Shaihulde

Hello all:

Let me preface by saying over the many years of my vehicle ownership I have owned all of three U.S. marquees and one Toyota.
I find myself owning a 2003 Suburban 5.3l at 135K miles. The reason I choose this is after having 4 4.6l Fords in the family, me being a diehard Ford man, had 2 of them gone with blown head gaskets, one it took wildlife 4 years to kill by throwing themselves at it and one that puffs a good sized cloud at take off. I decided to go with a Sub. My eldest son has an 02 Sub with over 300K on it and never opened the motor.

My main concern is with the DexCool anti-freeze. I have looked online and seen 'wars' almost as bad as the oil 'wars'. I have no problem replacing coolant yearly if that will keep the engine and cooling system good. As it is, by looking in the plastic tank which doesn't tell me much, the coolant looks fine. So any advice is welcomed.

I'm planning 4k-5k synthetic oil changes, swapping out rear gear lube with full synthetic, trans I'm considering full synthetic.

Other than that this thing is a beast compared to the 4.6l. Rides nice too.

hipyhipe

Welcome. In my idea just use recommended by the manufacture and make sure to replace it religiously and your good to go.

Shaihulde

Thx. Wasn't looking forward to complete drain, flush, clean and replace.

billienaj

as an auto technician and a die hard GM guy... i hate dexcool. i mean it makes me money, but it eats plastic. however that being said on our suburbans with 5.3 motors there really isn't a whole lot of plastic for it to eat. so my personal burb has 130k on it with dexcool still. changed it once, never had any leaks or concerns. if you do decide to change it switch to something like g05. its what pretty much every other manufacturer uses that is still an extended life coolant that is designed for aluminum motors, just doesnt have the plastic issues.