All Coolants Are NOT Created Equal

Hey all, I'm new to the forums, but I feel the need to vent a little bit before I do something stupid. Here's a little story, the moral being DIY!

It all started with a knocking from the front end drivers side. Bad ball joint I guessed. Took the truck to a known hack of a mechanic, because he owes me some favors. After replacing my inner tie-rod and upper ball joint, he decides to top off my fluids. I thought this was odd, but hey, the guy owes me some favors, right? He puts orange antifreeze into my radiator. I asked him, "Are you sure that's the right stuff? The color is different." He replies, "Oh, yeah, it's universal."

On my way home from the shop, my truck overheats. I spend an hour stopping, waiting, driving a little, stopping, waiting, and bring it back. "Looks like you have a blown head gasket."

So 5 weeks later, my head gasket is repaired, truck is put back together, and I ask, "So why did it overheat?"
His reply? "Because you had a blown head gasket."
"Yeah, but what caused it to go bad?"
"Oh, they go bad over time." B.S.!! The blown head gasket was a symptom, it wasn't the problem, but, whatever...

I ask him, "Did you flush the radiator?"
"Oh yeah, don't worry. All new antifreeze."

I get in my truck, start it up and drive it out of the shop. First thing I notice is the front end is still knocking... It's been 5 weeks at this point, so I don't care. I drive it home. When I get home, I open up the coolant reservior... He didn't flush the coolant! It's the same burnt smelling, foamy orange crap he put in there in the first place... Okay... I'll do it myself.

I spend an hour flushing the radiator, top it off with GREEN, and guess what? My truck stopped overheating. Go figure.

While thinking about how I was going to handle this guy, I had to drive the truck with the front end still knocking. Well, I found out last night that my inner tie-rod and upper ball joint was fine 5 weeks ago when he replaced it, because my lower ball joint failed...

I rode my motorcycle to the parts store, bought a Haynes manual, and I am making all of my repairs myself.

Summary of the story, I wasted money on parts I didn't need, this 'mechanic' blew my head gasket by putting the wrong antifreeze in, and I was without a truck for 5 weeks, all because I didn't work on my truck myself.

So the moral of the story is to do your own work on your own vehicle. That hack didn't even tighten the water pump all the way...

Sorry for all your problems......

But, coolant problems and selecting the right one is the new oil type and weight question (what goes in there???). You have to use the type the owner's manual says to use or it ain't going to work.

We have three vehicles and they all use different coolants!!!

I doubt it was the type of coolant.

I'm with rearanger. The wrong coolant will do some bad things. A blown head gasket in a few miles is not one of them. I'd say you had a problem starting already and driving around with low coolant was probably a big contributing factor. It was just a coincidence that it blew after he topped off your system. Judging by the sludge in your overflow tank I'd say the system has been neglected.

And I'm sorry, the moral of the story you told isn't do the work yourself, it's "don't take your vehicle to a known hack".

I also have to agree with neglected coolant system. Po of my truck used tap water in my engine, caused it to rust turning the propper green coolant orange. Flush after flush I always got rusty orange coolant. Eventually the rust built up and clogged a water passage in my head and Cracked it even though I had flushed it really well multiple times. The color of that coolant looks the same as mine did, along with sludge in coolant tank.

But everything else your guy did was bad. I have one guy that touches my truck, and thats only for state inspection. Everything else is done by me.