those trucks because GM wants you take it to them so they can hook it up to a machine to suck the coolant out and replace it. Stupid! You have to take the lower rad hose off to drain the coolant. Stupid!! Putting the thermostat in is really simple after the coolant is drained but GM uses those spring type hose clamps and there isn't a lot of room to get at the lower rad hose to put it back on. Maybe if you have the special type of pliers? I turned it to the bottom so I could at least get it back on. Of course the floor was wet from having to take the lower rad hose off. I put everything back together and just need to fill it back up with the coolant. I somehow managed to catch most of it. I couldn't pour it directly back in to the rad, so I had to pour it into the little coolant tank. I poured it through a rag to filter it and figured it would take a little longer. Why I didn't expect is that the coolant bottle would fill up and run out the overflow faster than it would go into the block. I took the upper rad hose off to let air in. It bubbled a bit in the coolant tank at first but then nothing. It took forever and a day to get the coolant back in! I went and picked up some more anti-freeze. I bought straight Prestone anti-freeze for Dex cool. It was $17 something. The 50-50 stuff from Zerex was $13 something. I figure I got a better deal on straight anti-freeze. I managed to get some more anti-freeze and water back in but I think I still need more. Hopefully tommorow the level will have gone down so I can a little more. Why did they have to make it such a pain just to change a thermostat? I changed thermostats in older vehicles in 20 minutes. Drain the rad a bit, unbolt the housing, replace thermostat and gasket, refill the rad, let engine run with cap off to get the air out and top off rad. Now you need to have a fancy machine to do it, so it doesn't take forever. Seems backwards to me. At least I'll warm up a lot faster now. I needed to vent. Dave

Way to go! The auto makers DO NOT want you or me or anyone else to do anything under the hood except check the oil, and they probably would like it if we couldn't even do that. They make them that way so you have to take them to dealer or repair shop to get fixed, and oh by the way, your disgrontifacator is about to go, be a good idea to let us replace it now instead of you getting stranded on the road. It'll only be $479.00 plus labor and taxes, your serpentine belt is cracked and the hoses are about to blow. If you have never looked under the hood and know nothing about what is in there and what it does, This guy is doing you a BIG favor, keeping you vehicle running instead of stranded alongside the road. OK, end of rant. They want you to come back and spend $$$$$$$ at the dealers. Chris

Quote " GM wants you take it to them so they can hook it up to a machine to suck the coolant out and replace it. Stupid! Unquote

#1 GM is tired of getting sued because somebody could easily drain coolant from the system. And some kid or animal being poisoned by the sweet coolant.
#2 Environmental laws were made because millions of people have dumped billions of gallons coolant on the ground make no effort to catch or properly dispose of the coolant.
#3 GM is tired of lost sales and people crying that their GM vehicle is junk. Yet the problem was caused by backyard tinkerers never changing or upgrading old depleted coolant. Or cheap skates adding plain tap water, dirty water or running too weak a solution of coolant.
This causes head gasket failures, coolant system corrosion, coolant system plugging, boil overs or winter freeze ups.

# 1 DEXCOOL is JUNK .

# 2 GM goes out of their way to keep bad engine designs in production and to goof up the few decent ones they did build. Buick 3.8 is a perfect example as they had to start using plastic intakes to add MAJOR problems to an otherwise trouble free engine.

# 3 Dealers are polluting by not recycling coolant too !

# 4 the GM techs can't even work on this stuff either and GM closed down alot of their service schools years ago. They think you can learn this stuff by taking a computer quiz instead of hands on training.

1) No, theres not. Dexcool is a good coolant, just not compatable with alot of sealants and rubbers, coincidentally used by GM.

2) I wont argue that, but will say my wife 01 Buick with the 3.8, and plastic intake, has over 220000 miles on it, and havent replaced the intake yet.(Note I said yet)

3)Mine does! EVERYTHING!

4)Really, I find that strange. You evidentally have a very poor dealership.

Sounds like me when I changed the water pump on my 99 Sufari Van. Stan

"Yet the problem was caused by backyard tinkerers never changing or upgrading old depleted coolant. Or cheap skates adding plain tap water, dirty water or running too weak a solution of coolant". Funny, other than the unintentional freezing of too weak of a solution of anti-freeze this is how a lot of farmers in the two cylinder era usually took care of their cooling systems and the tractors never missed a beat.(granted 50 years later we are paying for these habits when we go to restore one of these tractors). bill m.

No way I beleive that 01' 3.8 made 220,000 miles on the original intake manifold. Did you buy that car brand new ? If so and you know for a fact it was NEVER changed you have the only one that ever made it past 100,000 I have seen them go out in as few as 20,000-30,000 mile area.

There are far better long life formulas on the market than Dex-Cool. That OAT formula Dex-Cool has is NO GOOD. Chryslers and Fords HOAT formula has held up better.

Yes I work for a pi$$ poor owner/dealer who is still doing the old ways of not recycling and no inspections are ever made. And it is GM corperate policys to of closed down the Cleveland Ohio hands on service school and to also think they can teach what the techs need to know by a computer quiz. Todays autos are more complicated then ever before. I thin it was the Cadillac models of about 10 years ago that were said to have more computers and electronics then the first Apollo Spacecrafts. So who are they going to recurit to work on this stuff ? The pay is not anywhere near as good as IT people get.

