My wife has a 13' V6 Durango we purchased new. It now has 10K on it and last Thursday the light came on so it was towed to the nearest Dealer. They have had it for a week. They have replaced the PCM and some wires along with checking other stuff. Has anyone ran into anything like this? To top it off they gave us a smaller rental car and we are now in need of the bigger SUV. Called the Rental complany and they don;t have anything to give us and the dealership has a policy where they won't let us drive one from the lot. Should it be taking this long? I thought about seeing if the Dealership we purchased it from would ave it towed to their service center.

 

Good luck with that...you probably have a bad cylinder head. It's a plague on the Pentastar 3.6. You'll find no shortage of stories on the internet.

My guess is the oil channels in the heads are poorly designed and/or too narrow. It would also explain why the MPG gets a sudden 10% bump after the engine been running for about 15 mins. It could also be why Chrysler switched them from 5w30 to 5w20 oil starting with the 2013 model year.

 

Im not sure I understand the correlation between the oil channels with head failures and poor gas mileage?

Chris

BTW it seems the head issue is on a later cast date, I could be wrong but I have not seen it afflicting the 11's, which is what I have.

 

As the oil gets hot it thins out, and flows better. If the poor channels cause it to take a while for the engine to get sufficient oiling it could cause the magic 15 min bump in MPG. AKA: a well lubricated engine is a more efficient one. Add that to the unexplained oil weight change...and we've got too many coincidences that point to poor oil flow through the heads.

As far as head failure...poor oil flow causes excessive heat, lifter and valve failure. Which is the reason the 5.7's were switched to 5w20 long before the Pentastar was ever born.

 

The MPG bump has nothing to do with that. It's a standard tuning trick to help the engine run better on startup and while it's cold. The engine will run richer until the oil temp reaches a certain threshold (usually around 160F).

 

[QUOTE=hairless_ape;3091642]Good luck with that...you probably have a bad cylinder head. It's a plague on the Pentastar 3.6. You'll find no shortage of stories on the internet.

My guess is the oil channels in the heads are poorly designed and/or too narrow. It would also explain why the
MPG gets a sudden 10% bump after the engine been running for about 15 mins. It could also be why Chrysler
switched them from 5w30 to 5w20 oil starting with the 2013
model year.[/QUOTE

Sorry Hairless... Not to step on your toes but the pentastar was designed to used 5w-20 for 2 reasons. Lighter weight
oil Decreases pumping losses making the engine more fuel efficient and the pentastar engine was designed with a special variable oil pump that can effectively use 20 weight oil. Here is some info from allpar on the subject..A chain-driven, vane-type variable displacement oil pump adjusts the flow rate and pressure as commanded by the engine management system, which uses a solenoid to drive the pump into low or high pressure mode. For example, below 3,500 rpm, the pump conserves energy by using low pressure; at speeds over 3,500 rpm, the pump switches to high pressure...... And the hemi engines started requiring 5w-20 oil with the introduction of MDS. not because of some deficiency with the valvetrain. Shutting down valves through an actuator works much faster with lower weight oil.

 

Hemination... Sometimes it takes a while for these guys to get their act together and fix the truck but also remember that the supplier of say your PCM is making them for a ton of different new models. With the recent extinction of many of these suppliers there is fewer companies making many, many more parts.BACKORDERED is the magic dealer words for many of us new car owners. Oh well hope they fix
it for you soon. As for the Pentastar v6 issues here is some info from another thread for ya.


Originally Posted by Smee:
Wow this is ridiculous! Starting to regret my 2014 Durango purchase and haven't owned it for 1 week yet. Since it uses the same Pentastar engine I presume I will be seeing this in
my vehicle's future. This is very bad news, what is Pentastar/Chrysler doing about this to prevent this recurring problem?
FULLSLP;
You should be fine. As for as 3.6 head issue I've done a Ton of research since my family owns a few jeeps with this motor. So far jeep vehicles built between Aug 2011 and march 2012 are affected. This was due to faulty head manufacturing when they farmed out work to Their sub equipped Mexico engine assembly plant. They did this because of increased demand as a supplement to US head manufacturing. That's why not all jeep 3.6 vehicles are effected. As for durangos they are presumably the same. With a hit and miss depending on which plant your head was made. The majority of affected vehicles are 2011-12s with just a fraction of 13s effected throughout all 3.6 models. Some throw the CODE some developed a heavy "tick" but all will be replaced eventually under warranty. Most developed the problem under 12k miles.

 

Hemination09,

I'm sorry to hear about your concerns and the inconvenience with your vehicle being off road. If you'd like me to review this with your dealer please PM me your VIN# and the name of your servicing dealer or if you are located in the United States, you can contact my US counterpart, Lee (DodgeCares).