Hello,

Ive got a 07 5.9 with 78k miles on it. Last week I fired it up to go to work and 50ft down the street something let loose. It sounded like I lost a u-blot and the drive shaft came loose and was banging the undercarriage, vibrated like that also.

Turns out after I push the truck home it was something in the engine. ECM throws no dummy light, truck will still start just bangs metal on metal, cracked rod I assume.

So I get the thing back to the dealer where I bought the truck and luckily its under warranty for 5 more months on both the factory engine and CNA National warranty's. 2 days later the dealer calls and says they found dust in the tube between the inter-cooler and the manifold. This voids the warranty because I had an K&N filter on the truck and they had a record from the last service that the filter was dirty which means that the vehicle was improperly maintained.

So I asked what was exactly broke on the truck since it sounded like a rod and im no mechanic but sounds like dusting didnt cause that. The dealer doesnt know, they want 650 to pull the head and see the cause of the damage but they said since the engine had dust it doesnt matter what cause it the warranty is voided.

The service rep says the DM of Chrysler say the truck and personally made the decision. Then proceeded to tell me that before the bankruptcy this would have been fixed but now a days they can get out of any warranty, even if I bought dodge air filters and changed them myself he said unless I proved the mileage they were clanged at it would be voided.

My question is does this sound like a problem caused by a filtration issue? Or just a scapegoat for the man to charge me an estimate of 6k for a single sleeve and piston up to 25k for a rebuild, which I wont have done and not there at their priced.

Thanks for your input/suggestions.

 

I'm pretty sure you could get a remanned engine for a lot less than $25k.

What it sounds like to me is that the dealership noted poor maintenance (dirty aftermarket filter) and you had a catastrophic engine failure. Could intake contamination cause a rod to shear? I really doubt it, but pursuing this means you're going to have to hire a lawyer. If you lose, you're out an engine and the $ to fix it.

Sounds like a crappy deal, IMHO.

Also - this is why I don't recommend K&N filters. I'm not saying they're any worse than anyone else, I'll leave that up to the reader to do a little research on.

 

Thanks for the input, i've basically excepted that the dealer has gotten out of it no matter what the cause of the failure was. I have found a drop in complete crate engine for 8700 that sounds like it may be a better then stock engine. Its called a Diamondback Cummins and is built by www.thehorsepowershop.com Has anyone every heard of these guys or possibly had one of their engines. They appear to be a solid company and if its going to cost me 5-7k to fix the current engine I would rather spend the extra few k and re-engine the truck.

Thanks for the help

 

Contact K&N! I keep reading that if their filter causes any engine warranty to be voided, they'll be your muscle, and either WTY it themselves, or smack some sense into Dodge.

I've got a K&N and I've tossed the idea around of changing it out.. however as has been said here, they can take a Crap-Par filter and still void your wty.

 

That I didn't know... so I looked it up. They say they'll step in, but it would be interesting to see if it's true.

http://www.knfilters.com/warranty.htm

 

Yes a dusted cummins engine can cause a rod issue the dust from the intake system pits the cylinder walls then causes blow by from the engine and also damages the tips of the injectors which in turns causes high temps in the cylinders then the engine damages occur and no it is not chrysler setting the rules it is cummins telling us how to warranty their engines hope this info helps

 

Ok... but how is dust in the intake any worse than soot from the EGR on the newer trucks? The carbon buildup in the intake is ridiculous! I haven't run EGR in about 20k miles and I still had a couple millimeters of hard crusty carbon built up (and chipping off) in my intake.

 

THe 6.7 liter is designed to have soot in the system it is closed crank case system and the dirt entering the intake is forced into the cylinders by the turbo and dust is a hard material which gets stuck in the rings which causing the blow by and engine failure the dust is what scores the cylinder walls the soot is a fine material and cannot damage the walls the soot is generated by the the egr system that is the design of the engine on 5.9l diesels there is not an egr system so the black smoke you see out of the tailpipe is the soot the newer diesels capture and try to re burn thank the Feds for that it's there law
Is why all of the extra crap is on the engine which equals you should never see black smoke out of the tailpipe on a 6.7 liter Your extra soot tells me that the truck either has a chip on it or it is not running right some componet is causing the ECM to over fuel causing the extra soot

 

Let's back up a second. The 6.7 wasn't designed to have soot in it, the Feds mandated cleaner emissions and Cummins elected to use EGR as one of the methods of cleaning it up. The soot in the engine is an effect of the EGR system.

Soot is nothing more than carbon molecules. Carbon is a pretty abrasive material, I would wager it's no better for an engine than the dust is.

The EGR system also has nothing to do with the black smoke out the tailpipe. The DPF is what cleans the soot out of the exhaust and keeps the tailpipe clean. If the EGR system drew the exhaust gas from behind the DPF, I would have no qualms with it.

The extra soot in my intake tract has nothing to do with the programmer I'm running. The first 45k miles of its life it was bone stock, building up layer after layer of carbon. When I bought the truck, I removed the EGR system, ergo I removed the source of the soot in the intake, and THEN I added the programmer.

Are you at all familiar with the 6.7's history? Are you familiar with the countless turbos, EGR systems, and DPFs all replaced under warranty because they became so fouled by carbon buildup that they failed to work properly?

This emissions scheme has many faults, and the biggest one is injecting carbon molecules back into the engine.

 

So, I got the lowdown from the wty guru as I'm at the dealer right now waiting for my oilchange.

Any dusting is non warranty. There's no filter you can put on it that will help. Anything non-factory, mopar included. There isn't a single "warranty approved" filter for the truck, except the manufacturer direct filter, which you cannot buy.

Seems they have designed a wonderful "way out". :/