2006 engine damage - Dodge will not warranty

[ModifiedDiesel]

I agree its one thing for DC to void a warrenty because they think that a box or programmer caused the problem and they have proof that one has been installed. Its another thing when there is a TSB about a common problem such as a leaking CP3 and they do everything in there power to try and void your warrenty.



I had the infamous CP3 leak, and once I finally got my dealer to agree that it was leaking they spent a week trying to void my warrenty looking for a downloader before DC warrentied it and allowed them to order the part.



Its a good thing I never had a downloader, and I took my SP Diesel Stage IIe and TST off before it went in for service. and no I don't feel that this was dishonest because many stock trucks have leaking CP3's and it was not caused by my mods.

 

[CMusgrove]

Voiding your entire warantee is way too harsh! I didn't know they would or could void all repairs due to a power box. I have not dealt with DC on any warantees on the cummins yet.

 

[pwr2tow]

Not true, there are many stories about manufactures who refused to warranty stock vehicles over the years. There is a current dispute with Chrysler over front axle bearings, the paper work says front axle bearing are covered but DC says no they are not, so don't give me that song and dance about how fair the dealers and DC are and how they would cover everything if only, hell son, if a bull frog had wings he would not bump his arse on the ground when he hopped.



Also why do you assume just because someone has improved their vehicle with a better product that it caused all the warranty issues with said truck from that moment forward, sure does make you wonder why there are so many stock trucks suffering the same problems as the trucks with a few sane mods on them.

Not true, even if frogs had wings they would still bump there arse when they hopped.



What makes you assume they improved their vehicle, the dealership supplied them with a vehicle that performs to industry standards. Why buy the vehicle if you know you have to modifiy it.



What makes you think any hp increase is sane. The vehicle manufacturer supplied you with a vehicle and a warranty to go with it. If you think it needs to perform better than trade it off for a different manufacturers vehicle or modify it and go on with life and fix it yourself when it does break.



Well John you can respond to this if you like but I'am not going to get into a debate with you over shady deals. You obviously have your morals and I obviously have mine.

 

[john3976]

I'll agree that if it was a manufacturers defect, (would have failed without mods), that they should stand behind the product. I admit, I am by no stretch of the imagination, a gearhead. I don't know how DC could prove that a part would not have failed had the truck not been modified. The earlier example of a visable weak spot in a shaft would be cut and dry. But an injector that failed I don't think is as clear. I haven't checked your link yet, but I am not aware of a major problem on the 3rd gen's in relation to injectors.



From what has been said in this thread, DC may be jumping the gun if they say "not our problem" before they truly know what the issue is. They should throughly investigate prior to such a decision. But that tear down also costs money & time. Who do you suggest pays for it if it is determined that the mod caused the problem?



My main argument is not against the author of this thread. I'm not sure who is right in this case, as there is always two sides to every story. However, as a whole, I don't think it is ethical to try to make a manufactuer stand behind a product that the end user has modified above and beyond the original specifications of the product. Again, guilt always seems to be assigned to the manufactuer, individuals should also take some personal responsibility.



You read a lot about people taking their mods off of their truck prior to taking it in for diagnostics. The argument always seems to be so that the dealer can properly diagnose the problem. To me, it seems a little disingenous, trying to take advantage of "big industry".

DC should start the tear down, if it was not related to a real cause of a mod, then they should pay the entire bill, if in fact after the tear down it is very clear that a mod was the actual cause of the problem then the cost burden shifts over to the owner for tear down and repair.



But to use the excuse that a mod was on the truck therefore you have lost your warranty is bogus, most mods improve the truck and the reliability of the truck, now when you start stacking boxes and making 500 plus horse power and jump the torque up to 900 plus foot pounds you know you are going to break stuff and that is when the manufacture would be justified in voiding the drive train warranty.



A 50 Horse Power upgrade should not even make these trucks break a sweet let alone tear something up. Even at the 90 Horse Power level they should be able to handle that.



All of the manufactures look for any excuse to deny warranty coverage these days, even if the problem is not due to a mod they try to use it as an excuse any way.

 

[john3976]

460 replies, 68 of which say that they have had an injector replaced. How many 3rd gens are on the road today? I don't think this one source offers substantial proof that there are injector problems on 3rd gen trucks.

Actually this sample is equal to how polling works, while this is a little on the biased side due to the nature of this being a Dodge forum, it would indicate that Dodge has a failure rate of 15% which is pretty high considering the number of trucks Dodge sells each year.



That would break down to about 37,500 trucks with faulty injectors, not a small number of trucks. Accounting for error in the numbers I feel safe in putting the number at least in the 30,000 number range, that is dropping 7,500 trucks from the sample.

 

[bubba_zanetti]

Lets see... 90hp over my '96's 245hp is almost stock 2006 hp...



wow!

