So I have an 07 F150 with 105,000 miles on it. I am currently deployed and my wife had one of my friends look at my truck because it was leaking a bunch of fluid into our garage floor. Turns out it was anti-freeze. Well this so called friend decided that he was going to put "stop-leak" into my system. Personally I have heard a lot of bad stuff about it. I need ya'lls opinion this. From what my wife say's he dumped a bottle and half of stop leak in, and the rest with anti-freeze, and then ran the truck for about 5 minutes while it was sitting in the garage. please help

 

I personally don't like the stuff. It just temporarally masks the problem. It can cause over heating issues since it can clog the cores of the radiator and heater core. I don't know what type of "stop leak" he used, but if its got the little black pellets in it, it should have been run longer than 5 min for the pellets to dissolve good and circulate thru the system.

 

I used something similar to fix a head gasket leak in a 1991 Mazda B2200 that I bought for a 12 case... I then sold it for $300. Well, I know the people that I sold it to, and that truck ran mint for 3 years to come until I lost touch with them. I bet that thing is still running strong. But to be honest, I would never put that into a vehicle that I drive daily. They do gum up everything but they are an easy fix. Tough to say if you will have problems with it. Only time will tell I guess. Just monitor your temp and if it gets high, I would look at replacing the radiator and thermostat.

 

First off brother, thanks for your duties to keeping the rest of us brothers safe. Our country has different diplomatic views on military issues from yours but still gotta salute the troops.

Any of those Stop Leak additives are merely a band aid fix. I would recommend doing a coolant inspection with dye to determine where you are leaking fluid. While I can't verify, I have heard from many technicians that things like that eventually make the insides of your vehicle's cooling system even worse.

 

Thanks for all the advice. I had a feeling the hoses were going to go bad. I just didn't get to it before I left. I'm not sure what brand he ran through the coolant system. but either way I will be home shortly and I am going to drain and flush the system to try and get all that crap out of my motor. I am not to happy about it being put in my motor and I am very picky about who works on my vehicles. (i.e. my father in law, and myself) Since that is what I am goin to be doing for the first day I am back off deployment I might as well rip the hoses off after I drain the system and check them. Again thanks for all the advice. I will keep you all updated once I get home and find out more as to what is going on.

 

Stay safe out there brother.

 

so come to find out my truck is sitting in the ford dealership and racking up over $1,200 in charges. Stop leak-1 my truck and bank account -0. so the stop leak caused my truck to have to get a new thermostat, radiator, new hoses, and 3 flushes to clear the stop leak out of the system. Love finding this out at 9a.m. my time on a deployment. Thanks for all the help!!

 

Sorry to hear about that brother. Yeah, I highly recommend staying away from any type of temporary sealing additives. Best way to tackle a leak is to replace the component causing the leak.