Who else is happy with the Pentastar?

[cb4017]

And I almost forgot, the oil sump capacity was reduced by 1 quart. Not sure all of the reasons for that, though.

Weight. They shaved every ounce they could off of these engines.

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[DanW]

Weight. They shaved every ounce they could off of these engines.

I think you are right. The newest oil formulations are so good, too, that they have no trouble handling the job. I don't mind the fact the oil pan doesn't hang down very low, either. On my JK 3.8, it hangs so low that I put a Rancho skid plate on it.

 

[LostWoods]

That's a second gen., which is considered the one with the "good engine". The 3rd (latest) generation has much torque-less engine.

What was the 1st Gen?
My experience was the 3.8L mated to the 4sp auto found in the 2007-2011 (1st. Gen?) was a terrible combo.

This same 4sp was also used in the 2003?-2006 TJ with the 4.0L and it was not without issues.

The 2012-2018 3.6L was mated to a more reliable 5sp auto (2nd Gen?)

The new 8sp is light years ahead of any auto ever offered in a Jeep. IMO

KevinC

Given the TJ and the first gen JK 4sp AT both had a first gear nearly on par with second gear in the 8AT, I don't care how much more torque an engine has, you're not overcoming that advantage without extra cylinders, forced induction, or US V8 level displacement. The refresh JK was better but it's the same engine in the current model with a worse transmission. All they did was a little tuning.

The 4.0HO was a great engine but it definitely had issues and I think people are locked into nostalgia with it. Yeah I think a straight 6 in front of this transmission would be great but just the fact you can run 37s on a bone stock Rubicon and drive it comfortably every day should tell you how the power delivery is miles ahead of the old combos.

 

[cb4017]

I think you are right. The newest oil formulations are so good, too, that they have no trouble handling the job. I don't mind the fact the oil pan doesn't hang down very low, either. On my JK 3.8, it hangs so low that I put a Rancho skid plate on it.

Yea, On my JKU I put a decent dent in the oil pan. Never realized I did it. Luckily it didn't leak.

 

[DanW]

Given the TJ and the first gen JK 4sp AT both had a first gear nearly on par with second gear in the 8AT, I don't care how much more torque an engine has, you're not overcoming that advantage without extra cylinders, forced induction, or US V8 level displacement. The refresh JK was better but it's the same engine in the current model with a worse transmission. All they did was a little tuning.

The 4.0HO was a great engine but it definitely had issues and I think people are locked into nostalgia with it. Yeah I think a straight 6 in front of this transmission would be great but just the fact you can run 37s on a bone stock Rubicon and drive it comfortably every day should tell you how the power delivery is miles ahead of the old combos.

i couldn't agree more on the 4.0. It was also only pushing a Jeep around that weighed barely north of 3k pounds. Imagine a Pentastar with it's 90 or so more hp in a TJ or even a YJ. It'd be a little rocketship.

I do love the 4.0, but its day is long gone. It'll be interesting to see if Stellantis goes forward with the new I6 engine.

But I'll have my Pentastar for the long haul, God willing.

 

[u-joint]

Despite being a loyal Jeep owner, I've always approached Chrysler with more than a bit of suspicion when it comes to quality and reliability. My perception is that Chrysler puts in the effort on things that make them money, and cheaps out on everything else.

Because of that, I was fearful of the Pentastar when I first purchased the gladiator. Too many horror stories of early units from the JKs having issues.

Despite all this, I'm pleasantly surprised about how solid the Pentastar + ZF auto is in this vehicle. I'd gladly take this combo in just about anything.

 

[DanW]

Despite being a loyal Jeep owner, I've always approached Chrysler with more than a bit of suspicion when it comes to quality and reliability. My perception is that Chrysler puts in the effort on things that make them money, and cheaps out on everything else.

Because of that, I was fearful of the Pentastar when I first purchased the gladiator. Too many horror stories of early units from the JKs having issues.

Despite all this, I'm pleasantly surprised about how solid the Pentastar + ZF auto is in this vehicle. I'd gladly take this combo in just about anything.

I felt the same way, but it was all just a gut feeling. All the Chrysler engines I've had have been rock solid. The only transmission I had trouble with was the NSG370, and it wasn't terrible and they replaced it under warranty for a small problem at 116k. And that's a Mercedes transmission. Between my brothers and I, we've had 10 Chrysler engines, including 2.5 (YJ's, TJ), 3.8 (JK, minivan), 4.7 (WJ), 2.4 Tigershark (Renegade), and 2 Pentastars (JL/JT). None had any issues.

You have to remember this about the Pentastar. You'll hear a lot of stories of valve spring replacements, but they actually have a lower percentage of that kind of issue than most engines. But the way it got the reputation is because there are almost 12 million of them out there. So every shop has seen a Pentastar or two with that issue, even though few have it. The number of these engines out there is just hard to comprehend. And they put everything they had into its development. Spared no expense. They knew they wanted to put it in everything and drive their costs down, both in mass production and in warranty costs.

