Right now I am adding about a pints worth of coolant per week/200 miles. No leaks that I can identify, no loss of power or strange engine issues, and nothing coming out of the exhaust.

Ideas for what’s going on?

I did get underneath the vehicle after driving one day, and noticed dripping of what appeared to be and tasted like water and some oily liquid coming from another fitting. What I am looking at here?



Water dripping

Oil/fluid leaking? You can see evidence of dripping below.

 

2012 Durango SXT 3.6L 172,000 miles

 

I'm assuming no strange smells inside the cabin, and the carpet under the mats is dry. If the carpet is wet and greasy feeling, then you're looking at a leaking heater core.

How long since the hoses have been changed? 10 years is getting pretty old for rubber under pressure. I'd inspect hoses and clamps, and if the hoses look like they're bulging around the clamp it's getting time to replace the hose. You may also have developed a pinhole leak on the radiator, which would show up as a discolored streak on the fins. If this is the case either take the radiator to a shop for repair, or replace it with a new one.

Hard to tell due to how close the camera is, but the water dripping pic looks like passenger side firewall to floor, which should be where the HVAC drains. Water from there will be normal.

 

Sorry for the slow response.

I initially discounted a radiator leak since I thought it was replaced about a year and a half ago due to a leak in the top right (transmission section?) but that was actually the a/c condenser. There might be something going on with the new one. No obvious liquid, but it definitely has a discolored area.





Here is the radiator, I think the discoloring was from the before mentioned transmission fluid leak. I don't see any obvious problems here, the hoses look ok.

 

You can spray a degreasing type cleaner on that area to clean it. When done, swab some Q-tips through the fins and they should come back clean. Run it a while, then check again with Q-tips. If they're oily feeling, you've found your leak. But I don't mind telling you that looks an awful lot like a leaking radiator to me.

 

The last two pictures of the engine radiator or all of them (including AC condenser & transmission radiator)?

Yes, they all look suspicious but at least for the engine radiator I can definitely see the spray from the previous transmission radiator leak doing that to the radiator behind it.

 

Yeah, that's the bugger. You have to get the old oil cleaned off to see if it's an old trans leak or a new coolant leak. Brake cleaner is an excellent degreaser, and won't damage the rad. But, use the green, non-chlorinated brake cleaner. The red stuff has perchloroethylene which can damage aluminum.

 

Just to bring some conclusion to this, there was some orange/pink fluid around the oil radiator/cooler/exchanger. The oil change guys said they had probably just spilled some oil, but in the end, that was coolant, and it was leaking through the oil heat exchanger. Fairly simple fix, but labor $$ intensive.