I'm in the market for a Hemi Durango but have seen many scary stories about valve guides dropping and misfires galore & low compression. Are the Hemi's lemons? I always assumed they had a great reliability record and never heard a bad word...what is the real story?

 

Every engine is as reliable as you want it to be. If you want to maintain it, fix problems when they first start, don't overheat them and run them low on oil they'll run for hundreds of thousands of miles. 03 Hemi has issues with springs breaking. That aside, it's a solid engine.

 

The problem is when you live on forums you tend to see all the bad. If you hung out on the Ford forums, all you'd read about is blown 6.0 diesel engines and transmission failures from day one on the ecobursts.

You gotta remember, only about 15-20% of forum members are "hard core" enthusiasts. The rest get on to have a problem solved, often AFTER they've exhausted other means to fix it. Many of these guys are frustrated as hell when they post after getting screwed by a dealer or mechanic who has billed them out the wazoo and not fixed the problem.

True, the '03 and very early '04s suffered from weak valve springs, but that issue was resolved mid year in '04. Yes, the LSD is a total POS and always has been. As with ANY aluminum head engine, if it overheats, it's a nightmare.

But there are A LOT of guys out there with 200,000+ miles on Hemis and in many cases, their original transmission too...

 

Mine is a bit over 122K. No reliability issues or difficult maintenance items. Often the people who b!tch the most are the ones who beat the hell out of the vehicle and complain when it breaks.

 

what he said.

 

Every single vehicle is 100% different than the next.... you also have to look at how many "bad" posts there are versus how many actual trucks are out there....

There are millions of Dodge Rams with 5.7L Hemis out there... and not too many people take care of their vehicles the way they should.

And I agree completely with Hammer that most people come on here to have a problem solved... so you're only seeing the negatives.

 

The hemi is pretty easy to work on so even if you do have an occasional problem it isn't too hard to fix these engines.

 

if you want realworld unbaised information look at craigslist. go see these autos inperson and ask for service reports. every hemi i looked at never had rebuild motors, every 4.7 i looked at had either new motors or rebuild motors. The forums are just easy ways to dog vehicals. again it comes down to how its been taken care of and i know for certain more people under 25 beat the living snot out of autos and then sell them.

I bought my hemi from this information i gained not off the internet or forums.

 

The thing that made me go online to ask about reliability was the fact I seen about 12 Hemi Durango's on Craigslist that had new motors that were put in before reaching even 90,000 miles.

My hope was that the main issue would be the valve springs, because I can change valve springs all day if it makes the motor a better more reliable engine. My hope was to hear common failures so that when they do happen I know what to expect. I'm not worried about Head Gaskets, I'm just worried about the valve guide issues I've heard about, and also heard theres something about the manifold that can cause hydro lock during rain storms and force excessive pressure in the cylinders causing rods to snap from the extreme pressure....anyone know anything about this? I guess theres an upgraded gasket or shield, don't know just what I was told by a few people.

I guess its kind of like when you buy a Neon, you know every 100,000 miles you're going to change a timing belt & water pump, but between those "100,000 mile tune ups" you're going to have a bulletproof engine that you can pound the crap out of and know it will take the abuse.

I agree about the forum thing as well, there would be no forums if any vehicle was problem free lol so coming here you will find people with problems, I'm just worried about preventative maintenance.

 

I beat the living **** out of my Hemi and she still loves me