Beware 3.6 Penstar

[redline61]

Our company switched to Promasters all with the 3.6 years ago. Roughly 50 vehicles and they have been the most reliable trucks we have ever had in the fleet. My store has 6 of them and they have all been almost perfect in a combined 500k miles. Mass produced vehicles are easy to believe they are unreliable. If there is 500K of these engines out there and 5% have issues, that is still 25K problems.

Edit: this comment didn't age well. Company has had nothing but huge issues once these vans hit around 150k. We are actively working on junking all of them out of the fleet. haha

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[Jt-wrx]

I love how this thread has turned into the useless-anecdotal-evidence centerpiece. Just shows how far off the mark OP was.

For the record, I have an engine, and it makes the truck go places. I change the oil on it, and refill it with gas as I use it. It warms up as I use it and cools off after I'm done. I get things fixed when they need attention, some big and some small. It might break down at some point, or it might not. I've had the same experience on all the automobiles I've owned. I enjoy Jeeps.

OP sounds bang on to me. My first pentastar in 2014 ram was pretty good, the oil filter housing blew some gaskets and dumped oil all over the place for a $1500 bill just off warranty but overall loved it, was great, didn't use oil, truck got wrote off at about 145,000 kms. The oil thing was known issue, my timing on warranty was just unlucky.

Fast forward to this past May, 2020 gladiator sport s, 2 years and 5 months in and 78,000 kms and the motor blew up. There will be lots coming on this story but just too busy into other things. They didn't warranty it either, I changed oil every 7500 kms, it had been throwing right cylinder bank misfire codes from day 1 and was consuming coolant. No one wanted to chase it down, lots of horror stories of this so we drove it and loved it until it would no longer go down the road. They looked for any excuse to get out of warranty despite the half dozen sets of cam shafts from these later pentastars on the mechanics bench from that week alone...he agreed these new pentastars are not as good as the old ones. Anyhow, I'm out...over to chev and the new 4 banger turbo. When I get a chance I'll get the full details on the forum but life super busy right now.

Sittin on a time bomb mate, best of luck.

 

[Akgladiator]

OP sounds bang on to me. My first pentastar in 2014 ram was pretty good, the oil filter housing blew some gaskets and dumped oil all over the place for a $1500 bill just off warranty but overall loved it, was great, didn't use oil, truck got wrote off at about 145,000 kms. The oil thing was known issue, my timing on warranty was just unlucky.

Fast forward to this past May, 2020 gladiator sport s, 2 years and 5 months in and 78,000 kms and the motor blew up. There will be lots coming on this story but just too busy into other things. They didn't warranty it either, I changed oil every 7500 kms, it had been throwing right cylinder bank misfire codes from day 1 and was consuming coolant. No one wanted to chase it down, lots of horror stories of this so we drove it and loved it until it would no longer go down the road. They looked for any excuse to get out of warranty despite the half dozen sets of cam shafts from these later pentastars on the mechanics bench from that week alone...he agreed these new pentastars are not as good as the old ones. Anyhow, I'm out...over to chev and the new 4 banger turbo. When I get a chance I'll get the full details on the forum but life super busy right now.

Sittin on a time bomb mate, best of luck.

What do u think of chev 2.7 turbo in your new truck

 

[Jt-wrx]

What do u think of chev 2.7 turbo in your new truck

lets not derail this important thread, but fastest way to explain it is it's pretty as close to a 21st century gas powered 4bt cummins as you'll get, if you take the performance and economy of the 5.3 v8 and the 3.0 Duramax and split it right down the middle that's what you get with this 2.7 high output (2022 refresh gets 310 hp/430 ft/lbs), it weighs about the same as a pentastar or other v6, it was built like the Duramax (as a turbo engine for trucks from the ground up, it's a long stroke, big jugs, single turbo...very cummins formula, forged bottom end etc.) imo the best engine choice of all half tons currently, now it comes in 2023 mid-size gm trucks as well, brilliant, fca/stellantis a little late to party with hurricane but no longer matters to me after how they handled this once proud customer...it will cost them lots more than that lemon engine they didn't want to warranty by the time this all airs out, bad news travels way faster than good news

 

[Wolf Island Diver]

I had a Pentastar lemon, with the sand casting issue, in my 2013 JK with a cascade of failing engine components. That being said, most people didn’t have that or the head issues of gen 1. My EcoDiesel has been perfectly reliable so far (knock on wood), but with all the emissions control stuff on it, I can’t imagine it won’t have more expensive repairs at some point than a late generation Pentastar. If I end up moving to Quebec or BC in a few years and rip all that crap off of it, that might be a different story, seeing as diesels are generally good for longevity.

