Has anyone else had or heard of a 3.8L crank/bearing failure at less than 90K mi on their van? I am trying to figure out why it did this and if it pays to rebuild the engine or get a different engine all together.
FYI- oil changes @ 3Kmi since day 1, allways mobil 5w-20 and wix filters, never ran low on oil, never a oil light/check engine light or overheating

 

Not just to fail, most of the failures are due to lack of service or ran low on oil.

 

I forgot to mention that the van had 73,430.8 mi when we bought it, and had service records that logged oil changes @ 3K mi and the file said mobil 1 oil and wix filters so we continued that.
Now, around here we never have ran an engine low on oil so perhaps I should be asking if the PO ran it low and the bottem end was damaged could it go another 8250 more mi before it started hammering like this?


http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/vid...03042149731863
Please excuse the bad language in this, he was quite agitated as he knows cash is rather tight around here now, and I wanted to shoot another but today it would not even crank over.

 

not really, the 3.8 is generally a very reliable engine. Unless you are doing something you are not suppose to.
Does the Van have a Tow Hitch?

Well, maybe you just got unlucky.

 

Factory tow package equipped, however the paint(or powdercoating) is still in the receivers 2" square hole, making me think it was not used much for towing.
Now where do you find an oil pump for a 3.8L caravan? I found the rest of the bottom end, just not a pump.