Yes, brand new with 8/10 miles on the clock. I can go out and get a picture of the odometer it you like. The gasket was changed, but not the manifold itself. Nor has it ever has a starter, alterantor, water pump,etc. (normal wear and tear items)changed. It has had one front wheel bearing changed, the whole air ride system had to be repalced, and front struts, and of course brakes I think 4 times, maybe 5.(My wife is a home health nurse), and its on the second battery that I put in for a total of 3.HAs had the GM 100,00 mile service twice. Cruise control replaced once, and one of the AC hoses popped. It does have it problems though, dash lights are out, steering wheel controls dont work for the radio, pass. side seat wont go foward, and rear seat has somewhat buckled in the middle. A few minor oil leaks have occured over the years, and each was fixed as soon as I knew about it. This has been an outstanding car for us, and I will add the only one that I have not had major problems with at some point. Now having said that, it will blow up Monday.....

I wont debate coolants with you. It has long been a losing battle for me. I will say that I use to make the chemical additives for MANY coolant manufacturers, and Texaco was one of them, who makes the DexCool for GM, or did. I will agree there are better coolants, but DexCool is fine in somethings, not in others, and GM engines are one of those. (BTW, DexCool is whats in my wifes car now, but it may be the Prestone version, which is somewhat milder)

I wont comment on the person you work for but I will say thats pretty irresponsible of him. I do know that the mech at my dealership who works on my vehicles goes t oclass about once every 4 months or so, and hes the only one Ill let touch any of my rides, warranty or not. So whats he going for, any idea?

I think there may be a filler hole somewhere on top of the engine to put coolant in. My LInclon Mark VIII has a threaded plug on top of the water manifold on the very top of the engine for adding coolant. I agree it's different than an older car to drain and add coolant but once you figure it out it's no big deal. 8 years on coolant is a long time so the thermostat was a good thing going bad. I would have flushed it with clean water and radiator flush and filled it with new green Prestone or Peak that I have premixed (myself) to about 60% antifreeze and 40% water. You will be good for another 8 years and by then you will need all new radiator hoses and you can do it again. Your aluminum heads and head gaskets will thank you for all your work!

You're just going to defend GM and JD till the end! It may be sooner than you think. Why would I change perfectly good coolant that's not very old? Why would I pay over $100 an hour to have a dealer change a thermostat. The only problem I had was the truck took too long to warm up. It had nothing to do with the coolant. I needed a thermostat. I suppose that GM is now going to have the oil pans cast as one piece into the block, with no drain plug, so you have to go to a dealer to have a new engine installed. I cleaned up the spilled coolant. I wouldn't have had spilled coolant if there was a drain for the rad, whether I was reusing or replacing the coolant. If someone could easily drain the coolant, they could just as easily put a hole in the rad hose to drain it. Millions of responsible people have done their own repairs for eons. Why would GM get sued if someone else spilled anti-freeze? I never said that my GM truck was junk. I said there were a few stupid things on it. I think the same holds true on any vehicle. It is against the law for GM to force people to take their vehicles to only GM dealers, even for oil changes when the vehicle is still on warrantee. GM has made some junk vehicles and JD has made some junk tractors and it's not because someone wanted to fix them themselfs. The 5.7 diesel is a prime example of junk that came from GM. Maybe if GM made their vehicles simpler to work on, they'd sell more? How many farmers like going to the dealer and paying a fortune to have their vehicle serviced? How many farmers drive their tractor to the dealer to have it serviced or have the dealer come out to do routine service? Not much different than a truck. If trying to save a little money by doing some of my own repairs makes me a cheap skate, there's sure a lot of us out there. Do you own GM and JD stock or something? In your opinion they seem to be able to do nothing wrong. I wonder why GM wants a bailout, when they can't do anything wrong? Hmmm! Dave

Wow ! You are sure lucky on that manifold. Average seems to be 60,000-80,000 miles for replacement. That is a pretty good long list of other things. No $400 window regulators yet ? aftermarket has them now for $60. My sister didn't buy her 1985 toyota truck new. It now has around 180,000 miles and the list of repairs is very very small in the years she has owned it. 10 years at least could be 15 ? Other sister has a 1999 Honda CRV bought brand new and should have 130,000 -150,000 miles ( find out thursday) I don't think it has had any problems just maintenance and front brake pads first time at 70,000 !!!
These are the kinda QUAILTY vechicles that are killing GM,Ford,Dodge.

No drain petcock? Nonesense!

You just couldn't figure out how to use it!It IS there and if you knew that,you would't have spilled a drop of coolant!Your repair shop gave you a line of BS or are sadly misinformed.

The petcock is on the LH(driver's side at radiator tank,and has a hose which when not being used stores nicely in an eyelet molded into the platic tank in an upright position above petcock.

When draining is needed,remove the hose from upright position,slip it on the drain tube below the petcock and open petcock.You can even insert the hose into a gallon jug!No spillage!Ingenious actually.

Just replaced a water pump/t-stat housing on an '03 Tahoe the other day and it was a walk in the park.Took a whopping 1.5 hrs.Start to finish. Never heard of ANYONE having such a tough time as you did.

Oh yea, forgot about that one. The only reason it broke was my neice was trying to climb in the window, rear, which wasnt all the way down....Kids!!!!

I did see that hose on the side but when I went under to see where it was attached, it didn't look like a petcock to drain the rad. It looked like it was just part of the cast plastic rad. I guess I should have tried to turn it. All the dealers had closed when I was trying to find out. I tried calling a couple shops that were open on Saturday after 2 pm. One woman said they can't give out that info! I asked, "You can't ask a mechanic where the rad. drain is but you'll sell me a new thermostat?" I got it done eventually and have good heat now a lot faster. Just replacing the thermostat was pretty simple. Filling the rad back up is what took the longest. Too bad I couldn't have read your post before I took the rad hose off. The old OEM thermostat had the inner rubber piece partly ripped and pushed out. The new, non GM, one doesn't use that rubber ring inside. It's really frustrating when you can't get a simple answer when your in the middle of fixing something. Now I know. Dave