Dodge Stratus Anti-Freeze Leak Repair

Our Dodge Stratus is nearing the end of its useful life.  It has over 150,000 miles on it.  The exhaust is held together with clothes hangers, the suspension is bouncy and it is leaving puddles everywhere it goes.  Recently it overheated and I discovered it was about a gallon low on antifreeze.  The next time I checked it was low again so I took it to a garage.  They estimated $450 for repairs so I said "No thanks" and took it home.

I could not find the problem at first because I was looking at the engine.  The problem was fastened to the inside of the passenger side wheel well.  You have to remove the antifreeze reservoir to get a good look at it as in this next picture.  The lines to the heater are rotted out.  They get even worse just out of the view of the camera.

So I removed the one hose as in the above picture.  Then I removed the other one where it attaches and coupled the two hoses together with a short piece of pipe and a screw tightened pipe strap.

The top hose attaches just below the thermostat and the bottom hose attaches someplace under the engine.  Taking the bottom strap off leads to a antifreeze leak so I held my thumb over the end of the hose until I could get it up to the junction.

So far so good, but I would not recommend this repair to anyone.  For one thing you no longer have any heat!