I was looking under the hood tonight checking the fluid levels and when i took the cap off the radiator i was suprised to see the coolant was brown in color? is this normal? I have a 2004 dodge ram 3500 . thanks

 

NO
The coolant should be pink in color. It is the NEW 5year 100000 mile stuff

 

I know a few months back i had it in to the Dealer to fix the Trans. coolant line (recall) , do you think the color i'm seeing has anything to do with that recall?

 

YOu don't say what the truck is. Green is the usual aftermarked antifreeze. Blue is Cummins ready mix, and then there is the pink as was mentioned. Brown is dirty and rusty, needs to be change.

 

2004 dodge ram 3500 4x4 with about 8500 miles is it normal to be dirty and rusty that new. and do you think it has caused any problems?

 

Look at your coolant overflow bottle. Mine is up by the passenger firewall. Is it pink or brown? Looking down into a dark radiator can make the pink coolant look like a dark red/brown.

 

FYI, the factory coolant is Zerex G-05. It's Hybrid Organic Additive Technology (HOAT). It's also factory fill on new Fords, but they use a different dye color. Dodge's color is what I would call orange. If you've got a nasty brown, it could be that the dealer topped it off with something of a different color. The good news is, if he did this G-05 is fully compatible with just about everything else out there (EG, PG, but NOT Dexcool).

 

Team24, take the rad cap off and dip in a white paper towel and do a color test.

I just did on my truck thats 18 months old and has 25k on it. The overflow tank is bright/clear pink.

Peering into the radiator it looked to be orangish/rusty, but when I dipped a clean white paper towel in, it came out pink.

If you're worried about contamination, take a sample and let it sit to see if any oil products float on top.

Thanks for the thread, I never checked it before.

 

i will try the paper towel trick, thanks everyone for the feedback.

 

it's pink I guess i worried about nothing . it sure looked brown looking into the radiator last night. Thanks again.

 

I just checked mine also. The overflow is bright pink and the radiator is brownish. When I did the dip test it came out kind of orange. I guess this in normal, at least I hope.