new to this site because of engine failure

1951 Views 22 Replies 17 Participants Last post by Dieseldragon, 13 d ago

Scott L.

Discussion Starter · 9 mo ago

I have a 2016 eco diesel that just experienced total engine failure with only about 45k miles... and a few months out of warranty. Garage kept, exceeded all maintenance requirements, had the emissions reflash, and treated exceedingly well (not even a single scratch).
Happened at 45 miles per hour on a long straight stretch of road. Parent company said "tough luck"!
Well I'm not going to take this lying down. I have heard from a few people who have also experienced premature engine failure and believe that this is a problem known to the manufacturer and they are trying to keep it under wraps.
I would like to hear from anyone who has experienced this. If the parent company who knows they have a problem isn't willing to step up, then I'm willing to gather info to file a class action suit against them and will work to get as much publicity as possible.

Please forward your name, issue, and e-mail address to me at [email protected] asap if you have also experienced any type of similar issue. I will collect this information and try to keep you posted.

Reactions: 3

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keiths487vs

· #2 · 9 mo ago

First off welcome to the forum

, hate it is under such dismal circumstances, and I imagine you'll get plenty of responses which is a bad thing😥, there are numerous post and threads here addressing failures, and failure rates, I also have a 16, that has just rolled 100k mi and it has been a great truck for me, there are several members here that have logged a bunch of miles with only minimal issues, unfortunately there are way too many failures...these engines really look like a game of pulling straws, you either get a good one, or one that is prone to fail

being that you're just out of warranty I'd be on them (stallanis/FCA) about "helping you out" a little, then comes the second part of a bad situation, the time it is taking people to obtain a replacement engine😥 Best of luck, hoping you can do something with your plan

🙏

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Reactions: 4

1shadowsabre

· #3 · 9 mo ago

Sorry to hear about your troubles, it is super frustrating when you spend your hard earned dollars and don't get the value you expect from the product or the response from the manufacturer. A number of owners have come here in the same situation you are in and wanted to file a class action lawsuit. I have not heard if there are any being successfully filed....
On another note other folks have reached out to @RamCares here and gotten some help with their situation!

Keep us posted and good luck!

Reactions: 1

Captainmal

· #4 · 9 mo ago

Welcome to the forum - first post.

There are many forum members who joined here with the SAME story you have. Many have also included the threat or plans of some form of "class action lawsuit". Stellantis is the current Ram ownership. Before that is was Fiat/Chrysler and before that Mercedes/Chrysler. The engine was designed by one company, offered by another, built by a totally separate Italian company and today felt with by Stellantis. My take is a lawsuit would have to involve lots of companies, many not in business today.

Sure the Generation 2 engine (actually the first engine design in the Ram 1500, is often defective. Only conjecture that it might be as much or more of 10% production that has had major destruction. No way to know. That is another issue stifling a class action lawsuit. Many of the original owners are no longer owners of the vehicles and the production of the bad design engines that started in 2014 need in 2019. The 2020 models and newer have a major redesign with different components and assembly techniques. They literally have no issues.

Sadly, you have the old engine design and most all of them are now out of warranty. The you add on the fact that few to no new engines exist to replace those that failed. Some who did have engines replaced had the new ones also fail. Add all this up plus you will soon find out there is no central ownership information to response to your ideas. Many would like that but for those currently owning them, few will probably respond. Good luck with your quest. Though probably justifiable it just may not be doable. Keep us posted as you try.

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Ecosparky

· #5 · 9 mo ago

I can feel your frustration of being left with no help from FCA who you are right, they know about these crank bearing failures but refuse to help some.
I doubt RamCares will touch your case with a 10 foot pole since you are threatening a CA suit.

Augiedoggy

· #6 · 9 mo ago

You likely have a main bearing failure on either #2 or #3 bearings... Unfortunately a very large percentage of these engine fail this way and theres a very polarized crowd here on this issue so take some of the comments you might get here with a grain of salt. Some folks are just so dead set on wanting to believe something so they sleep better, they will see any evidence to the contrary as a threat and dismiss it and lack of proper maintenance or abuse. Hopefuly this thread doesnt go there. Nothing wrong with asking for info on circumstances but it truly seems some are often looking for any piece of info they can use to justify the failure was self inflicted.
Another thing to keep in mind, is failures at low mileage are so common on these that folks join with this problem all the time and they allways come here full of anger with claims of getting lawyers involved and such. Then they just fade away without making any progess. Often after getting into a petty arguement here with forementioned members. After a while this scenerio gets old and folks get jaded to hearing about it.