The other issue about which you'll hear some negative garage talk is the bad cylinder heads that occurred in 2012. They had a number of defective ones that required replacement, then they warranted the rest of them to 100k miles. When that comes up in the Jeep club, everyone knows about it, but only one owner I know of experienced it. Why? Because fewer than 1,000 actually got out of the factory and almost all of them wound up in Wranglers. But it got LOTS of publicity. I heard one guy ragging and ragging on it for this. I asked him if he had one with the issue. He said yes. So what happened? His was making terrible noises and throwing a CEL. He took it in. They had a brand new engine in his Jeep within a week, and gave him a loaner while they did it. In the middle of the bitching I asked him how the new one has done. He admitted it had no issues. LOL! But he hates that Pentastar with a passion!

 

[Fortus]

What was the 1st Gen?
My experience was the 3.8L mated to the 4sp auto found in the 2007-2011 (1st. Gen?) was a terrible combo.

This same 4sp was also used in the 2003?-2006 TJ with the 4.0L and it was not without issues.

The 2012-2018 3.6L was mated to a more reliable 5sp auto (2nd Gen?)

The new 8sp is light years ahead of any auto ever offered in a Jeep. IMO

KevinC

Oh, sorry for the confusion. I was replying to the OP regarding his former Toyota Tacoma. The 2nd gen Tacoma had a 4.0 engine with a good amount of low-end torque. The 3rd gen has a 3.5, which feels less torquey at the low-end and mid-range. The 3rd gen's Tacoma's six-speed transmission is . . . really not good, to put it nicely.

I had a 3rd gen Tacoma, and now an 8-speed TJ. And yes, the Jeep drivetrain is light years ahead of the 3rd gen Tacoma.

 

[LostWoods]

Oh, sorry for the confusion. I was replying to the OP regarding his former Toyota Tacoma. The 2nd gen Tacoma had a 4.0 engine with a good amount of low-end torque. The 3rd gen has a 3.5, which feels less torquey at the low-end and mid-range. The 3rd gen's Tacoma's six-speed transmission is . . . really not good, to put it nicely.

I had a 3rd gen Tacoma, and now an 8-speed TJ. And yes, the Jeep drivetrain is light years ahead of the 3rd gen Tacoma.

Coming from a 3rd gen (albeit with 3 pedals) it bothers me how much I see this narrative. Nothing personal here but it's not the transmission's fault that Toyota went with that deep a double OD and still only put 3.90 gears in it. If people think the 0.67 8th in the Gladiator is nice for cruising, the Tacoma is a 0.58 sixth gear.

To put that in perspective, with the stock tires, you can throw 4.56 gears in a bone stock Tacoma and still spin lower RPMs than the stock Max Tow does with a slightly larger tire. That's how under-geared the Tacoma is.

I knew someone who found a junkyard MT and bought both 3rd members for his AT TRDOR. It was a night and day difference stepping up to 4.30 gears and I would absolutely say I'd take that truck any day of the week over a 4.0L second gen. Other than the very bottom end, the 3.5 is a much easier engine to live with and the gearing pretty much took that advantage away entirely.

 

[Fortus]

Coming from a 3rd gen (albeit with 3 pedals) it bothers me how much I see this narrative. Nothing personal here but it's not the transmission's fault that Toyota went with that deep a double OD and still only put 3.90 gears in it. If people think the 0.67 8th in the Gladiator is nice for cruising, the Tacoma is a 0.58 sixth gear.

To put that in perspective, with the stock tires, you can throw 4.56 gears in a bone stock Tacoma and still spin lower RPMs than the stock Max Tow does with a slightly larger tire. That's how under-geared the Tacoma is.

I knew someone who found a junkyard MT and bought both 3rd members for his AT TRDOR. It was a night and day difference stepping up to 4.30 gears and I would absolutely say I'd take that truck any day of the week over a 4.0L second gen. Other than the very bottom end, the 3.5 is a much easier engine to live with and the gearing pretty much took that advantage away entirely.

I owned a 3rd gen automatic Tacoma, 100% OEM. I tried to commute in it, and made it 2 weeks, then it had to be "promoted" to a weekend toy.

Re-gearing, throttle re-programing, etc., I've heard it all. You can spend any sort of cash to make any vehicle perfect, but 1) I risk voiding the warranty 2) I'm not into modding at all 3) I don't feel obligated to do Toyota's job . Ultimately, if I manually locked the tranny in 4th gear, it would be fine, but the revs would be too high on the freeway for my tastes.

Also, shifting into Drive made the truck jump with a "clunk". It felt to me like an old motorcycle or ATV when you put it into gear. I'm sure those transmissions will last forever, but they felt outdated to me. I set out to get a manual, but finding one this year was pretty much impossible.