 

[Maximus Gladius]

Im just over 33k kms. It doesn’t tick and is super smooth and quiet but it does consume coolant.

I’m finally getting a new engine! No thanks to FCA.

Back when my insurance company approved my vandalism claim on my glycol contaminated transmission, they also approved the replacement of my coolant consuming engine. They had the evidence they needed that FCA engineers were not interested in investigating the internal leak, fixing it or replacing the engine (from 1000 kms to 32,814 kms) in spite of the oil analysis reports and volume of coolant I kept having to replace.

My insurance company adjusters (several of them involved) were sickened by the treatment I received from FCA and dealerships and tossed in a full r n r engine replacement I’m having done next week.

 

[Hootbro]

I’m finally getting a new engine! No thanks to FCA.

Back when my insurance company approved my vandalism claim on my glycol contaminated transmission, they also approved the replacement of my coolant consuming engine. They had the evidence they needed that FCA engineers were not interested in investigating the internal leak, fixing it or replacing the engine (from 1000 kms to 32,814 kms) in spite of the oil analysis reports and volume of coolant I kept having to replace.

My insurance company adjusters (several of them involved) were sickened by the treatment I received from FCA and dealerships and tossed in a full r n r engine replacement I’m having done next week.

Who is doing the work and is it a full new engine, long block or salvage pull?

 

[Maximus Gladius]

Dealership that replaced the transmission also brought in a full engine.

 

[jwolfejt]

I had a Pentastar lemon, with the sand casting issue, in my 2013 JK with a cascade of failing engine components. That being said, most people didn’t have that or the head issues of gen 1. My EcoDiesel has been perfectly reliable so far (knock on wood), but with all the emissions control stuff on it, I can’t imagine it won’t have more expensive repairs at some point than a late generation Pentastar. If I end up moving to Quebec or BC in a few years and rip all that crap off of it, that might be a different story, seeing as diesels are generally good for longevity.

I am sure with all the emissions crap removed the 3.0 EcoDiesel is a solid engine. Most modern diesels suffer from issues related to the emissions equipment failing or causing the engine itself to fail - unless of-course your talking CP4 fuel pumps lol.

 

[Wolf Island Diver]

Reading through this thread I have some thoughts:

TLDR version: We probably don’t need to spend much time worrying about our vehicles whatever engine or options we choose. That being said, we’re all going to have some level of problems with our cars. Some people are less fortunate and get a vehicle with major problems or repeated minor but annoying problems and I have a lot of sympathy for those folks because it’s frustrating when you spend 60K plus on something and have to deal with all these problems. There are pros and cons to each engine but I don’t think reliability is much of a factor.

I’m having trouble sleeping, let me read a nice white paper from Wolf, version:

1. The national origin of an engine is almost meaningless. The auto industry has been globalized longer than just about any other and lots of engines are licensed from other companies, components come from all over and assembly isn’t the same as engineering or origin of the parts. Nearly every vehicle and much of its systems are fully global.
To this point, VM Motori engines have been used in GM, Ford, Toyota, Opal, Hyundai, Rover, Land Rover and of course FCA and other Italian companies. Certain model/years of the venerable Toyota Hilux had Motori diesel engines. The Germans imported a lot of Motori engines and sold them under their names. The company has a good reputation and long storied history. Of course so does Chrysler. They’ve made some great engines and some dogs. My only gripe is the Hemi marketing since there’s nothing special about hemispherical combustion chambers and lots of engines have them. The modern usage of the moniker has always seemed goofy fluff to me. Maybe Nissan should put “Hemi” on all their V6 cars and trucks just to troll FCA.

