I've had a coolant leak in my 1998 dodge durango for a few weeks now.

Get it into the shop and they told me that it's leaking between the motor and tranny... he said there is something between and motor and the transmission that is rusted out and is leaking the coolant.

He estimated $800 to fix it... does anyone know what he's talking about... I've changed out teh water pump, but I'm not about to drop a tranny... at least not in this heat.

thoughts??

 

Sorry to say this but if it has to be done it has to be done. Was the mechanic reputable? You may want to get a second opinion if you aren't sure. Other than that good luck with this.

 

i think he said it was the freeze plugs that were leaking... i've looked online and it looks like a typical durango problem.

Stupid dodge... yet another thing they didn't engineer right.

 

Are there freeze plugs on the back of the engine, or do you pull the engine/tranny to access them? I've only seen freeze plugs on the side of engines and you can sometimes fix them without pulling the engine.

Have you been changing your coolant at the proper intervals? Coolant has rust inhibitors in it that are there to prevent problems like this, if you don't change the fluid the rust inhibitors break down and become useless.

 

^Good post, you might want to look into this. What size engine do you have? There are quite a few guys in here that can tell you if this is bs or not. I think that the 5.9 does have 2 drain plugs though. I'd have to check my chiltons and I don't think it's in there...

 

It's the 5.2... (wish it was the 5.9... it sucks gas like it's the 5.9)

It didn't get driven much as we had 3 cars and my wife drove a honda to work and I have a WRX... but we sold the honda to get down to only 2 cars... but while we had the honda ... the Dgo sat there for a while... only getting driven once or twice every 3 weeks or so.

I've owned a 00 dakota and this durango, among other domestics... and while i think the dgos and the dakotas are the best looking trucks on the road, I'll never get a domestic vehicle again... poor engineering on every domestic has steered me away from them...

 

Yeah it does happen I had my tranny go out on this thing at 35k. I bought it at a little under 30k and the lemon law warranty was only 3 mo. 3k miles so that sucked. One good thing about my engine (from what I hear) is it is very solid because it's been around a very long time. I should be able to squeeze 200k out of it easily. I think if my tranny goes out again I will shop around for something that can hook up to my 5.9 that has a good history.

 

I have a 2000 Dodge Durango with a 5.2L Magnum engine. At 44,000 miles, on March 29, 2005, it started leaking anti-freeze coolant. The dealer indicated that 3 of the 10 freeze (core) plug were leaking due to corrosion. Then, at 62,000 miles, on August 24, 2006, it happened again but this time only 2 of the 10 freeze (core) plug were leaking due to corrosion.

As stated above, it was not 2 years yet between the two leak occurrences (March 2005 to August 2006 = 17 months).

It also has not been 24,000 miles yet between the 2 leak occurrences (44,000 miles and 62,000 miles = 18,000 miles).

Even if I brought the SUV in to the dealer earlier to replace the coolant, the corrosion already took place prior to the maintenance cycles. Both leak problems occurred before each of the recommended maintenance cycles. If I had the opportunity, I would have brought the truck in for maintenance, but it leaked first.

I am having a hard time understanding how could this leak so easily and so quickly. Someone mentioned that Chrysler had a bad batch of freeze plugs, and that probably explains freeze plugs going bad so soon. Another person said that some of the Durangos were assembled in Mexico and that the water that was used in the cooling system when the vehicles left the plant for the U.S. was bad.

Is this a known problem with the SUV Truck? Thanks for your response.
JS

 

We never really hear about this so I don't think so. I would say that since 5 of your plugs have gone bad you might want to replace all of them to keep this from happening again.

 

I have recently developed a similar problem and I can't seem to trace the source of the leak. It seems to be coming from the rear of the drivers side head...I have noticed some wetness at the interface between the head and the block, towards the rear of the head. My first inclination was "OMG, head gasket is going" but I'm not really sure if this is the case after hearing about this freeze plug problem. My motor is the 5.9L - but TEN freeze plugs? I've only seen two on the motor, both on the block, towards the front. The other thing is that I am not seeing any other symptons that would indicate a head gasket problem. No water residue in the oil, no white smoke out of the exhaust, no oil residue in the coolant overflow tank....
Are there freeze plugs at tha back of the motor? On the head?
Thanks in advance.....