I'm getting tired of the problems my Durango is having. I love the thing to death, but in the last month I've had to replace the fuel pump and the PCM. Before that was the catalytic converter. Now I get back from a trip and it's trying to overheat. It doesn't quite overheat, but the indicator on the dash gets to the last tick mark before it overheats - without running the A/C and in only 80-95 degree weather (whereas before in 105 degree weather I had no problems).

I'm not sure what's wrong this time. Any ideas? Or is it maybe just time to trade in and get something with less problems?

 

Maybe the water pump is bad. Maybe the fan clutch is bad. Maybe you have air in your coolant. Maybe your thermostat is bad. Have you checked any of these? Or are you just willing to get rid of it that quickly?

 

what engine do you have ?

 

It's the 5.9 liter V8 - 144k miles. Drained and refilled the coolant (it's at an appropriate level), replaced the thermostat, replaced the fan clutch, had the pump checked (running fine). It's not smoking and there is no coolant in the oil which rules out head gasket. It only seems to do it when I'm in heavy Denver traffic and when I'm idling.

MoparMan - I don't want to give up on the Rango, but I can't keep putting tons of money into a vehicle that isn't going to run right. I just replaced the fuel pump, the PCM and now I've spent a bunch of money on it to get it to stop trying to overheat, but none of it has worked. It would be less expensive to take on a car payment at this point. Just trying to see if anyone had any ideas on what else could be wrong.

 

Could be air flow problems based on your comment that it overheats when you are sitting still or barely moving.

Check the A/C coil in front of the radiator and give it a very good power wash from a car wash to see if this helps. otherwise, the last thing you haven't done is replace the radiator itself.