2018 Ram 1500 eco diesel -blown engine

[RikkiB]

Hello, I’m new here. I have a question about my sons 1500.
He bought it from a dealership at 119,000 Km. He had it for almost 13,000 Km and the engine blew.
I contacted the dealership after he paid for a new engine, to demand the RO from prior to purchase. Upon receiving the order we found out the engine had been leaking oil badly from the oil cooler, they changed the oil and later changed the oil cooler. They didn’t do a flush or an oil analysis. It was driven for 75 days and 13,000 Km then the engine had catastrophic failure. This repair also wasn’t disclosed upon sale and wasn’t found out until I asked for the RO. My curiosity is, with this engine cooler being changed and no flush being done, or an oil analysis , is there any way this could have contributed to the engine failure. I’d like to pursue the dealership for cost of the new engine (I’m in Canada BTW), I’ve spoken to one dodge dealership and they stated a flush is required and is quite the process. Could there be a connection here ?
Thank you!
Rikki

 

[John Jensen]

You don't say what engine blew. If it was an Ecodiesel, they are known to blow, seemingly often. It's been a huge problem. A leaking oil cooler could cause an engine to blow if it failed and drained out the oil while the truck was being driven, otherwise I don't believe it could. And yes, an analysis is required to determine if the coolant was contaminated, and if it was, a flush is required.

Here is a quote from DieselQ.com
"When the oil cooler fails, engine coolant and engine oil mix together, contaminating the whole cooling system. Additionally, coolant can contaminate the oil which can lead to accelerated wear and tear of engine internals. On the 3.0 EcoDiesel it is more common for the oil to contaminate the cooling system which requires a full cooling system flush."
and
"The frequency of oil cooler failure resulted in a class action lawsuit and an extended warranty for the oil cooler for 2014-2016 trucks"

Ram issued Safety Recall VB1 / NHTSA 19V-757, Diesel EGR Cooler, May, 2020

You probably have a case worth pursueing.

 

[RikkiB]

It was an eco diesel yes. When my son had it towed in and diagnosed at another dealership , they stated there was a lot of metal in the oil, heavy knocking etc but they didn’t look into it further, they pulled and changed the engine, it cost him $22,000+ CAD. He did have extended warranty for seals and gaskets and road side assistance, neither were honoured. A mess of unfortunate events I suppose. Thank you for your comment!

 

[SeanPwnery]

The "oil in the metal" seems to fall in line with rod and main bearing failure - something these engines are notorious for thanks to their narrow width bearings, and gasoline-tech emissions systems. There were tons of claims for replacement engines because of this, and a couple oil weight recommendation changes. Did the engine still turn over after it gave out or was it locked up solid when trying to start it? If you want to see the insides of one of these engines with the bearing failures, check out this teardown video. At the time Eric didn't know much about these engines or what caused this failure, but myself as well as many of his viewers dropped a ton of comments describing what generally does it. His second teardown on another Pasta-diesel engine had a slightly different post-mortem but was probably caused by the same issue.

 

[RikkiB]

No it didn’t turn over. Thank your for this comment, im sending it along to him. I’d imagine if he had this issue once, it could be a possible future issue with the new engine?
What a disaster of an engine. Here I thought my Nissan rouge CVT transmission was a pain

much appreciated.

 

[SeanPwnery]

No it didn’t turn over. Thank your for this comment, im sending it along to him. I’d imagine if he had this issue once, it could be a possible future issue with the new engine?
What a disaster of an engine. Here I thought my Nissan rouge CVT transmission was a pain

much appreciated.

These engines get a really bad reputation - and the longer I own mine, the more I begin to understand the issue. Small displacement diesels are really well known and popular in Europe, but (no) thanks to the EPA here in the US, they didn't allow them or they didn't catch on much. I believe a lot of the issues with these engines are due to first-time diesel owners not really understanding the differences in what they need in terms of use, abuse, lubrication, and maintenance. I'm sure others can chime in with specifics, but in my own experience I can tell a lot of folks just treat these like they would any gas engine, and that's where the problem lies. Couple that with gas-engine emissions systems that these were never really meant to have forced upon them, and you compound the problem.

If your son is getting a brand spanking new engine, the best thing he can do, especially up in Canada, is a full emissions system delete with a proper 3rd-party tune. Couple that with an Insane Diesel secondary oil filtration system, and chances are he'll have something that'll last far longer than anything else gas powered ever offered. I have a friend in rural Wyoming with one of these, and he did the above mentioned changes with only 6 miles on his odometer (he literally had it trailered to the shop that did all the work on day 1), and as of today, his 2018 has a little north of 447k on the odometer. (one transmission rebuild about halfway or so into that).

