2000 Dodge Intrepid 2000 Dodge Intrepid orange fluid

What does it say on the cap? It kind of sounds like you're describing the coolant reservoir, but the antifreeze should be bright green. Orange coolant is typical of "Dexcool" used in GM cars. That stuff causes a lot of headaches. It will form "Dexmud" if someone mixed it with the green stuff normally found in your car. If that happened, the cooling system will need to be flushed, then refilled with the proper green coolant.

Normally Chrysler products have a way of warning you to check the gauges when there's a problem you haven't noticed. It's usually a chime and a "Check Gauges" light. I suspect the no-start issue is a separate problem, but it might have been caused by the same thing that caused the fluid leakage. As an example, a defective water pump could leak coolant resulting in engine overheating and excessive system pressure with coolant going into the reservoir with great force, AND the water pump could reduce tension on the timing belt, (depending on the engine model), causing it to skip a few teeth, (skipping even one tooth will result in very poor engine performance), or flying debris in the area of the camshaft position sensor could damage that sensor. That sensor supplies information needed to make the engine run.

That's just one example of how two different problems can be related to a single incident. Normally the engine should still run after it has cooled down from overheating.

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Very little chance it's a starter problem. The chance of it failing at exactly the same time it stalled on the highway is pretty remote. Be sure it's in Park. Try starting it in Neutral, then Reverse. If it cranks in any other gear, the "PRNDL" switch, (formerly known as the neutral safety switch), is out-of-adjustment or defective.

As a test, you can put the car in Park, then bypass the starter relay to see if it cranks. That will instantly divide the circuit in half. If it cranks, the high-current side, which includes the battery, battery cables, and starter motor are fine. The problem then is in the low-current circuit which includes the ignition switch and "PRNDL" switch on the transmission.

There's two ways to bypass the starter relay. The hardest way is to remove it from its socket, pop the cover off, reinstall it, and squeeze the contact. There might not be enough room to get your finger in there, but you can get in there with a pencil.

Another way to bypass it is to remove the relay, then look at the five terminals on it. Two will be parallel to each other, on two adjacent sides. Disregard those. Also disregard the terminal in the center. That leaves you with two terminals that form the letter "T". Those are the two terminals to jump in the socket. A paper clip or piece of wire will work fine.

If it still does not crank, and makes no sound, suspect the smaller of the two wires on the starter motor is knocked off, loose, or broken off. If it makes one loud clunk, you should have heard that when you turned the ignition switch. A common cause is worn contacts inside the starter motor's solenoid. These can be replaced at low cost but most people just replace the whole starter. You could also have a problem with one of the fat battery cables.

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