Last night, I noticed that the passenger side carpet in my 2005 Dodge Ram 2500 was SOAKED with coolant (this was after driving it approximately 30 miles). This morning, I took the truck out for a drive to help diagnose the problem. Surprisingly, no additional coolant leaked out, and none of the tell-tale signs of a heater core failure were present (the heat worked fine, as well as the air conditioning, and both heater hoses were hot and pressurized). What could be the possible cause of this? Please help!!

 

you could have a small weap in the heater core and corrosion has plugged the hole, i would just keep and eye on the coolant level in the truck to see if you are losing some still.

 

Run it up thru the gears to about 5500rpm and I bet it leaks again.

 

Don't bother. If you have coolant all in your interior, then you need a new hater core. Plain and simple. It doesn't leak for no reason at all. A iece o corrosion has likely plugged the hole as stated above.
Lots of time to replace too. Very expensive for the dealer to do...

 

Thank you to all who replied. All of you were correct. This afternoon, I took my truck out for another drive, and sure enough, after a 25 mile trip, it once again began to leak. It looks like I will be replacing a heater core at some point this summer. Is it acceptable to bypass the heater core in the mean time by disconnecting the hoses on the engine side of the firewall and connecting them using some sort of barbed fitting and clamps?

 

Yupp bypassing the core isnt a big deal just do as you said and you'll have no heat but you wont have leaks, buying you time to get it replaced.

 

Yes. Confirmed for the bypass. You can probably by that piece at advance auto. They sell radiator flush kits that have that piece in there to splice and tie into that hose.
Good luck