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Reactions: 1

VernDiesel

· #7 · 9 mo ago

Welcome to the forum Scott. Sorry about your experience. I think Keith hit it quite well. I suspect following a letter from your attorney and some follow up that you may get an offer to meet you in the middle so to speak on the cost of a replacement engine. Ram has met people in the middle a little post warranty before depending on the specifics.

Replacement engines are finally starting to roll out but you are still likely going to be out of your truck for a few months. Rumor is some insiders have made reference that there is a low rpm harmonic frequency crank squirm that can eventually twist out bearings. Certainly Stelantis / VM Motori isn't saying. It does seem the trucks like my own that get worked hard run long at full operating temp often say 2k+ rpms ie good oil pressure don't experience the bearing failures. The trucks that are babied OFTEN run under load at low rpms in a high gear say 1,500 or less in 8th for example twist out a bearing and fail.

My first engine had an egr cooler leak that led to low coolant which may have led to it losing a head gasket at 371k miles. Mr replacement engine cracked a head at 423k miles. But others lose an engine early then in no time kill the 2nd engine possibly from the same driving habits. Common failure statement is the truck was always babied. Anyway lots of knowledgeable helpful people here stick around and let us know your progress.

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Reactions: 2

Cletus

· #8 · 9 mo ago

VernDiesel said:
My first engine had an egr cooler leak that led to low coolant which may have led to it losing a head gasket at 371k miles. Mr replacement engine cracked a head at 423k miles. But others lose an engine early then in no time kill the 2nd engine possibly from the same driving habits. Common failure statement is the truck was always babied. Anyway lots of knowledgeable helpful people here stick around and let us know your progress.

My truck blew at 37k. Now I can't speak to the driving habits of the previous owner, but since it was probably a fleet truck, I doubt babying it was much on their minds. Almost all of my miles came at full highway speed with 6000 lbs of trailer in tow. I seriously doubt my rig was ever babied in any significant way.

Reactions: 1

97hmcs

· #9 · 9 mo ago

Based on what I've seen on the forum over the years, You either get a good one or you don't. It doesn't seem to matter how you drive it. If it's destined to fail it's going to fail whether your towing heavy or driving light.

Reactions: 5

Augiedoggy

· #10 · 9 mo ago (Edited)

97hmcs said:
Based on what I've seen on the forum over the years, You either get a good one or you don't. It doesn't seem to matter how you drive it. If it's destined to fail it's going to fail whether your towing heavy or driving light.

But how can that be true with still so many failures at over 70k? I went through and counted a few months back and more than half of the failures in the last year reported here were on engines with over 70k and even now years later with higher mileage on many of these engines these bearing failures continue at a fairly crazy rate. if he engine was truely a "bad one" that was out of spec in some way this failure should happen early on in its life. Instead IMO from what ive read and what I know of machinery as 25 years as a field engineer, its more likely that its a weakpoint in the engine and some experience failure in this weakpoint while some havent. I realize those like myself who havent had a failure yet dont like to hear this but its far more likely.

Reactions: 2

97hmcs

· #11 · 9 mo ago

Even a failure at over 70K miles is considered a bad one in my book. If you get a bad engine, there's no exact mileage for failure.

Reactions: 2

VernDiesel

· #12 · 9 mo ago

Cletus I am not speaking to any individual engine just the tendencies of the production engines of 14 thru 19. Since 2014 we have literally had 100s of people come on here and comment about their engine failing early and comments of I drive like a grandpa or I always babied this truck. This may just be a human nature kind of comment seeking empathy or it may be literal. It's the only common denominator that I have seen. Certainly also many get the wrong oil both from dealerships and quick change joints which may contribute to twisting out bearings. As mentioned we have hi mile higher rpm operation success and also reference to insider comments about the low rpm harmonic crank squirm. Will we ever know for certain perhaps not. Since it's far from conclusive everyone is entitled to their opinion or theory as to why.

Any bearing failure at less than 100k miles is considered a bad one in my book and certainly Ram's as well since its warrantied to that. Proper oil and change interval 200k miles should be a minimum expectation in my book. Certainly we have a lot of 200k mile examples here on the forum in Bio's thread and elsewhere in facebook groups etc.

