my friend just topped off his radiator with some dexcool antifreeze and water. it had regular in it...ive heard when the two mix its not good. he said he only put a little under a quart plus the water....should it be drained and flushed or do you think this will hurt it?

 

look on the jug. It will say if it is OK or not. The stuff I just used said it is fine. Cheers.

 

My experiance is that its not a good idea. Like borin said, if the bottle says its okay, cool. If it doesnt say okay, thats cool too. Its your friends truck, not yours.

 

okay then. he asked me cause he dont know much about cars and i didnt know either so i asked.

 

Its all good. Even if you shouldnt, the world still goes, and so will his car. I wouldnt loose sleep over it. I promise, he isnt the first, or the last. They take alot of abuse. I remember once I put a gallon of washer fluid in the radiator bucket. Didnt notice for a few days when I found my washer still empty. Whoops. It didnt mind either.

 

It's a bad, bad, bad idea. The Dex Cool is an OAT (Organic Acid Treatment) based coolant. It is not compatible with North American built Ford cooling systems. Have your friend flush and refill his system when he can. The damage will not be immediate, or immediately catastrophic, but it will occur over time.
This is not my opinion, it is a fact.

 

It is not a fact that Dex-cool will harm your Ford engine. I bought my 1996 F-150 4.9l new. At 40,000 miles, I had a buildup up rusty deposits in the overflow and just inside the radiator fill neck. I changed to Havoline Extended Life Dex-cool. I have not had deposits of any kind anywhere in my cooling system. Nor have I had any leaks. The operating temp is the same as it was when it was new. My mileage now is 111,000 miles.

 

wow, like an 18 month old thread......well now, yea, most all coolants are able to be mixed conventional to dex-cool.

 

It is a fact that dex cool will eventually harm your engine. Engine deposits are cleaned out of a block after the addition of an OAT coolant. I'm glad the truck got 71,000 miles of life so far, but now that the block internals have scale dissolved, what's happening to the rest of the iron, much less all the other cooling system components?
DO NOT USE AN OAT COOLANT IN YOUR FORD TRUCK!!!!