 

[RikkiB]

He did get a brand new engine, thank you for your response. I will gladly send it along. Much appreciated.

 

[autoX]

That was a good teardown. He did the eco-d too a while back.

On those repair orders up top, "Replace NOx sensor" is similar to my truck, with it's short trip SCR (exhaust) issues. Shortly after fixing NOX and DEF problems, my engine died.

But the good news is if the Eco-D is deleted, and in AB nobody gives a hoot (re EPA) then you have an unbeatable pickup truck for mileage, power. The new fuel pump on recall sounds really silky too. I added some airbags and Bilstein shocks.

And you do have new engine in there, pretty sweet. $ aren't to waste. I went with a used engine as new were impossible to find at the time. Still was $20K total tho.

 

[RikkiB]

Interesting about the NOx sensor! Ya he was able to get a new engine. Took like 6 months. Insane it was about the same cost of your used. Thank you!

 

[Ricerocket27]

So, mine is a 2014 Eco Diesel. On July 5th I blew the engine (due to overheating I suspect), at 163,000km (101,000 miles). I had the engine removed as I did not have the facilities to do that myself. That was NZ$2,000. However, I did strip it myself. In fact, the top end is mint, even still has some cross hatchings on the bores. Heads and cams are perfect. The intak manifold was, well wow, so coked up with soot, no doubt due to the EGR system.

The bottom end is a different story. The big ends are perfect. But it had spun 3 of the 4 main bearings. It's strange how the mains, which are first to see oil, have gone, but all the big ends are perfect! I suppose that must be due to mains getting hotter being in direct contact with the block?

The main closest to the oil pump is perfetc, the other 3 are toast, so is the crank.

I am taking the block and bed plate into my engine reconditioning shop to let them measure up, hopefully the block is reusable. I'll let you know how it goes.

Down here in New Zealand, I was quoted NZ$62,000 (not a typo) for a brand new engine. Ouch...... included tax tho lol....

If I can resue the block, I plan to rebuild the engine myself. I'll need new crank, new bearings, new psiton rings, and a full gasket set (apart from crank front and rear crank seals, oil filter assy seals, it's only top end gaskets as the bottom end is put together with silicone sealant (I am told that's how it's done these days).

Our RAM dealership in this country are not exactly cheap for parts though. Example:
New thermstat from joe aaverage internet provider: NZ$136.
New Thermosat from RAM NZ dealership: $536.

Where is it best to buy parts from? So far it seems my best source is eBay. Rock Auto dont seem to have everything I will need.

 

[TC Diesel]

Ricerocket..The Bed plate IMO is the problem...it will squirm, if it moves even a couple 100thou it spells trouble. Many say its lack off lube do to oil soot, in your case the rest of the rotating mass looks good..The bores are good...If sooting was the problem some wear would have occurred in in the bores?

 

[Ricerocket27]

Ricerocket..The Bed plate IMO is the problem...it will squirm, if it moves even a couple 100thou it spells trouble. Many say its lack off lube do to oil soot, in your case the rest of the rotating mass looks good..The bores are good...If sooting was the problem some wear would have occurred in in the bores?

Yeah I have been told it is not a great design, and it's not. But thinking about it, is it really that bad? Normal engines have individual main bearing caps, on the Ecodeisel engine these are just all joined together as "the bedplate". What''s more, the bed plate has 4 bolts per main (so in effect "4-bolt mains"), which is good news. So 4 x main bearings x 4 bolts = 16 x M12 (maybe bigger) bolts holding mains in place (most petrol engine only have 2-bolt mains). Plus all the other bolts around the outside (26 bolts in total holding the bedplate to the block). Bedplate is also dowelled in position. I really can't see the bedplate moving to be honest. My biggest bitch with the engine is that the mains are not very wide for a Diesel, and the crank webs are quite thin. But it is what it is, and plenty of these things do lots of miles. My bores and pistons look almost like new-you can see bores in one of the photos below.

Each main has big lube holes feeding the top shell, so hard to imagine a lack of oil. Soot? Maybe, clean oil is of course always better. I recently did an engine flush, my oil was perfect after 500km, was showing dark tinges at 1,000km, and was black by 1,500km. My truck is standard -still have DEF and EGR systems. The intake manifold was absolutely caked with soot to the point it was partially blocked. That is the EGR system for sure, I am not sure if I want to remove that or not. But that was after 163,000km/~3600 Hrs running.