 

[LostWoods]

I owned a 3rd gen automatic Tacoma, 100% OEM. I tried to commute in it, and made it 2 weeks, then it had to be "promoted" to a weekend toy.

Re-gearing, throttle re-programing, etc., I've heard it all. You can spend any sort of cash to make any vehicle perfect, but 1) I risk voiding the warranty 2) I'm not into modding at all 3) I don't feel obligated to do Toyota's job . Ultimately, if I manually locked the tranny in 4th gear, it would be fine, but the revs would be too high on the freeway for my tastes.

Also, shifting into Drive made the truck jump with a "clunk". It felt to me like an old motorcycle or ATV when you put it into gear. I'm sure those transmissions will last forever, but they felt outdated to me. I set out to get a manual, but finding one this year was pretty much impossible.

I definitely get your frustration with it and I'm just pointing out that it's the gear choice that was bad, not so much the transmission. I mean it's definitely an old-school AT box and the clunk is just something normal in a 4x4 (though I felt like the Tacoma's driveline slop was a bit excessive). But if you don't want to do the work to fix Toyota's problem, I totally get why you'd run away... those were just atrocious in stock form.

As for finding an MT, mine was the only manual TRDOR at the time in the mid-Atlantic. I was in DC receiving offers from NJ down to SC over into TN and KY and all were selling me the exact same truck that fortunately for me, was on the lot at my local dealership. There's only a 5% take rate which works out to about 10k sold per year so they're an exceedingly rare breed.

When I walked into the Jeep dealership, the sales manager about shit himself when he found out what my truck was - gave me just a couple thousand less than I paid to get off the lot brand new 2 years and 20k prior and saw it parked in the manager spot the next week when I went back in to grab the accessories I had them throw in.

 

[River2016]

Coming for 2017 tacoma v6, this jeep drives so much smoother and the power delivery is much more usable and well thought out. I do wish it was faster but I felt that way about my SRT8 so there’s never enough hp.

 

[StingyJT]

I felt the same way, but it was all just a gut feeling. All the Chrysler engines I've had have been rock solid. The only transmission I had trouble with was the NSG370, and it wasn't terrible and they replaced it under warranty for a small problem at 116k. And that's a Mercedes transmission. Between my brothers and I, we've had 10 Chrysler engines, including 2.5 (YJ's, TJ), 3.8 (JK, minivan), 4.7 (WJ), 2.4 Tigershark (Renegade), and 2 Pentastars (JL/JT). None had any issues.

You have to remember this about the Pentastar. You'll hear a lot of stories of valve spring replacements, but they actually have a lower percentage of that kind of issue than most engines. But the way it got the reputation is because there are almost 12 million of them out there. So every shop has seen a Pentastar or two with that issue, even though few have it. The number of these engines out there is just hard to comprehend. And they put everything they had into its development. Spared no expense. They knew they wanted to put it in everything and drive their costs down, both in mass production and in warranty costs.

The other issue about which you'll hear some negative garage talk is the bad cylinder heads that occurred in 2012. They had a number of defective ones that required replacement, then they warranted the rest of them to 100k miles. When that comes up in the Jeep club, everyone knows about it, but only one owner I know of experienced it. Why? Because fewer than 1,000 actually got out of the factory and almost all of them wound up in Wranglers. But it got LOTS of publicity. I heard one guy ragging and ragging on it for this. I asked him if he had one with the issue. He said yes. So what happened? His was making terrible noises and throwing a CEL. He took it in. They had a brand new engine in his Jeep within a week, and gave him a loaner while they did it. In the middle of the bitching I asked him how the new one has done. He admitted it had no issues. LOL! But he hates that Pentastar with a passion!

Mostly agree but think it was more than 1,000. I had a 2012 that required a new driver cylinder head.

 

[rpres62]

I like it with the 8 speed auto transmission. I didn't like it mated to the 6 speed manual with Sport Gearing. By far one of the slowest and laziest vehicles I have ever driven.

You should drive a jku witj the 3.8 and auto…. Can get out of its own way.

 

[Imbuere]

Same here - been very happy with the engine and auto transmission combo. I am also in Colorado and even with a RTT, 2 bikes, and a bed full of gear, I have never felt like there was a lack of power driving through the mountains.

I have the Mopar 2in lift and 35s and after updating the computer for the bigger tires, the transmission functions perfectly.

I think it has a lot to do with how you use your car. Sure, there are people that will run 40s or tow towards the limits of the vehicle. But how many people really need a 392?

All else equal, I’d love a V8… but it comes at the expense of fuel economy (I can get 23 mpg driving from Boulder to Estes and back in my JL), my long term savings, and potentially reliability (I think it’s fair to say my 3.6 without eTourque will be more reliable).

So, even though it’d be nice to have more, I’m not willing to sacrifice these things for something that only make the 16 year old me better off.

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