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Reactions: 4

Augiedoggy

· #13 · 9 mo ago (Edited)

97hmcs said:
Even a failure at over 70K miles is considered a bad one in my book. If you get a bad engine, there's no exact mileage for failure.

And if that were true, there would be no safe point where you can consider yourself lucky or free from worry of possible impending failure either...

Augiedoggy

· #14 · 9 mo ago

VernDiesel said:
Cletus I am not speaking to any individual engine just the tendencies of the production engines of 14 thru 19. Since 2014 we have literally had 100s of people come on here and comment about their engine failing early and comments of I drive like a grandpa or I always babied this truck. This may just be a human nature kind of comment seeking empathy or it may be literal. It's the only common denominator that I have seen. Certainly also many get the wrong oil both from dealerships and quick change joints which may contribute to twisting out bearings. As mentioned we have hi mile higher rpm operation success and also reference to insider comments about the low rpm harmonic crank squirm. Will we ever know for certain perhaps not. Since it's far from conclusive everyone is entitled to their opinion or theory as to why.

Any bearing failure at less than 100k miles is considered a bad one in my book and certainly Ram's as well since its warrantied to that. Proper oil and change interval 200k miles should be a minimum expectation in my book. Certainly we have a lot of 200k mile examples here on the forum in Bio's thread and elsewhere in facebook groups etc.

some of the early failures could be (and are likely) the reasoning behind the change in oil specs and software tuning changes/ updates in tuning done by FCA to prevent as much lugging on the engine as a bandaid to reduce the likelyhood of failure.

Reactions: 3

97hmcs

· #15 · 9 mo ago

Augiedoggy said:
And if that were true, there would be no safe point where you can consider yourself lucky or free from worry of possible impending failure either...

I agree.

ncskibum

· #16 · 9 mo ago

Augiedoggy said:
some of the early failures could be (and are likely) the reasoning behind the change in oil specs and software tuning changes/ updates in tuning done by FCA to prevent as much lugging on the engine as a bandaid to reduce the likelyhood of failure.

Agree that some of those changes may have prolonged engines that were always destined to fail. I also agree that driving style can have an effect but none of us will really know unless we have two engines and run one "like a grandpa" and the other "like I stole it". If one fails, then we'll need to tear them both down to do a root cause analysis. We will never know for sure and I'm assuming that FCA doesn't fully understand it either or they would have "fixed" them sooner.

djr

· #17 · 9 mo ago

Augiedoggy said:
some of the early failures could be (and are likely) the reasoning behind the change in oil specs and software tuning changes/ updates in tuning done by FCA to prevent as much lugging on the engine as a bandaid to reduce the likelyhood of failure.
[/QUOT To prevent lugging the engine, I run my truck in 6th or 7th gear on the hwy and keep RPM between 1800 to 2000

The Perfect Shine

· #18 · 27 d ago

Captainmal said:
Welcome to the forum - first post.

There are many forum members who joined here with the SAME story you have. Many have also included the threat or plans of some form of "class action lawsuit". Stellantis is the current Ram ownership. Before that is was Fiat/Chrysler and before that Mercedes/Chrysler. The engine was designed by one company, offered by another, built by a totally separate Italian company and today felt with by Stellantis. My take is a lawsuit would have to involve lots of companies, many not in business today.

Sure the Generation 2 engine (actually the first engine design in the Ram 1500, is often defective. Only conjecture that it might be as much or more of 10% production that has had major destruction. No way to know. That is another issue stifling a class action lawsuit. Many of the original owners are no longer owners of the vehicles and the production of the bad design engines that started in 2014 need in 2019. The 2020 models and newer have a major redesign with different components and assembly techniques. They literally have no issues.

Sadly, you have the old engine design and most all of them are now out of warranty. The you add on the fact that few to no new engines exist to replace those that failed. Some who did have engines replaced had the new ones also fail. Add all this up plus you will soon find out there is no central ownership information to response to your ideas. Many would like that but for those currently owning them, few will probably respond. Good luck with your quest. Though probably justifiable it just may not be doable. Keep us posted as you try.

Sell it I am on my 3rd engine with 74562 miles

MAS

· #19 · 26 d ago

Didn’t GDE post before that they had some data/info that would be useful in something like a class action lawsuit on the engine failures? I’d give them a call.

hagik50420

· #20 · 22 d ago

Welcome

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