Shout out to Enumclaw Dodge....for the Wet Side Mopar owners

whjco wrote:
I bought my 2015 Ram 2500 CTD from Freedom Dodge in Lexington, KY and now have about 94k on the truck. They've always taken good care of me. I thought I'd try to save money on fuel filters and bought my last set of fuel filters from Advance Auto Parts. I checked my earlier invoice from Freedom and for my previous fuel filter change, they charge me about $50 less for the filters than Advance Auto Parts. I'm very happy with my Ram dealer!

Interesting on less $ from the Dealer. What did the Dealer charge for both filters?

I bought my 2015 Ram 2500 CTD from Freedom Dodge in Lexington, KY and now have about 94k on the truck. They've always taken good care of me. I thought I'd try to save money on fuel filters and bought my last set of fuel filters from Advance Auto Parts. I checked my earlier invoice from Freedom and for my previous fuel filter change, they charge me about $50 less for the filters than Advance Auto Parts. I'm very happy with my Ram dealer!

^Thanks for the suggestion. No, no coolant smell in the exhaust.
And I’ve seen it drip (only a couple times in months) up front near the radiator.
I’m fairly certain it’s the radiator. Been through radiator is on 2 separate SRT8s now and it’s fairly common.
Although the shop mentioned they’ve seen some water pumps too, (talking about the Charger not the truck). Although I’m certain that would be a constant issue.
Also no oil in coolant or vice versa and no residual combustion pressure in cooling system. It’s an external leak. Like I said, have seen it on the ground before, only a couple times. Rest of the time there’s no evidence of leak.
This issue is a known problem on some of these cars and it’s where the plastic tank is crimped to the radiator core. I suspect, it’s similar to the egr cooler you mentioned in that it doesn’t “always” open up. The old car eventually had some residue evidence once it got worse and had been happening a long time. I used to put a cup of 2 of coolant in every oil change.
No crustys built up yet that I could find on the radiator. But it’s also rainy time here again, so everything gets washed pretty good under there even despite the plastic cover under the radiator.

Grit - Can you smell the coolant in the exhaust at all? My Cummins F650 would similarly lose coolant mysteriously, but eventually I got to recognize the faint smell of rotting cotton candy (imagine throwing your kid's cotton candy in the wife's composter and coming back a day later), because it was crack in the EGR cooler (Cummins part, not the Ford one). It would always pass a pressure test because the crack would only open up at elevated operating temps. It would run like this for months before rupturing in a glorious smoke show.

I would think a radiator leak would leave some white residue around the pinhole.

^Still haven’t looked at it, but will.
When the Charger got its new radiator it was like 3 quarts low a week later. But that was just a poor repair job. They missed the fitting with one radiator hose clamp too! Lol
(And didn’t tighten the clamp on the intake, but who’s counting).
Not Enumclaw, Tacoma Dodge.

My Dealer gave me an extra partial gallon per my request. Yep I used a lot of it.

They did take it for a ride but I think it takes a couple cycles.

Can absolutely smell coolant after driving the car. It’s an external leak.

^Thanks for the advice on the coolant loss issue. I’m pretty familiar with it and with these engines and it’s 99% chance it’s the radiator again. Last SRT took 100k miles before it was loosing enough to make a drip on the floor. Very small loss couple drips gets blown away while driving. It’s not burning coolant I’m most certain. Just tryin to actually use the warranty on the first car I’ve had with warranty since about 2004!

And good call on the truck. I do need to check it now that it’s been driven a few times.
Think they done it right since these rigs are pretty sensitive on coolant level and low coolant light.

Nice to hear a positive report.

May not be your issue, but a coolant leak, that cannot be found, possibly a small crack in block, that will worsen over time. Good you have your issue documented!

I purchased a new Honda car for wife, some years ago. About a year later, got a warranty bulletin, about coolant loss (no sign of leak), and design flaw, could cause block to crack, cause of coolant loss. They extended the warranty 10 additional years, to cover this issue (replace block), if it happened.

She didn't like the car, wanted SUV (grocery getter), so I sold car, with only 15K miles, to a relative for cheap, bought a new Ford Escape for her. The Honda owners happy, wife happy, all is good, for now!

Jerry

If you can smell coolant but can't find it it may be getting vaporized by the cooling fan before it hits the ground. Most of my leak issues have been on the back side of the radiator.
If you can't smell coolant after driving I would suspect an internal engine issue. What does the tailpipe smell like or are there any moisture drips out the pipe after the car has fully warmed up and it's fairly warm out.