Jeep engine replacement update

markiz41

Member
After a little back and forth with Chrysler corporate, they owned up to a manufacturing defect and authorized the dealer to install a brand new long block engine under the lifetime power train warranty. The old engine looked like a grenade detonated inside, the crank came out in 3 pieces. I'm a little concerned that the cause of this failure remains a mystery, but overall - satisfied. Thanks everyone for help and advice.
 
Glad they stood behind it !

Sure would be nice to know why it happened too ! Wonder if yours is the only one ? I doubt it.
 
Questions to ask....will they stand behind the engine beyond the original vehicle warranty? Has the issue been resolve so that will not happen again? Otherwise, I would be looking to trade, as I would not want to pay for such a catastrophe. My son had a Honda that had transmission failure, and a known issue on those cars. Dealer wanted $3500 for a REBUILT. I purchased a used, and sold it quick before it happened again, and apparently they all had that issue early in life. Have a hard time even looking at a Honda over that escapade and Honda would NOT admit to any problems on them.
 
Glad it worked out. Cranks don't just crack. I've only seen them crack due to incorrect align bore (swapped main caps on a rebuild), defective balancers or lack of endplay. Those issues should have been resolved with the new engine.
 
My 1994 dodge Dakota did exactly the same thing ran hot on back cyl sludged the oil blew the engine , dealer hung me every thime I complained and took to them that it was something I was doing charged me for new oil pump ,never fixed it , finally blew up , I paid for a newer engine from salvage yard,I never will purchase a vehical from this dealer ever
 
Have to question what they are doing for $1500. Pressing in New seats? Do they lap the valves afterward?
Only trouble I have heard of with hemi engine reliability is the timing chain tensioners letting go when it switches to 4 cylinder mode.
 
A local fellow parts out Dakotas and Durangos he says to stay away from the engines ending in 7'S
That's how he gets a lot of low mileage parts trucks because the engines crap out.
 
So a company with something to sell says Chrysler engines have a fatal flaw? Interesting marketing tactic, bet nobody has ever used that one. The valve seat design they say is an issue is actually a very common manufacturing design among all manufactures. All cars have aluminum heads now, so all have some sort of pressed in valve seat.

I think your engine had a fluke problem and they fixed it. Anything mass produced on a production based pay system is going to have a few bad ones.

The 3.7 and 4.7 engine family are actually good engines. I have several customers with those and pretty high miles. I have one customer with a Jeep 4.7 with 240K at the last oil change. Regular maintenance is key. Ones that aren't maintained starve the top end and the cams seize in the head.
 
I agree. The big issue with them is they need the oil changed every 3000 miles. They tend to run somewhat hot and it breaks down the oil making it suseptable to sludging when the head gaskets weep when they get over 70K miles (not really leak - but weep due to the aluminum heads and cheap OEM gaskets).

There are a lot of 3.7s in full size Dodge pickups (base engine for several model years) that get the living crap run out of them and they keep coming back for more. You also see a lot of Jeep Liberties with 170K-200K miles on them - its usually the transmission that kills them when they get high mileage. No one repairs the $2000 transmission on a $2500 vehicle.
 
3000? How about synthetic?

I really do not want to go through this again, even though I'm still covered by the same warranty.
 
I had a 4.7 in a Jeep with 83,000 miles that sludged up so bad that it blocked the pickup screen in the oil pan. My daughter was driving it at the time and ran it to the point that it rattled pretty bad. The oil had been changed every 3,000 miles.
When I shopped around for a remanufactured engine, most rebuilders stressed that they had fixed the sludge problem during rebuild.

My point is that research shows the 4.7 engines did have a sludge problem.
 
Did you personally see this sludge? We have a durango with a 4.7. At about 100,000 it developed a bad rattle at hot idle. It was harvest and I didn't' have time to look at it so my wife took it in. They told her the engine was full of sludge and was "toast". Luckily they had found a used engine for $5k !!!! I tore into it after harvest and it was clean enough to eat your lunch out of the rocker covers. I ran it with the timing case off and verified a bad hydraulic tensioner on one of the secondary T chains. I changed both secondary tensioners for about $200 and it's done another 100,000 with no issues. I wonder how many of there engines have been changed when they didn't need to be?
 

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