Dreaded Pentastar "tick" (maybe) - cost to repair?

[JAsh1967]

Noticed a couple weeks ago a "ticking" sound under acceleration and sitting at idle, today when I got the Jeep back from the corrosion repairs, scheduled a diagnostic visit with the dealership (still under the powertrain warranty,) to check if this is "normal," "warranty work," or "not under warranty, crack open the wallet."

Planning ahead for the worst, for those of you who've had to pay out-of-pocket to fix this, ballpark how much did it set you back? I know the costs would depend largely on what had to be done, but if I can even get an idea of a possible high-cost fix, it'll help me start to budget...

And, if it's covered under warranty, well, happy day for me.

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[Cape taco12]

Noticed a couple weeks ago a "ticking" sound under acceleration and sitting at idle, today when I got the Jeep back from the corrosion repairs, scheduled a diagnostic visit with the dealership (still under the powertrain warranty,) to check if this is "normal," "warranty work," or "not under warranty, crack open the wallet."

Planning ahead for the worst, for those of you who've had to pay out-of-pocket to fix this, ballpark how much did it set you back? I know the costs would depend largely on what had to be done, but if I can even get an idea of a possible high-cost fix, it'll help me start to budget...

And, if it's covered under warranty, well, happy day for me.

It happened to me passenger side bank. Shortly after I was out of warranty. Both cams on passenger side bank and the dealer recommended the head as well as there was some observable marks on that. Tech thought it would “probably” be ok but saw something enough to question it. One of those in for a penny in for a pound situations.

Total was about 4k but after some hours of polite calling and complaining to the dealer and Jeep. They did do a good faith style warranty covering about 75%.

 

[Viper]

Noticed a couple weeks ago a "ticking" sound under acceleration and sitting at idle, today when I got the Jeep back from the corrosion repairs, scheduled a diagnostic visit with the dealership (still under the powertrain warranty,) to check if this is "normal," "warranty work," or "not under warranty, crack open the wallet."

Planning ahead for the worst, for those of you who've had to pay out-of-pocket to fix this, ballpark how much did it set you back? I know the costs would depend largely on what had to be done, but if I can even get an idea of a possible high-cost fix, it'll help me start to budget...

And, if it's covered under warranty, well, happy day for me.

Contact t Benney at Allmoparparts for parts quote

 

[agoldxj]

If you’re still in your powertain warranty it will be covered. Just be prepared to not have your Jeep for a while. Make sure they give you a loaner.

 

[JAsh1967]

And now...
The rest of the story (well, until Monday, at least)

Dropped the truck off last Friday, as at that time, it was a "diagnostic" check, they couldn't give a loaner.

• Monday: get word from the dealership, "sorry, the tech has been backed up, couldn't get to it yet, tomorrow though, for sure." OK, not a problem, I was off on Monday, the wife works from home on Tuesdays, so I can take her Wrangler and just to be safe, she got the OK to work from home Wednesday, too.
• Tuesday: the tech didn't hear anything, but the service advisor wanted to play it safe and have his "quality check" guy take it out Wednesday morning when it was cold.
• Wednesday: Quality guy heard something while it was cold, once it warmed up it seemed to stop, so one more day. Well now we have problems. I let my carpool buddy know he's going to need to get in on his own, let my boss know I'm going to be late.
• Thursday: Yep, you've got camshaft / lifter problems, it's under warranty, we're working on it today. Got the call that afternoon to go get the truck, so I zip up after work to get it. Porter brings it up to the pick up, asks me "was your check engine light and auto-stop/start warning light on when you dropped it off?" /SMDH Service advisor comes out, plugs in his OBD reader, camshaft position sensor problem. Good thing I'd made plans for Friday to be another no car day, although they did offer a loaner.
• Friday: Car's ready, come and get it. Go up after the wife gets off work, get the car. No warning lights, it's looking good, I've got my truck back! /ominous crash of thunder
• Saturday: All set to run out in the truck, go out, start it, and... Check engine light and auto-stop/start needs service. /insert furious guy meme here Service Dept is closed until Monday morning, so now I'm going to be late AGAIN on Monday, and this time I'm going to take a loaner...

