VitaminLee

looked at my radiator thank goodness it's dry. Only a matter of time tho.

Its-a-JK

Yes, welcome to the continuing efforts for cutting costs and weight. The whole idea of using a plastic on a engine is just plain crazy and though those plastic part may hold up under normal operating temps they stress a hell of a lot easier when engine temp rises. Case in point, my wife Azera wound up overheating several times before it could be figured out what the true issue was with the cooling system and now the plastic housing for the thermostat is warped and had to be sealed up with a boat load of gasket seal. At least on the JK it looks pretty easy to get to but her car is a major PIA so hoping it holds up.
There are some things that makes sense to cast in plastic but when carrying anything like coolant its just foolish if you ask me. At least I will know where to look if I start seeing a drip under my JK.

nosnhoj1

Just took our '14 JKU to the dealer for a coolant smell. They did a pressure test and called me back with a diagnosis of a cracked thermostat housing. Quoted me $277 to fix it. A $32 part plus at most a $20 gallon of coolant means they think 30 minutes of work is worth $200? I think not! Looks like I'll be doing a little work this weekend. I will say that it just rolled over 80k and this is the first problem it's had so I can't be too upset. Much better than the '12 JK I traded in on it. That one got traded in while in their shop getting new heads.

VitaminLee

I fixed mine in about 3 minutes. Took me a while to get the air out of the system. There is a few tricks on YouTube. Super easy install. You will have no problem. That's way too much money to pay someone to do it.
Don't wait to long to do it tho. My small drop turned into a waterfall in the matter of a couple of days.

resharp001

I've been losing coolant out of my reservoir for a while now. Still haven't found the leak. grabbed pressure test kit from Autozone the other week. Radiator appears to hold pressure. Almost thinking about replacing the thermostat/housing just for the heck of it since it's a common issue and I have extra coolant around. Very frustrating.

VitaminLee

I wonder if you could wrap the housing in some kind of material and drive it for a week and see if it soaked any coolant. Someone really needs to make an aftermarket metal housing.