2. No country or manufacturer truly holds an unbroken edge on quality. Toyota has made some real sh1t boxes, but gets a lot of real deserved credit for its innovations in manufacturing processes. Most of the Toyotas I’ve had have been excellent but even some of my families late model Toyotas have had unacceptably stupid design problems. Honda has publicly apologized for some fairly recent disasters despite being known for making very reliable cars. In their reliability heyday, when, according to Consumer Reports, they could do no wrong, they were using extremely antiquated systems, like vacuum systems rather than electronic controls, but they worked. CR has since moved on to Hyundai. German car manufacturers consistently have lower reliability than the rest of the industry, despite their reputation. BMW in particular seems to follow a good engine, bad engine pattern. That being said, I’ve never known a BMW owner that wasn’t steadfastly loyal and who didn’t love their cars. There’s a long and interesting history on the myth of German manufacturing and engineering supremacy going back to WW2 propaganda but that’s another story. Everyone poo poos on GM but they basically invented modern computer systems in vehicles and they have some of the best engine engineering in the industry. Ford is, well it’s Ford. They’ve made some stellar vehicles and some crap. Sometimes at the same time in the same model. The American car industry has gone through several major quality slumps over the years but today, there’s basically parity across the board. Again, in part because of the globalization of the parts and engineering and manufacturing as well as customer demand. Going to an auto show it’s a sea of boringly similar and competent quality stuff.

3. “They don’t make it like they used to” is a myth. The longevity and length of ownership of a car has gone steadily up for 60 years. Todays cars are the most feature rich, safest, most powerful, and environmentally friendly. And they deliver more value than they ever have. Engine reliability has tracked accordingly. Most engines today are probably million mile capable. The JL/JT line is unquestionably the best Jeeps ever made when taken as a whole and paradoxically, they are the easiest to modify. They’re chonky, compared to a CJ or even a TJ, no doubt, but I’m still going down the same trails in my Gladiator, as I did in my TJ. And the Gladiator is a really nice vehicle rather than a bunch of plastic rattling bits that everyone hates to ride in. I miss that Jeep but if I could only have one, unquestionably, I would have a JL or Gladiator. The golden age of Jeeps is 2022, not 1972.

4. Just about every engine ever designed has gone through teething problems. The adage, don’t buy an early model year car still applies. There will always be somewhat of an iterative process with any new product when problems are discovered. The concern is to what degree these issues are solved in preproduction.

Quick tangent: As a software engineer myself, I’m a little bit concerned with what I see as my industry’s philosophies and practices being adopted by other industries with deleterious effects. I know that goes completely against the grain as everything seems to be obsessed with the “tech” industry and it disruptive affects on “traditional” industries. Sometimes disruptive is actually destructive. I’ve witnessed first hand when the DOD and its contractors attempt to apply iterative design to large scale defense projects with disastrous (and costly) results. A minimally viable product where you iterate over improvements after releasing it may work for a website, but it doesn’t work for an engine or an aircraft carrier, without wasting a lot of money, and causing people a lot of problems. It doesn’t even work well for consumer released software, like games (cyberpunk). I’m always concerned that other industries will start following this practice because it moves product out the door faster. The motivation is money not some inherent advantage of iterative engineering. Those advantages are radically overstated and not universally applicable because it’s way easier to make iterative changes to HTML or JavaScript than steel or silicon.

Back on track, Pentastar engines certainly had some issues like the aforementioned head problems and casting issues resulting from a poor manufacturing process. EcoDiesels had bearing problems. The CRDs and 4.0 liters also had their share of issues over the years too. We won’t talk about the minivan engine of the early JKs. In all cases these engines have been vastly improved and reliability has gotten really good. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of the engine choices offered in the Gladiator. I certainly did not get the diesel because I thought it was more reliable. As much as anything it was nostalgia for how my torquey 4.0 drove.

