Dodge Durango Forum II

G. Matsushige Inst. Spec.Kamuela Hawaii
grant@cfht.hawaii.edu

So sorry to hear of your troubles. I can only imagine how much grief this has caused you and those around you. You're right, engines should not overheat or break down with this little mileage or use. However, we've become complacent in our years of driving all of these "new" "high tech" vehicles. It used to be you'd have to check the oil and coolant before any use of a vehicle. We used to have to replace spark plugs, points, condensor every five thousand miles. Batterys never had to power four or five different computers (vehicle ones) and high power stereo equipment. What about DVD's, refrigerators and playstations. Now they do AND can for five years. Keeping the battery charged takes work by the good 'ol engine. Watts of power and that is not a pun. HP can be converted to watts.

I ,myself, have been guilty of not checking the fluids as much as I used to. Engines just like the rest of our vehicles are put together by humans with parts that are cast, forged or machined from all over the world. There just can't be the kind of controls to insure we'd all have perfect vehicles when it leaves the factory. We the consumer would not want to pay that kind of money. Imagine if our cars had the reliability and scrutiny of a typical commercial airliner. That would drive the cost of our cars way up.

So yes, I agree that there can and will be defects and differences amongst each and every vehicle sold.

You said you didn't see any steam coming out while the engine was running hot. That's not a good thing as that means the engine was already low on coolant. Perhaps the coolant leak was due to the head gasket and you were already constantly loosing coolant into the cylinder. If it were a little at a time, you might not notice it as "steam" out the exhaust.

Water (coolant) boils at 212 degrees. Under pressure it'll boil a little higher. If the temperature goes way beyond that, you are measuring the temperature of steam and hot air.

If the engine is regularly checked to see if the coolant level is okay, you would probably have noticed a constant need to add coolant. That would most likely have set off the alarms in your head that something was wrong.

So what kind of damage was done? By overheating the engine without any coolant in it, you ended up blowing the head gasket. Like I said above, there might have been a slight leak which you also might have found as water in the oil. Now you have definately dumped coolant into every nook and cranny in the engine block. That means that the oil was contaminated. The oil pump circulated this "water-oil" mix through out all of the little holes in the engine.

We cannot assume just because a new car is new it isn't going to fail. If the vehicle is driven daily, it is worth checking the fluids at least once a week. Remember the days of gas station attendants filling your tank AND checking under the hood. This was done often. Today most of us pump our own gas. How often do we check our own fluids? I don't drive my D but maybe once a week. I try to check it before I take it out on each day's travels. However, sometimes over a weekend I'll check it only once and drive it several times in that weekend.

The gauges are there to tell us when things are normal AND when things aren't right. I have seen my pick up truck's oil pressure drop while accellerating around a sharp right turn. The oil is being sloshed on the left side of the oil pan and there isn't enough oil in the pan to cover the pump's pickup. Sure enough, the oil level is low, I'll add a quart and it's back to normal. This has happened twice since I've owned the thing. I regularly check it now because the mileage on the truck is high. It does burn a little 30W.

Finally, someone else said "RED Light" means trouble, stop and figure out what is going on. I tend to agree with that. Call someone to come and get you, have your vehicle towed. At least pull off the road and figure out what's going on.

Okay, I'm really sorry I made this so long. I just really wanted to make the point that we've become spoiled with all of the new cars and numb to the fact that they are still the same in many ways. They have become much easier to have and take care of. But that does not mean we should not give them the attention they deserve, not if it will give us the kind of grief they do when they break down.

Aloha,
g