we have a 2002 ranger that we barely use and there was no coolant in it so my mom went out and bought some without asking which kind to get idk why and she bought prestone dex cool and put it in there without even noticing the sticker that said use green coolant not orange. is this a huge problem? there was absolutely no coolant in the container so its not like the orange was directly mixed with the green. should i flush and put green in or is it really no big deal since it was completely dry

ty

 

In my opinion, I would drain, flush and put in the green stuff.

 

^+1 with mike B 88 if the vehicle has been started or diven & cooled down, such that the orange coolant has mixed with the green coolant in the engine block.

If its as it sounds & it was just the overflow tank that has been topped off & the engine hasn't been started, driven & warmed up & cooled down, such that there is No chance the orange coolant has been sucked into the engine, then I agree, just pull the overflow tank, empty & flush it out, reinstall & top off with the specified green coolant. I've been using the green Prestone all systems coolant in my 94 Taurus 3.8L & 99 Ranger 4.0L, for the past 6 years & all is well with my cooling systems.

Because of different coolant chemistry, Don't mix green & orange coolant, so if there is Any chance the two have mixed, I agree with Mike B 88, drain & flush your cooling system & refill with the specified green coolant.

 

Well I know that two months ago it was completely empty and all I did was fill it up about 20% with only water so I'm not even 100% sure it wasn't switched to orange stuff already. Also she drove it about 3 miles total after she put in the coolant. It sounds like I should flush it but how bad could it be of I didn't since there wasn't any green stuff in it at the time

 

Well look at it this way, how expensive is $13 a gallon Prestone, compared to the radiator, water pump, heads, engine block, seals, gaskets, thermostat, radiator cap, heater core, radiator, heater & engine coolant hoses, that aren't compatable with Dexcool????

Bite the bullet & flush the system as MikeB 88 suggested, won't take more than an hour or so to do it.

I just flushed my 99 by back flushing through the heater hose & installed new Prestone, cut 50/50 with distilled water remaining from my home air conditioning condensate. You can get a 2.5 gallon bottle of distilled water at Wally World when you pick up your $13 gallon of Prestone & in a couple of hours max, be finished worrying about it & your truck will be appreciative of your efforts.!!!!!

 

The original factory fill was likely the yellow long life antifreeze. It has a different composition than either the dexcool or green prestone. If you do a total drain and flush you might want to put it back in. Here's a link to the specs of the yellow stuff.

http://www.whitfieldoil.com/www/docs...ntifreeze.html

 

get that dexcool out of there..The only time you should use dexcool if it was in the car when it was new...make sure you flush the engine good..you might want to remove the tstat when flushing it....I use the prestone yellow