The sensor turned out to be a loose connection between the camshaft sensor and the computer (I work in IT, this sort of thing happens) and while the time it took for them to verify it WAS the camshaft and lifters was frustrating, I'll admit I wasn't even sure I was hearing it, it was very faint.

But yeah, finding out my freshly repaired truck ain't fixed today, well, I've been sulking most of the day...

 

[MPMB]

1. Make sure you get a print out of what they did for work for the entire duration, day-by-day if you can get it. If they said you have camshaft/lifter problems, that is different than the camshaft sensor positioning. Camshaft & lifter issue usually throws a code, and you get a check engine light. Techs don't normally investigate things without a code, from what folks have said around here.

2. The injectors are notoriously noisy

3. If the problem occurs again, and it's camshaft & lifters, it's about $500 in parts, well under $1000 total if you don't have any of the tools. Camshaft and timing chain alignment tool is the "expensive" tool. You'll need a BA socket*, big Allen head socket, and a in/lbs torque wrench, outside of the normal 10mm and Torx tools. A couple jugs of oil, filters, and coolant. At the dealership it's roughly $3000, from what others have posted, if not under warranty.

4. Took me a week, only spending a couple hours, max, during the hot August night, without rushing, mostly trying to disconnect the 10,000 electrical connections. ..I. to "progress" (hyperbole). One night I spend 5 minutes on it. Opened the hood, uncovered the head, wind picked up, and I covered the head back up and noped out of there. Sometimes it be like that. Swapping the actual parts took less than 10 minutes.


*Big Ass socket. 36mm? or something. There are threads on here you can search for the tool list and process.

 

[Dilly’S Willy]

If you’re still in your powertain warranty it will be covered. Just be prepared to not have your Jeep for a while. Make sure they give you a loaner.

Call the dealer and have them setup an appt for it, and make sure they have a loaner for you waiting. This way if there isn't a loaner, and you have the appt they can't say you didn't try coming in under warranty. At least that's what a dealer near me is doing for this 3rd attempt to fix things under warranty (nothing mechanical on mine).

 

[JAsh1967]

1. Make sure you get a print out of what they did for work for the entire duration, day-by-day if you can get it. If they said you have camshaft/lifter problems, that is different than the camshaft sensor positioning. Camshaft & lifter issue usually throws a code, and you get a check engine light. Techs don't normally investigate things without a code, from what folks have said around here.

So the initial work they did (and I've got the work order in my hand) is "road test veh, inspect tr intake cam, replace rt intake cam & rocker arms," the camshaft sensor code was thrown the day I picked it up from that work, and was determined to be "loose and poor pin tension."

Honestly, I'll even be happy to find out that the pin tension wasn't QUITE tight enough and it wiggled loose on the drive home and the temp swings that night finished the job.

 

[JAsh1967]

Was I a bad person in a previous life, to rate such karma?

So dropped the Jeep off Monday morning with no appointment, same service advisor. He told me this time, they weren't going to mess around trying to "fix" the connection, it was getting replaced. Later on Monday, get a call, "because this has happened now three times, we're going to keep it to check it a couple times, make sure it's all good, we've set up a loaner at the nearby rental place." Walk over there to pick up the loaner, so far so good...

Today, this afternoon...
The CEL keeps coming back on, they're keeping it through the weekend, now they've got two guys looking at it trying to figure out what it is...

I KNOW I didn't feed the JeepMogwai after midnight, so WHY do I have an electrical gremlin in my Jeep?!?!

I mean, I have to chuckle at the absurdity of this, although I am getting a bit annoyed, I KNOW electrical / computer issues can be a bear to chase down (I've worked in IT for the last 20+ years,) but dang it, I MISS my Gladiator!

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