Patriot CVT cooler rupture
After reading these posts, I thought I'd register and relate a story in case it helps anyone else out.
As I was driving down an LA freeway on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago, a dump truck in front of me dropped a bunch of debris. I initially thought these flat spinning black things were large rubber o-rings, but after a few of them hit and skipped off the car, I realized they were something heavier. As I passed the truck, a sign on its door read "O&M Metals - Sun Valley, CA". Since there was apparently no damage, I continued on my way. About 15 minutes later, I noticed an accumulation of what appeared to be an oily spray building on my windshield. As I got near my destination, I noticed a big stream of purple fluid working its way up my hood toward the windshield.
When I stopped the car to inspect it, I discovered that a flat metal disc had found its way past the plastic grill edges and had ruptured the oil cooler in front of the radiator.
After having the car towed home, I surveyed the damage, saw that I needed a new CVT fluid cooler/AC condenser unit, contacted the Jeep dealer in Alhambra, CA and they quoted me a price of $219 on the phone (which mysteriously turned into $289 when I went to pick it up). I also picked up a quart of CVT fluid, which the dealer sold for $17. I asked the guy "this is the purple stuff, right?" and he told me that it was actually green. I'm guessing that somewhere along the line, the monkeys at JiffyLube added something else to the mix.
I don't work on this car myself, so I don't have a service manual or shop manual for it. I bought this car new, and I've taken it to the dealer for regular major service, and to JiffyLube for oil changes. The only work I've done on the Patriot is changing out the brake pads. (Mechanically, I prefer to work on my older cars - '61 CJ5, '77 Scout, and '65 mustang.)
After reading these posts regarding the CVT fluid, I figured I could tackle this job myself for under $500. I discharged the A/C, removed the front grill/bumper cover unit, then removed the A/C lines, the CVT fluid lines and swapped out the part. I put everything back together, charged up the A/C and added the 1 quart of Mopar CVT fluid. I tested the tranny for a minute on my sloped driveway, and decided that it still needed more fluid. Not wanting to pay $17 per quart, I found that my local O'Reilly could order Valvoline CVT fluid (which meets the Mopar specs) for just over $10 per quart. So I ordered 2 quarts and picked them up the next day.
I then added fluid - about 8 oz. at a time, each time shifting through all the gears, going a few feet up and down my sloped driveway, until I got it to the point where it would not roll backwards facing uphill idling in "Drive", and was not making any whining noises.
Since the repair I've driven the car about 1000 miles (a couple of long freeway trips and a lot of city driving), and everything seems to be OK for now. I'll keep my fingers crossed, and I'll post an update if anything goes wrong.
