2005 CRD Limited with 126,000 miles. Driven weekly Central TX to Houston (200 miles each way) and back with only 25-50 miles in town per week. Usually get 28-32 mpg on highway and drops to 22-25 while I am in town. Turbo hoses and EH still intact. I cleaned the MAP last weekend and feels like the car I remember early on. Had oil changed every 3,000 miles through 95,000 then switched to ~6000 miles. Had to replace oil pan and dealer refused to acknowledge any liability for oil pan leak. Seems that they never had the copper crush ring so they just tightened down plug to stop the drips. Only went to them for oil changes since they did them for $20 plus tax! Now I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.

Around 75,000 miles, I started to notice a “raw” diesel smell whenever I parked in my garage after driving 200 miles from Houston. In open air, it is a little harder to detect but you can catch a whiff sometimes. Most of the time I smell it when I walk around the left front corner just after parking. It seems to originate from the left front fender forward of the drivers door. No smell from the wheel well however. I have also noticed when at a stoplight on the highway, I sometimes get a whiff if I have my blower fan running. I checked for leaks when it started and have never seen a thing. Fuel filter is tight and intact. I have replaced it since this issue started. When it first occurred, I had dealer “check” the fuel system and they indicated that it was holding pressure and functioning correctly, i.e. everything was “ok”.

Any ideas about what might be going on here or what I should be looking at to see if there is a problem?

About the only that I can suggest is to check the lines at the injection pump.

While standing at the left front tire, hood up, take a flashlight and look below the alternator. You will see the injection pump there with two metal lines on it-supply and return. Look for wet areas.

FWIW

Hoosier CRD

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FWIW,
Hoosier CRD

#1 Liberty: '05 CRD Limited Stone White
(SOLD Dec. 2013)
#2 Liberty: ???
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You could also look at the top of the engine where the injectors are. Due to some shoddy work done by the previous owner, the orings and copper washers were bad and fuel was spraying up past the injector as the engine ran. When parked after running awhile, you could see this "plume" of diesel fog coming out of the engine compartment.
It's kind of a pain to replace and cleanup, but it costs very little to do, like 48 bucks to do all 4 injectors and about an hours worth of work.

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Harlan in Austin
2005 Jeep Liberty Sport CRD: Samco, No Muffller, EGR removed, Mechanical Fan Back On, Rancho RS5k's, Self Installed Rockers, Lifters, Engine Mounts, and Timing Belt, CCV to Airbox Mod, Hacked RB1, CD-Changer, AuxInput; 2005 PowerStroke Excursion 6.0: Rancho 9k's, SuperChipped, Stock otherwise. BioDiesel Maker.

Dry paper towels are an excellent leak detector and those locations are good to check but I'd go more basic and ask if you have a 1s or 2n gen fuel filter head. Check the fuel filter bleeding video on Sam's NOOB guide for the difference (2n gen should have a blue electric fuel heater plug on driver's side and that plug should be fairly obviously spliced into the existing wiring harness). If you have the 1s gen head a fuel leak at the fuel heater plug is likely. If you have a 2n gen fuel filter head also do a careful check on that head and filter for leaks (bleeder screw, where filter screws to head, hoses to/from filter, WIF sensor on bottom of filter, etc.)

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Sold to LOST member my 05 Ltd, GDE Stg II turbo + TCM tune, SunCoast TC w. Transgo kit, Steiger window regulators, Samcos, Fumoto valve, 2nd gen filter head with Lub. Spec. bleeder, Hayden clutch & 11 blade fan, inverted spare, P-1 battery, BF Goodrich Long Trail TAs, Etecno1 glow plugs, timing belt at 50K miles/8 yrs

I had a fuel return hose spring a leak. It was a low pressure line that I ended up replacing with chainsaw fuel hose. there are about four of them in between the injectors.

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'06 Liberty CRD,'02 VW Golf TDI, '84 Military Blazer (Diesel)

x2 on what everyone has said - look for places that the fuel is under pressure, if you don't have a lift pump. The source is somewhere in the return lines or the rubber-ish inter-injector lines. Unless the injectors themselves have been pulled at some point, the high pressure seals should still be OK, but you wouldn't always see any leak from there, so the paper towel test is a good one.

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Over 225 CRDs currently driving with my valves, timing belt, rockers, or ARP Studs.
Bad noises = REALLY bad things.

a while ago I had a raw diesel smell inside the cabin after driving on the freeway for a while. after much looking around I found the leak at the thread on the connector between injector one and the line that goes to the fuel rail. The diesel dripped a bit and after driving a good while it accumulated enough around the injector at the valve cover that you could smell it right after you park or when you came to a stop with the AC position to fresh air.
Solution: 30 min to unscrew the connector, put some Halymar anti-seize gasket blue compound and tight it back again to factory torque and problem solved.