[LIJeepJC]

Originally Posted by offcamber

It may not be ALL pentastar engines but it's certainly a HUGE % of them, probably like 30%. At the dealership where i originally took mine, their defense for the ticking was that they compared mine to ones on the lot. In fact they started up 5 or 6 of the 14 they had on the lot and all of them had the tick. After I got the P0302 error and they replaced the head, I made them listen to mine with the replaced head and note that the ticking was gone. THeir Service Manager said that it looked to him like most of those on his lot had bad heads, but they couldnt do anything about it until someone bought it and complained.

I don't think it is a huge problem because if it was you would see more people coming out with the problem. Not saying its NOT a problem that is huge. It's just about quality than quantity in my opinion...

[Fellstar]

Originally Posted by offcamber

It may not be ALL pentastar engines but it's certainly a HUGE % of them, probably like 30%. At the dealership where i originally took mine, their defense for the ticking was that they compared mine to ones on the lot. In fact they started up 5 or 6 of the 14 they had on the lot and all of them had the tick. After I got the P0302 error and they replaced the head, I made them listen to mine with the replaced head and note that the ticking was gone. THeir Service Manager said that it looked to him like most of those on his lot had bad heads, but they couldnt do anything about it until someone bought it and complained.

It's not a problem that is immediately noticeable when you drive it off the lot. Most people take 4000+ miles for the ticking to be pronounced enough that you can tell that something is wrong. 90 percent of drivers wouldn't even know what to listen for.

I would put money on the fact that it's all of them. Based on what I've heard at the dealer, the information gleaned on these and other forums and the article released regarding a retooled head casting.. Come on guys follow the bread crumbs.

After my Jeep was in the shop for 3 weeks. I traded it in on another 2012, WHEN, note: WHEN, my tick comes, I'll let you know.

[TheHuntsman]

Originally Posted by offcamber

It may not be ALL pentastar engines but it's certainly a HUGE % of them, probably like 30%. At the dealership where i originally took mine, their defense for the ticking was that they compared mine to ones on the lot. In fact they started up 5 or 6 of the 14 they had on the lot and all of them had the tick. After I got the P0302 error and they replaced the head, I made them listen to mine with the replaced head and note that the ticking was gone. THeir Service Manager said that it looked to him like most of those on his lot had bad heads, but they couldnt do anything about it until someone bought it and complained.

^THAT. That right there. The last sentence. This is what needs to get out to people. This may save them money by sticking their customers with any problems that may occur after the warranty runs out, but the fact that they know DAMN WELL that they have tons of vehicles in the field with an issue.

Yet they're perfectly happy to sit on them, sell them, and make their customers wait until a dummy light comes on. Then do a half-assed fix they know won't work. Then do ANOTHER more indepth fix that MIGHT NOT work. Then direct their sales people to sell them, and their service managers to be dodgy on it. Is completely horse crap.

Honestly, I'd be interested if any law firm would be willing to pursue a class action suit. They are intentionally selling faulty merchandise to their customers and trying to pass the buck onto them. Statements like this, one's from their own tech posted in this thread, and the BS line the sales people are feeding people "They ALL sound like that, it's normal." Is fraud. Plain and simple. They know these engines are problem engines and they are "playing stupid" intentionally to move them in an attempt to avoid liability.

Where is Lee, the "JeepCares" guy on this? Looks like the only thing "JeepCares" about is screwing it's loyal customers.

[Fellstar]

Originally Posted by TheHuntsman

^THAT. That right there. The last sentence. This is what needs to get out to people. This may save them money by sticking their customers with any problems that may occur after the warranty runs out, but the fact that they know DAMN WELL that they have tons of vehicles in the field with an issue.

Yet they're perfectly happy to sit on them, sell them, and make their customers wait until a dummy light comes on. Then do a half-assed fix they know won't work. Then do ANOTHER more indepth fix that MIGHT NOT work. Then direct their sales people to sell them, and their service managers to be dodgy on it. Is completely horse crap.

Honestly, I'd be interested if any law firm would be willing to pursue a class action suit. They are intentionally selling faulty merchandise to their customers and trying to pass the buck onto them. Statements like this, one's from their own tech posted in this thread, and the BS line the sales people are feeding people "They ALL sound like that, it's normal." Is fraud. Plain and simple. They know these engines are problem engines and they are "playing stupid" intentionally to move them in an attempt to avoid liability.

Where is Lee, the "JeepCares" guy on this? Looks like the only thing "JeepCares" about is screwing it's loyal customers.

Replacing the head with the updated casting IS the fix. The problem is that earlier replacements were replaced with the same bad casting. While that sucks, what were they going to do? Sorry, we don't have the updated head casting yet, guess we'll just keep your vehicle until we figure it out. Come on, get real.

