Do any of you Cherokee SRT8 owners have coolant that has an ammonia smell to it, and what appears to be white "stuff" floating around in it? This a problem that is appearing in many Charger and 300M SRT8's and I thought I'd check in here and see if it is a common problem with Cherokee SRT8's. Amazingly I don't see any threads on the topic - we have a long thread on the topic at Chargerforums (I am a Charger SRT8 owner :)), and there are similar ones at 300mforums and Lxforums.

Just curious to see how widespread this problem is. DCX evidently knows about the issue and is researching a solution. There is no official resolution yet - it has been addressed in past chat sessions and will probably be brought up again in tomorrow's chat session.

I haven't seen any mention of it. :confused:

I've been waiting (and hoping to not see) a thread about this in a WK. So maybe it was a bad coolant batch used in the plants manufacturing the LX cars...

The LX cars got the bad coolant, the WK's got the bad radiator caps!

It's kind of interesting because some of the LX cars that have this problem have had their cooling systems drained and flushed, and it seems the problem has returned! I do believe you use the same HOAT coolant in your engines as do we! So I am wondering if it is because there was so much of the "contaminant" in the cooling system and it just didn't get all flushed out yet, or what. Or is it coming out of the coolant - due to the high temperature that we know these engines to run. But it's not happening to your engines. Interesting....

I've been waiting (and hoping to not see) a thread about this in a WK. So maybe it was a bad coolant batch used in the plants manufacturing the LX cars...

The LX cars got the bad coolant, the WK's got the bad radiator caps!

What did you observe with the bad radiator caps? Are you referring to the caps on the overflow tanks? And did you observe coolant in the engine compartment and on the overflow tank as a result?

This is another thing we have seen as well on some LX's - some of the bad coolant/white stuff appearing in areas of the engine compartment and on the overflow tank, and not knowing how it got there. Seems like it might be due to a bad radiator cap....

Just in case anyone here is curious about reading more on this topic, we have a nice long thread on this over at Chargerforums:

http://www.chargerforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33393

It's kind of interesting because some of the LX cars that have this problem have had their cooling systems drained and flushed, and it seems the problem has returned! I do believe you use the same HOAT coolant in your engines as do we! So I am wondering if it is because there was so much of the "contaminant" in the cooling system and it just didn't get all flushed out yet, or what. Or is it coming out of the coolant - due to the high temperature that we know these engines to run. But it's not happening to your engines. Interesting....

I'm sure there are some good dealers out there, but if a DEALER replaced and "flushed" the coolant, I'm bet all they did was drain the rad and fill it, leaving a lot of the contaminated coolant still in the system...

I guess another data point concerning the high operating temps is to log those with 170 and 180 t-stats to see if they continue to have the gunk issue.

What did you observe with the bad radiator caps? Are you referring to the caps on the overflow tanks? And did you observe coolant in the engine compartment and on the overflow tank as a result?

This is another thing we have seen as well on some LX's - some of the bad coolant/white stuff appearing in areas of the engine compartment and on the overflow tank, and not knowing how it got there. Seems like it might be due to a bad radiator cap....

Correct. The Jeeps have the radiator cap on the radiator as opposed to on the pressurized overflow tank like the Charger models. But it appears to be the same style cap. Most here have noticed coolant overspray on the engine and hood pad (near the cap) after a nice hard run (drag strip or high speed highway runs). Replacement oem caps have the same problem. Several have switched out to the Stant 18 lb radiator cap (has a red pressure release lever on it) with great success, myself included.

FYI, the coolant gunk issue was presented at the SRT Q&A session that occurred here this evening and here is the post showing the reply:

http://www.cherokeesrt8.com/forums/showpost.php?p=43756&postcount=89