Jeep V6 Pentastar gurus - bad lifters/rocker at 52K miles

[jetboatperformance]

Just inspected another of these for one of my warranty companys , rocker went first then metal re-circulation and subsequent cam damage scoring etc , Tech at the DLR says more and more common if contrasted (pics 1 and 2 ) the difference is about .015 , refering to the roller failure in the lifter fulcrum (80 k )

 

[mesquito_creek]

I just picked up mine after the bad head was discovered for an obscene amount of money…. Thought I might go take it on on a TRD Pro 4 runner, just to find out that to buy any Toyota TRD you have to put down a deposit and wait for the call to be chosen. Not deposit to order, deposit to be chosen to get the next one that comes in whatever it is… gonna drive this POS jeep in jeep jail for while

 

[Outdrive1]

My biggest worry moving from a TJ to a JK was the pos v6. I wanted 4 doors though. Mine has 130k on it. Car fax shows nothing as far as engine warranty or swap. Who knows. Seems to run fine. It’s noisy though, sounds like the water pump or some bearing is making noise. I don’t care. It’s a third car and we just use to take the dogs to dog park or go to the desert bar. I figure if it dies, I’ll get a brand new reman motor for it. How much can that be?

 

[SBMech]

How about the awesome plastic oil filter housing / oil cooler housing? It sits under the intake manifold, and breaks when you tighten the oil filter a little too much. Entire assembly must be replaced, intake has to come off, etc. Of course you have to take the intake off to change spark plugs, what an excellent design!

My wife loves her Jeep. My wife's lucky I love her.

Everyone overtightens them, the actual torque spec is 6nm.

If you knew how many Lexus/Toyotas come into my shop and need cap replacements because of overtightening, you would laugh your ass off!

At least they make their housings out of metal on the late ones, unlike VW/Audi etc, there is a good chance you will crack the housing by overtightening the plastic ones.

 

[mesquito_creek]

So nothing I have read suggests that the repair I just had done (new head/rockers/lifters) did anything to cure the problem. All I did was reset the problem? Am I correct? Can I expect another 52K miles and then another repair on the horizon?

 

[Blubyu]

Between this and the oil cooler issues on these, we make A LOT of money on these engines..... Both issues are well documented. At one point all of the parts were back-ordered. We had four here at the shop sitting waiting for parts for months. Nothing actually fixes the problem, all you did was reset the time clock for it to occur again. We have actually done this job more than once on one customer's vehicle. Once at 70k and then again at 190k.

 

[mesquito_creek]

Between this and the oil cooler issues on these, we make A LOT of money on these engines..... Both issues are well documented. At one point all of the parts were back-ordered. We had four here at the shop sitting waiting for parts for months. Nothing actually fixes the problem, all you did was reset the time clock for it to occur again. We have actually done this job more than once on one customer's vehicle. Once at 70k and then again at 190k.

What oil should I be running? Not a brand but what type? Full Synth, Hybrid or dino?

 

[C-2]

Is owning a Jeep like being in Fight Club? Shhhhhhhhhhh! lol

 

[C-2]

So nothing I have read suggests that the repair I just had done (new head/rockers/lifters) did anything to cure the problem. All I did was reset the problem? Am I correct? Can I expect another 52K miles and then another repair on the horizon?

That's why I went with a new/used motor with a 6-year warranty - in case it happens again.

I never understood the logic in a cam getting scarred/scored and then simply changing out a head. If you caught the issue early...then okay. But mine threw the misfire code and I read that's when damage has already taken place. It didn't throw the code immediately after tapping started, it took a month or two.

I too wonder if we should be using an cleaning additive if running the dino oil. I would run full synthetic, but I'm worried about synthetic in a previous dino oil motor leaks.

In fairness it sounds similar to the Ford V10 spark plug spitting issue. It happened to a lot of them, but others never had issues.

 

[Blubyu]

What oil should I be running? Not a brand but what type? Full Synth, Hybrid or dino?

What I have seen work best in these is a quality full synthetic. We do notice that our customers who run past their oil change intervals by 1k or more most of the time have a shorter life span of this engine's known problems. With that said, we have one of these within our family, we have been running Ams Oil in it on a 3k interval, since the day it was new. Just tipped 100k on it and not an issue.

 

[mesquito_creek]

I did oil changes myself spot on 5K intervals, never missed a mile past... But I am going to switch over to full synthetic now. I am to dumb to do the math on 3K intervals, but I am a math wiz at 5s...

 

[C-2]

Tap tap tap, this time on the right side of the motor. Not as loud as before, but there's a definite tap.

So I took it into Valvoline for an oil change at the 2400 mile mark. 600 miles ahead of schedule.

Chick from Valvoline asks why I was there so many miles "late." Huh? I still have 600 miles left before I'm due for a change.

She says nope, you are at 3400 miles. I show her the trusty window reminder sticker and she back peddles and says "that's weird, somebody set your reminder at 4000 miles instead of 3000 miles."

WTF, I specifically asked the dickhead from the last oil change what Valvoline's change interval was, and he told me 3K. I said great, because I need to change the oil at every 3K to preserve my warranty.

We changed the oil at 500 after the install, and again at 3400.

I took it back to the engine swap company and he said yup, it's a rocker or lifter, and I'm scheduled to take it back in for repair. We'll see if they do the math, or if they focus on the oil change window sticker I stapled to the paperwork. I will be pissed if they say the warranty is void for going 443 miles past 3K.

But seriously, tolerances are that critical in these crappy motors that if you roll a few hundred over 3K rockers start collapsing?

We'll see what they say.

 

[C-2]

The shop fixed the motor under warranty without even asking for proof of oil changes; so that's good. Decent guys.

It was 2 more bad rockers.

Geesh.