I would actually like to deactivate the EGR system, and keep the DEF system. Does anyone know if that can be done? Can it be done electronically (ie, a Tune) without removing any hardware? Anything to be wary of?

My engine spun to some degree, 3 of the 4 mains on the bedplate side (I don't think the block side shells spun, but am not certain). Now fully stripped, I am having the block & bedplate measured up by my Engine Reconditioner, will know more next week. Putting a steel rule across the block, it touches all 4 mains, so am hopefull the block is reuseable. But if surfaces are not in tolerance, I do have a cunning plan to correct them..............(rather than having to replace the block).

My crank wil be replaced-3 of 4 main journals are stuffed, plus some webs have heat affected zones. Strangley enough, all the big end journals are mint, strange as they are second to see oil after the mains.

Another question: What do those butterflys on every second inlet manifold port do? If I can't clean this manifold thoroughly, I will buy a new one from Rock Auto.

 

[TC Diesel]

Ricerocket, that intake a candid for a fire. We dropped Bedplating years ago.. We now do gridles and Billet Mains for the reasons of Wear....Your mains failure was NOT IMO related to sludge or soot..IMO this Motor POS Period...Buy one if you like too threw the Dice, we now have 10 years Plenty of high milage 3.0...propaganda, If yours pukes you join the Zero Club... The risk of ownership is burying your head in the sand and throw the Dice every time you drive the VM 3.0. Rice if you find a competent Line Boring shop that knows work arounds and spec's it correctly you will likely have a better than OEM rotating mass....delete the 3.0 with Banks or modified intake and that engine will likely run 20K Hrs and 500K miles on maybe 1 or 2 Turbo's

 

[Ricerocket27]

Ricerocket, that intake a candid for a fire. We dropped Bedplating years ago.. We now do gridles and Billet Mains for the reasons of Wear....Your mains failure was NOT IMO related to sludge or soot..IMO this Motor POS Period...Buy one if you like too threw the Dice, we now have 10 years Plenty of high milage 3.0...propaganda, If yours pukes you join the Zero Club... The risk of ownership is burying your head in the sand and throw the Dice every time you drive the VM 3.0. Rice if you find a competent Line Boring shop that knows work arounds and spec's it correctly you will likely have a better than OEM rotating mass....delete the 3.0 with Banks or modified intake and that engine will likely run 20K Hrs and 500K miles on maybe 1 or 2 Turbo's

Yeah it's too late for me, I own the truck, complete with blown motor lol. So I just get to fix it. Interesting your comment about girdles/Billet mains. Is this a mod you did to the VM 3.0? Or some other engine?

 

[TC Diesel]

Other engines....1000-4000+ Performance and competition powerplants...Like I mentioned before your engine rebuildable. Most are window blocks..

 

[Ricerocket27]

Other engines....1000-4000+ Performance and competition powerplants...Like I mentioned before your engine rebuildable. Most are window blocks..

So, have you done Girdle Mods to VM 3.0?

 

[TC Diesel]

NO..............

 

[SeanPwnery]

These engines really remind me of a person who knows they have clogged arteries, but will still eat fatty food anyway. It's really strange that you had mains go, but no rods go, and the bores not getting scoured up with all the soot which is what commonly kills these. Since you're already in it for a rebuild, an EGR delete, or at least a tune that disables it, one of those Insane Diesel 1-micron secondary oiling systems, and at the least, a new OE intake would be ideal. I just clicked over 113k, with a disable tune about 2000 miles in, but I'm still replacing the intake - right now I'm trying to figure out if I can remove the swirl valves and leave that module disconnected without getting errors, or if I just need to take the flappers out and leave the module plugged in before I start tearing into it. Intakes are pretty cheap - and I guess I can ultra-sonic my original one and shelve it.

 

[Ricerocket27]

I started o clean my manifold yestrday. This is 163,000km of heart attack.........

GDE wont do an EGR delete due to California law. But it seems EOC will. I want to do an EGR delete but keep the DEF system. Will let you know how that goes.

 

[John Jensen]

I started o clean my manifold yestrday. This is 163,000km of heart attack.........

GDE wont do an EGR delete due to California law. But it seems EOC will. I want to do an EGR delete but keep the DEF system. Will let you know how that goes.

1 - California law has nothing to do with GDE not doing a delete. The EPA is the culprit.
2 - Do an MRT Stage 1 via EOC and ask for the EGT to be shut off and keep the DEF system.
That's what I have, been very satisfied