5. Replacing your engine should not lower the value of your vehicle. If anything it should improve it if it’s high mileage. A truck with 50,000 miles on it but with a 20,000 mile engine replaced under warranty should be a more sellable vehicle, not less. What legitimately hurts values are collisions or flooding or salt corrosion. Carfax is yet another circular moneymaker. They’ve put themselves in the center of the market and convince people that they are the go to source of information everyone uses it because everyone uses it. In practice more often than not dealerships use CarFax as just another tool to screw over people and there’s a ton of information that the Carfax won’t tell you. A perfect example is corporate or fleet vehicles who appear to have a single owner but are usually ragged out.

If I had a vehicle that I was trying to sell, I wouldn’t be taking it to a dealership in the first place. If I was in the market for used vehicle I’d be skeptical of any dealership because the majority of those cars are from auctions. I’d rather look for an original owner private seller. If I had a vehicle with a replaced engine and I was trying to sell it to a private party I don’t think I’d have a problem. I can tell you that a dealer would tell a customer that their trade in with a replaced engine is worth less and then turn around and claim on the same vehicle when they go to sell it that it’s got a nice new low mileage engine. Also I’d love to have a truck with 20-50k miles on it and get a new engine. This happened to my father on his Silverado and his truck has been flawless since the warranty engine. He’s got an old truck but the single most expensive and complex components is new. That’s not a bad thing at all

 

[heftysmurf]

My 14 JK had the drivers side head replaced at 14k miles and did diddly to my trade in value and CarFax reported it as warranty work or something mundane.

Honestly, the amount of Pentastars out there between all of Stellantis’s lineup, I‘m amazed there‘s not more issues and the fact that they’re repaired under warranty (though your dealer might suck), gives me mild peace of mind.

 

[SuperUltraMan]

Mine has been good so far. I drive a lot of freeway miles so maybe that’s why mine runs so well. Magnusson Supercharger in my future to kick it up a notch!
Sorry to hear about your issues.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Why did you trade in the 2020

I wanted the new transfer case option, and the pricing was right - economics made sense to start over with miles/warranty and changes I couldn't get on the 2020.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

My only gripe is the Hemi marketing since there’s nothing special about hemispherical combustion chambers and lots of engines have them. The modern usage of the moniker has always seemed goofy fluff to me. Maybe Nissan should put “Hemi” on all their V6 cars and trucks just to troll FCA.

Amen - finally someone get is. Hemi is just a name, meaningless the last few decades. Anything with 4 valves/cylinder is not going to be a wedge.

"hemi" only had a real meaning when I was a teenager and that was a very long time ago.
(I wonder how many knew that some of the "magnum" engine technology came from AMC when Lee raped and pillaged that company.........)

5. Replacing your engine should not lower the value of your vehicle. If anything it should improve it if it’s high mileage

Again - amen. People repeat what they are told or once read. All this bull crap about car faux and engine changes and so on. People need to do some research and not learn from fakebook or instacrap "influencers" (they are being influenced by the wrong people) or tiktok (someone fried bacon in a microwave on a plate under paper towels and amazed thousands of people with their new discovery)

One of my bosses years ago called the internet the mis-information stupid highway. His words are more true now than in 1995 when he said it.

 

[Jt-wrx]

I’d rather look for an original owner private seller. If I had a vehicle with a replaced engine and I was trying to sell it to a private party I don’t think I’d have a problem. I can tell you that a dealer would tell a customer that their trade in with a replaced engine is worth less and then turn around and claim on the same vehicle when they go to sell it that it’s got a nice new low mileage engine. Also I’d love to have a truck with 20-50k miles on it and get a new engine. This happened to my father on his Silverado and his truck has been flawless since the warranty engine. He’s got an old truck but the single most expensive and complex components is new. That’s not a bad thing at all

I have exactly this truck for sale now. Dealers are trying to get at it but I'm not interested in selling to them yet. Got one with 79,000 kms (49,000 miles) with a brand new motor, manual transmission, 4.88's on 37's that I took awesome care of, dad mobile. But back in a half ton and moving on principle since they decided to be a-holes on warranty. Someone gonna get exactly the truck you're describing here and it will likely be what it was supposed to be from new.

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