Well guys here is the good bad and the ugly. I had a small load and was pulling 7% grades. I never noticed any problems with the truck and because it was 2am I didn’t see anything behind me either. I got to my destination and got out to find a good parking spot and the check light came on. I shut it down right away and stepped out. Right away I smelt the fuel. The entire truck was covered from the front diff. all the way to the back of my trailer in oil and fuel. I have a 60 gal aux tank so there wasn’t any chance of the gauge moving to give me a warning that something was wrong. What I found the next morning wasn’t good. The case was full of diesel only about 5 inches down on the dip stick there was a heavy film all over the truck and trailer. You could easily write your name in it with your finger and when I looked in the tank it was about 15 gal or so lower than what it should be.
Now the Dealer.
They told me #1 and 3 injector failed and replaced them on warrantee. New oil and a power wash and they kicked me out the door. I got 20 miles down the road and the light came on again. Turned around and went straight back. The truck would hardly run when I pulled in to the drive. They told me the remaining 4 injectors were bad and replaced them. Now the truck gets about 5 mpg less than before. Really smokes on startup. And my egt has dropped at least 200-300 degrees under load.

The question is what do I have to do to get a new engine? I am still under warrantee for 15k NOW WHAT

 

The fact your dealer gave you new injectors even with an Edge installed says you got lucky. I really do not think you will get a new engine out of this incident but good luck.

 

Just out of curiousity, what dealer was this at? I have gone to Tempe Dodge with great luck in the past. I had to have my balljoints replaced and I drove it in with exhaust, intake, pyrometer, turbo and my TST and they said nothing about them. Where most dealers would look for the smallest thing to void warranty and not replace my balljoints. Give them a try if nothing pans out at your dealer.

 

when i sent it in the edge wasnt on it so the second time kind of reinforced the claim The dealer was Show Low Dodge in AZ

 

I also have a hard time trusting this engine after running in a educated guess 25+ miles with no oil left in the case. Fuel cant protect that bottom end and damage had to occure on some level I was running 60+ the whole trip

 

My cousin who is a cert Tech at a indepent heavy line shop said normal cummins procedure on a washdown is to at least drop the pan and inspect the bearings. This never did happen. Also i am almost sure that the dealer didnt have a cirtified diesel tech on staff. It is a small shop in the woods

 

Let me get the fire retardant underwear on cuz I am gonna get blasted for this......

Put the Edge back on it, find a heavy load and drive the thing like you don't care till it blows. You already have engine damage on the rings and pistons, probbaly the bearings also. The Edge is gonna run hot and push the limit on the damaged pieces. Its a good bet you can make it fail with little issue. If you baby it it may last beyond your warranty.

You already have established injector failure twice with diesel in the fuel. If the engine blows and you take it back to the same dealer they will likely contribute the failure to previous problems and may just get you a reman motor.

If you can make that happen, after you get the new motor use the Edge box for a wheel chock and forget it the next time you drive off.

Not the best way to do it but it has happened that way many times. Your other choice is to man up and eat the cost of a rebuild yourself. Your choice, I make no judgments.

 

So far there is no evidence that it has any damage to the bores or the bearings, and there may not be any. So trying to drive it to death may not do anything at all.

Besides, it's bad advice to tell someone to try and blow up their truck so they can make a case for warrantee work. If there is a problem fine. Making a problem so you can blame someone else is not fine. Some advice is only worth what you pay for it.

 

The premature faiure option is the one that my cousin sugested as well. He told me to try to find someone to mesure the blowby and that would tell me the conditon of the chambers. Also if there wasnt any oil in the case the life of the engine would almost for sure be shortened. I dont want to jump to conclusions, but dont have the time to screw around trying to prove the damage to dodge. Yes i know the play u pay concept and would fully agree with it if i hadnt had the second failure after i removed everything and it happend again under the dealer telling me it was good to go. Do I realy need to take it to the same dealer???? I live 150miles from the shop that i had the problem with and dont realy trust them either.

 

Really smokes on startup. And my egt has dropped at least 200-300 degrees under load.

I would say that qualifies as some pretty good evidence there is exisitng damage. Running the crank case full of diesel for ANY amount of time qualifies as existing damage. Period.

Anybody who has had the misfortune of dealing with warranty knows if you take it in with suspected damage and the engine will run without extremely obvious issues the dealer will most likely tell the owner to drive it until it blows up then they can warranty it.


Advice is advice, no good or bad in this case. The engine is suspect, he has 2 choices to get it back to the point it is reliable. The OP asked for next steps ,I provided them AND qualified them as to the potential integrity of the choices.

Is it any better advice to shake a finger and say its bad advice to try to get warranty? Thats what discussion is about, the good, the bad, AND the ugly.


No, any dealer will do if you can deal with them. I suggested the original one because they didn't seem to balk at replacing the injectors, you have a working relationship with them, and a LOT of people would drive 150 miles to a dealer they could deal with and feel good about it.

Your choice on the dealer as you are the better judge of the competence and potential outcome. Good luck with whatever you have to do. Sometimes circumstances dictate we do what we have to, not what we want to.

 

My normal dealer is local and the one i took it to was the closest available at the time of incident. If the distance wasnt a issue i wouldnt go there again. Does anyone know what facts the dealer will be looking for if i try to prove a existing problem and how to go about it. Who makes the judgement?? The tech, service writer, or someone in the corprate office?

 

So, did you question the dealership about all this or just get your injectors and go out the door? I'd check with a more local dealership about the loss of mpg's - ask them straight out about the cyl sash down and now this problem. If I got nowhere, I'd contact Chrysler, tell them your story, see what they say.

Dealerships who don't have good techs really cause the problem you have now because they don't know enough to know what to test, they just follow some procedure for whatever repair needs doing, a good tech would have done some tests and properly determined the engines condition.

Your warranty is good for whatever it takes to properly repair you truck to good working order/running condition. If you will need a new engine or a rebuild, then that is what they should be doing regardless of where you take your truck.

Pretty sad when a customer knows more than the mechanic/dealership, eh?



CD

 

I asked the dealer if there were any other potential damage from the event and what caused the failures. They told me that they didnt know why the injectors failed. I asked if they checked the overall fuel system and if any other testes were preformed. I was told the filter and cp3 pump was checked and were ok but they couldnt give me any specific test they ran. That is why i am prety sure thay dont have a qualified tech at that shop. Most likely the tech just follow SOP for the ecm codes and said that was good enough for them.

 

I know when I have had my truck in for any kind of warranty work, EVERY little detail of what they have done was listed on the invoice. They have always been truly **** about the little details, charged for every minute and had a clear description of everything they have done on the invoice. I had a couple problems early on that they ran several tests to determine the problem, truly **** about the specifics.

So, if you don't have a lot of specifics on your invoice, chances are they did not run any tests, otherwise they would have been specified on the invoice. Since you are not talking about what was on your invoice, they probably did not do much of anything other than replace your injectors and whatever they have told you verbally did not take place. Dealerships get fully reimbursed for warranty work, they list every little detail to get every red cent they can.



CD

 

Lion,

I hope you get this resolved and soon.

I just don't see how a new engine will necessarily solve your problems, yet. For instance, a damaged rod bearing will not make the mileage go down, it will make it knock. It sounds more like you have a computer, or injector, injector line, or some other problem that is at the root of all this and must be found before throwing in a new short block and hoping for the best.

There may also be other mechanical problems too, like bearings, that resulted from the real problem. You said it smokes a lot, but didn't say what color the smoke was. Is it balck, white or blue? Any mechanical noises like knocking?

I'd definately find a better shop too. Those guys are clueless.