You guys should really read all the posts on this topic...

[DavidC]

Agree that the problem appears to be "all of them" as have now started to see reports of other Pentastar equipped vehicles other than Jeeps with the problem. Some with miles in excess of 30k.



Chrysler has been trying to keep this very very low key so as not to impact sales and probably made the decsion to continue production while they worked on a design fix....figuring the design defect would manifest itself within the warranty period.


I was getting tired of hearing about folks with the issue contacting their dealers and Chrysler Care and the dealers and Chrysler claiming it was the first time they heard about this problem, so decided to post links to all four major Jeep forums/threads on this issue on Jeeps Facebook page a few weeks ago. Three day's later the first Allpar annoucement came. Now that article has been revised as of this week.


My suggestion is to post on Facebook, Edmunds and submit a claim for defect investigation to the NHTSA if you have a 2012 Wrangler with the tick.

If Chrysler truly produced 1M Pentastars.... the cost of a recall to replace a head could approach or exceed $1B, so I'm not holding my breath that this will occur.

[BadTrainDriver]

Originally Posted by offcamber

About 30% or 2012's have issues with the heads. The nice thing is that they really aren't sure what is causing the issue so the replacement head my bite it too...

Originally Posted by pmraider12

All 3.6 heads are going bad. Less often in the wrangler bc it is lighter than the town and country and grand Cherokee. Failure is in cylinder 2 due to the thermostat being right there that's where all of the heat is. Poor casting in the cylinder head causing the valve not to seat correctly causing slight misfire in #2. Chrysler has JUST released new cylinder heads for this issue all the other heads were the same casting so it will more than likley happen again to those vehicles unless Chrysler comes up with some type of bypass hoses for the thermostat housing to dissipate some heat away from that area

Rant on!

These two statements are complete and udder nonsense...I don't care if you're a "technican" or not.

This is a prime example of what's "wrong" with vehicle specific forums.

The OP was a first time poster, and has a problem with his vehicle.
OK, fair enough...let's hear him out.
NOW, of a sudden, EVERYONE and their brother is having the same problem...OMG LOOK...it's ALL OVER THE FORUMS!!!

But wait.
Where is the first time poster that posts he's NOT having problems??
There isn't any...
No one joins a forum and makes a thread "Guess what, I love my new non-ticking, under warranty for 5yrs, 100k miles Pentastar".

Now(read this slow), think about how many vehicles have the 3.6 Pentastar engine.
Think about how many have "posted" with problems, versus those who don't "post" they have problems, versus those who don't have problems and don't post, versus those who don't have problems and "post" said information.

That's 4 different categories of people...of which we're only reading about one.

With all that said, there is ZERO data on how many engines are affected, and there is also ZERO data on a singular complete engine that's needed to be replaced.

What we do have data on is, when you have a problem, it get's documented, and you get a head replaced.

My 2012 Rubicon purrs like a kitten, and screams like a lion if pressed hard...and it has 10k miles on it. I've got another 60k miles of warranty on it...and I'm not worried one bit.

I'll ask this, but I know it will fall on deaf ears...
If you don't have DOCUMENTED PROOF about problems with these engines, please stop spreading garbage.
All you do is make yourself look like a fool...

Rant off.

[jwmbishop]

The 04 GTOs that came off the marriage line before 11:00am local time Feb 3 2004 had a "clunk in the trunk". They became aware of the issue 2 months into production which started on aug 03 2003 - but the engineers did not see that the first gen assembly would not work for most driving styles - just may be problematic under hard acceleration like drag launching and shifting as that was where the clunk first started making complaints. The fix was to use a different bushing and mount for the rear diff mount. Until mid June 2005 when the TSB came out - all dealers had in inventory was the old bushing/mount assembly. So any of the complaints that DID manifest due to owners driving style pre recall were resolved during THE LEARNING CURVE OF COMPLAINT/PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION/SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT/IMPLEMENTATION OF PLAN FOR CORRECTION by replacing with the exact same assembly only to have the problem come back. My unit was produced in late Feb with the revised bushing - but when i had a clunk between gears under hard acceleration (sub 13s in the quarter before it manifested) they replaced a 2nd run assembly with the first run assembly they had in stock! I then had TWO clunks between gears. Come to find out my original clunk was from a shock mount... they replaced both, but it was a sixth month process for me starting in apr 05, which had me, the tech, the dealer and Pontiac in a position that had us at odds and could have deteriorated into bad blood between us... Last word was that only 11% of the pre feb cars developed complaints - ostensibly because 89% of owners did not drive them hard enough to feel or hear it. So profits were NOT sucked up by changing the other 98 did were NOT problematic.

