Radiator or coolant leak on the 2012 Dodge Charger
2 crashes 1 fire 2 injuries 5 of the 16 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When radiator or coolant leak gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Dodge Charger report radiator or coolant leak at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 45,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 13th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 30,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 132,873 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
17% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27,955 miles | 45,550 miles | 86,000 miles | 127,000 miles | 160,828 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 2 a crash, 1 a fire and 2 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $350–$1,900 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 7 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2011, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 40; the 2012 has 16. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Driving 55 MPH on highway in my 2012 dodge charger,I began to smell oil burning, looked down and noticed that the car was running at the highest temperature, 264 degrees. Thankfully I was close to a reputable garage close to my home. I parked the car there, asked for a gentle man to assist me, and once the car cooled enough to open the hood, he took a look. He noticed that the hose leading from the coolant reservoir to the engine was completely sucked in, and the coolant reservoir was filling with oil. Upon inspection from dealership I was informed that the engine needed to be completely replaced due to metal shavings and debris found in oil pan. *tr
Driving 55 MPH on highway in my 2012 dodge charger,I began to smell oil burning, looked down and noticed that the car was running at the highest temperature, 264 degrees. Thankfully I was close to a reputable garage close to my home. I parked the car there, asked for a gentle man to assist me, and once the car cooled enough to open the hood, he took a look. He noticed that the hose leading from the coolant reservoir to the engine was completely sucked in, and the coolant reservoir was filling with oil. Upon inspection from dealership I was informed that the engine needed to be completely replaced due to metal shavings and debris found in oil pan. *tr
I received a recall post card in the mail stating the manufacturer had attempted to contact me previously to schedule an inspection soon as possible. I called on 6-16-15 and scheduled the appointment with holley holley as the service advisor. The scheduled appointment took place on 6/18/15. Once I received my car back from the dealership. Holley holley reasurred me that a multipoint inspection was done on my car and fluid levels were checked. I live an hour away from the dealership. On my way to work the following morning 6/19/15 when I arrived to work I noticed steam was coming out of the side of my drivers door once I opened it to get out. I had to call a mechanic immediately to try and get my car towed back to the dealership due to holly holley telling me over the phone to bring the car back in once I told her I didnt have this issue prior to bringing my car in for the inspection. Once the towing company arrived the driver popped my hood. The driver asked me to come look under my hood. The driver was able to show me that the radiator cap was never put back on my radiator when I had taken it to the dealership for the inspection…
Also reported on the 2012 Dodge Charger
Alternator or charging system failure
Other electrical problem
Headlight failure or clouding
Other engine problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 16 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does radiator or coolant leak happen on the 2012 Dodge Charger?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 45,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is radiator or coolant leak on the 2012 Dodge Charger?
16 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed