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Well, one of the things in this scenario is the "promised" lifespan of the product.
And yes you are right about not being specific to a certain brand only, but to the whole line of brands. Dexcool is Texacos name, Valvoline uses 5/150 Extreme life and so on. It's the same/similar product,different name.
Why Dexcool stands out more than the other brands is because GM have taken the standpoint in using it as their house brand, and therefore more cars than any other brand is rolling around with it in their coolant system. And more people are familiar with that name.
You are probably familiar with when a brand name takes off and people beleive that that is the name of the product, not the brand. Take R12 Freon for example. Freon is Du Ponts brand name but most people use it as the real name of all A/C cooling medias. Or Sheetrock drywall.
Going back to the lifespan, GM promise a 5 year lifespan before flushing the system. Because of this 3 year longer interval compared to other type of coolant, they have received emission/pollution credits. This comes down to big bucks for a giant car manufacturer.
If it is proven that the coolant have to be replaced every other year for it to work as promised (not destroying engine) they might loose the pollution benefits. So, a giant carmanufacturer are not easily going to admit that something is wrong with their coolant even if several independant sources are finding proof of it later on.
Especially if the bad stuff is starting to happen after the car is out of warranty.
We on a grassroot level have no clue what's going on in the big offices.
And for me as a car mechanic, I have to look after what's best for me and my customers, not what the book says.
You can bet that it was a lot of high stake discussions going on after Challenger went down, before someone took the responsibility for tiny little O-ring not being up to snuff. If it settled yet,I actually don't know.
posted by 66.229.128...
, Fri, 22 Nov 2002 08:53:14
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