Moral of the story - don't buy use or endorse a product if you A) expect the engineers to develop a perfect product that meets all needs of all parties - budget cost, corp profit margin affordability to consumer, form fit function, reliability vs performance ability etc if you are not willing to allow them to experience a miss step or two in the balance and 2) don't complain about issues and fixes that dont just happen with the push of a button and instantaneously pull all old parts off shelves and replace with new worldwide in a split second until you have perfected the particle beam transporter from star trek.

[pmraider12]

Originally Posted by BadTrainDriver

Rant on!

These two statements are complete and udder nonsense...I don't care if you're a "technican" or not.

This is a prime example of what's "wrong" with vehicle specific forums.

The OP was a first time poster, and has a problem with his vehicle.
OK, fair enough...let's hear him out.
NOW, of a sudden, EVERYONE and their brother is having the same problem...OMG LOOK...it's ALL OVER THE FORUMS!!!

But wait.
Where is the first time poster that posts he's NOT having problems??
There isn't any...
No one joins a forum and makes a thread "Guess what, I love my new non-ticking, under warranty for 5yrs, 100k miles Pentastar".

Now(read this slow), think about how many vehicles have the 3.6 Pentastar engine.
Think about how many have "posted" with problems, versus those who don't "post" they have problems, versus those who don't have problems and don't post, versus those who don't have problems and "post" said information.

That's 4 different categories of people...of which we're only reading about one.

With all that said, there is ZERO data on how many engines are affected, and there is also ZERO data on a singular complete engine that's needed to be replaced.

What we do have data on is, when you have a problem, it get's documented, and you get a head replaced.

My 2012 Rubicon purrs like a kitten, and screams like a lion if pressed hard...and it has 10k miles on it. I've got another 60k miles of warranty on it...and I'm not worried one bit.

I'll ask this, but I know it will fall on deaf ears...
If you don't have DOCUMENTED PROOF about problems with these engines, please stop spreading garbage.
All you do is make yourself look like a fool...

Rant off.

I agree with you 100 percent and you are absolutely right that is what warranty is for. I was just relaying information that I heard from a few different people at chrysler..don't shoot the messenger here fellas just here to help I don't even own a wrangler I'm just giving my input on what I hear everyday. So harmful?

[jwmbishop]

Originally Posted by pmraider12

I was just relaying information that I heard from a few different people

Lots of folks do that.

Did you hear that Sally Sue got caught in the haystack with Betty Lou's brother? I heard it from several sources and its on three web forums so it MUST be true!!

[TheHuntsman]

Originally Posted by Fellstar

Replacing the head with the updated casting IS the fix. The problem is that earlier replacements were replaced with the same bad casting.

Are you effin' kidding me? What of damn moron put THAT through as a plan of action?!? What about the "lifter kit fix"? You mean to tell me they knew those wouldn't work, and that the heads they were using wouldn't either, and went ahead and did it anyhow and somehow that's okay?!? Taking apart and putting back together any machine or engine is something you do when you HAVE to. It has detrimental effects on any mechanical device if done too many times. You should never do it just to make people think you are doing something even though you aren't. What type of complete piece of **** would do that, much less institute it as a game plan for a service division?! Damn!

While that sucks, what were they going to do? Sorry, we don't have the updated head casting yet, guess we'll just keep your vehicle until we figure it out. Come on, get real.

No you "GET REAL"! They should be honest with their customers and inform them that they don't have a solution and as per their warranty if they selected it they are welcome to drive a loaner while they wait for the fix, or continue driving their vehicle under advisement of the dangers and risks until the issue is solved.

The reason they DON'T do this is because they would have Wranglers sitting on lots past the lemon law in many states and they'd have to take them back. Otherwise they'd have to admit that they are shady and incompetent and have no business putting out vehicles. Though I suppose we should all know that already as the only way they are in business now is because they and the unions bought enough politicians to stick guns in our faces and hands in the pockets of our kids and grandkids to keep them in business.

You guys should really read all the posts on this topic...

You should really take some time to study business ethics. The fact that people aren't more irrate about this if what you are claiming is true is sad. I can tell you that if my engine develops the tick I'm going to make sure I get to the bottom of this line of BS.

[TheHuntsman]

Originally Posted by jwmbishop

The 04 GTOs that came off the marriage line before 11:00am local time Feb 3 2004 had a "clunk in the trunk". They became aware of the issue 2 months into production which started on aug 03 2003 - but the engineers did not see that the first gen assembly would not work for most driving styles - just may be problematic under hard acceleration like drag launching and shifting as that was where the clunk first started making complaints. The fix was to use a different bushing and mount for the rear diff mount. Until mid June 2005 when the TSB came out - all dealers had in inventory was the old bushing/mount assembly. So any of the complaints that DID manifest due to owners driving style pre recall were resolved during THE LEARNING CURVE OF COMPLAINT/PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION/SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT/IMPLEMENTATION OF PLAN FOR CORRECTION by replacing with the exact same assembly only to have the problem come back. My unit was produced in late Feb with the revised bushing - but when i had a clunk between gears under hard acceleration (sub 13s in the quarter before it manifested) they replaced a 2nd run assembly with the first run assembly they had in stock! I then had TWO clunks between gears. Come to find out my original clunk was from a shock mount... they replaced both, but it was a sixth month process for me starting in apr 05, which had me, the tech, the dealer and Pontiac in a position that had us at odds and could have deteriorated into bad blood between us... Last word was that only 11% of the pre feb cars developed complaints - ostensibly because 89% of owners did not drive them hard enough to feel or hear it. So profits were NOT sucked up by changing the other 98 did were NOT problematic.

Moral of the story - don't buy use or endorse a product if you A) expect the engineers to develop a perfect product that meets all needs of all parties - budget cost, corp profit margin affordability to consumer, form fit function, reliability vs performance ability etc if you are not willing to allow them to experience a miss step or two in the balance and 2) don't complain about issues and fixes that dont just happen with the push of a button and instantaneously pull all old parts off shelves and replace with new worldwide in a split second until you have perfected the particle beam transporter from star trek.

I don't expect a perfect vehicle, at all. I'm perfectly okay with taking it in and getting it fixed should it develop the tick. However, if half of what some of these people are claiming is true, then Chrysler is committing fraud and selling and performing services on vehicles under the false pretense that they think it might fix the problem when they know damn well it won't. THAT I have a HUGE problem with. Mistakes happen. Own up and make them right. That's all I ask.

[Fellstar]

Originally Posted by TheHuntsman

Are you effin' kidding me? What of damn moron put THAT through as a plan of action?!? What about the "lifter kit fix"? You mean to tell me they knew those wouldn't work, and that the heads they were using wouldn't either, and went ahead and did it anyhow and somehow that's okay?!? Taking apart and putting back together any machine or engine is something you do when you HAVE to. It has detrimental effects on any mechanical device if done too many times. You should never do it just to make people think you are doing something even though you aren't. What type of complete piece of **** would do that, much less institute it as a game plan for a service division?! Damn!

No you "GET REAL"! They should be honest with their customers and inform them that they don't have a solution and as per their warranty if they selected it they are welcome to drive a loaner while they wait for the fix, or continue driving their vehicle under advisement of the dangers and risks until the issue is solved.

The reason they DON'T do this is because they would have Wranglers sitting on lots past the lemon law in many states and they'd have to take them back. Otherwise they'd have to admit that they are shady and incompetent and have no business putting out vehicles. Though I suppose we should all know that already as the only way they are in business now is because they and the unions bought enough politicians to stick guns in our faces and hands in the pockets of our kids and grandkids to keep them in business.

You should really take some time to study business ethics. The fact that people aren't more irrate about this if what you are claiming is true is sad. I can tell you that if my engine develops the tick I'm going to make sure I get to the bottom of this line of BS.

I don't disagree with most of your outrage, and I never said I wasn't upset. I've been through this twice already!

Currently have a case open with Chrysler, attempting to get satisfaction.

This doesn't change the truth of the things I've said.

It's not like this issue I'd causing the car to explode and kill people, if it was they wouldn't have had a choice as far as how they handled it. This problem is pretty benign.

[Fellstar]

Also if yours develops a tick at this point, your head will be replaced with the revised casting. So you'll be fine.

If you think you'll get special information out of Chrysler that none of us have, again get real...

I went through this same crap with Subaru 2 years ago. When these companies do settle cases privately in maters like this, I can tell you from personal experience, a legally binding non-disclosure agreement I'd almost always involved.

[pmraider12]

Originally Posted by jwmbishop

Lots of folks do that.

Did you hear that Sally Sue got caught in the haystack with Betty Lou's brother? I heard it from several sources and its on three web forums so it MUST be true!!

Ok your pretty arrogant..seems like a typical know it all..put an old head on your 3.6 and I'll put a revised one on another ad we will see who sets a CEL

[jwmbishop]

Originally Posted by pmraider12

Ok your pretty arrogant..seems like a typical know it all..put an old head on your 3.6 and I'll put a revised one on another ad we will see who sets a CEL

I'll take arrogance over gossip mongering any day. It WAS after all YOUR admission - not mine...