 

[mlewis73]

My truck has 22K miles on it. I have ran a box on it for about 15K of that.



I am worried because this is the only power mod I have done, which is considered to be mild since under 100hp.



The only indication I had anything was wrong is on the way down I was getting really bad gas mileage. Like 10-11mpg which is highly unusual. Other than that it was running fine, and then the oil pressure dropped once something blew.



I know ya gotta pay to play, but I was under the impression that the mighty Cummins could take a small tweak.



So looks like I'll be paying quite a bit to fix the thing.

If you want to bomb, my impression is that the new trucks MUST be left alone if they are to remain reliable.



Buy an old 12V and bomb away...

 

[mlewis73]

I agree with what y-knot had to say. I just read on one of the threads that the catcher 3rd generation is not supposed to be detectable by DC and the responses had the little icon jumping up and down for joy. There used to be such a thing as ethics but I guess a lot of people who want to run the boxes or whatever on their cummins, break it, then take everything off hoping to slip it by the manufacturer has forgotten their's.

B I N G O!



The components are engineered to withstand a certain percentage increase of power/torque to account for natural variations in power/torque off the assembly line, various operating conditions, etc.



Addition of a box, especially a high-powered box, would provide power and torque more than 10% over stock trim... probably exceeding the engine's design limit for our consumer trucks.



I'll not be adding anything to my new Ram. Can't take the chance!!

 

[DOWG]

What I find really interesting about all this, is that John3976 was criticizing "Big Oil" Companies (Exxon) on another thread for "raping the public" in regard to the price of oil.



Long story, short; I own a "small oil" company and for some reason John3976 wants me to risk my money drilling oil wells (to manufacture a product; fuel) and give my profit "back" because he thinks I make too much money.



Oil companies do not control the price of oil, consumers do. If someone does not "like" a product "as is", don't buy it.



Now I see that he objects to the manner in which another "Big" company manufactures a product it sells on the open market and wants the company to "give back" the profit when the consumer abuses said product.



If the consumer does not like a particular motor vehicle, don't buy it. Or start your own company and "build" your own.



Or start your own oil company, to make your own fuel to put in your own vehicle.



Socialism was, and is an economic failure.



What, unmitigated gall.

 

[Foil Freak 1211]

... DC won't warranty my leaking window seals even though I have a 100,000 mile warranty and 67,000 miles on the truck ... lol



And before anyone goes off on an "anti-DC" tangent... all the big three do it.

Unless you bought an extended warranty for your truck, the only bumper to bumper warranty you have is 3 years, 36,000 miles. The 5 year 100,000 mile is on the powertrain only.

 

[Foil Freak 1211]

Actually this sample is equal to how polling works, while this is a little on the biased side due to the nature of this being a Dodge forum, it would indicate that Dodge has a failure rate of 15% which is pretty high considering the number of trucks Dodge sells each year.



That would break down to about 37,500 trucks with faulty injectors, not a small number of trucks. Accounting for error in the numbers I feel safe in putting the number at least in the 30,000 number range, that is dropping 7,500 trucks from the sample.

You must have taken a different statistics class then I did in college. A completely volountary "poll" on a biased website is not a clean cross section of overall Cummins owners. If the failure rate was truly 15% you would more than likley see a recall.

 

[klenger]

Not to mention that people who do not have any problems with their trucks are less likely to even visit a forum like this. Any poll on an internet forum is meaningless as far as cross section of the population is concerned.

 

[Dan J]

I bought a 2004 ctd new and with in 5000 miles I had a bad tick and a trace of fuel in my oil so I took it in to my dealer and they checked it out with what DC specs were and siad it was fine nothing to worry about, I told the sevice manager that was crap and that and that it will fail at the worst time for me and that little beedy eyed pile of ***** said let the diesel take out the main bearings and then we will have a ploblem... .....



So I bought a ramafire( lasted 2weeks and died)

Then I got a EZ (wished it would have died)



So I replaced all my injectors out of pocket with DDP 100hp's,fass,hot juice,HTT 62-14 and went in the 500hp club and during a sledpull I droped #6 valve seat hit the piston and yada yada yada I had ploblema's.



well moral of the story is when my injectors that the dealer said was fine actually had 4 cracked bodies but I replaced them so I figured they owed me so I took off the juice and left every thing else and sent it in on a flatbed and they replaced it all with no problem,they even liked that noisey fuel pump.



I didnt lie about nothing I told them I was towing a sled when it happend and Im no mechanic so thats all the help I could give them.



Keep up the fight cause theres a old man about to buy a 02 ctd with a bad transmission and on his way to AZ for the winter with his fifth wheel he will be in a dealership droping $2500 for a new transmission that was bad when he got it.



And buy the way thers no way that DC can tell if a shop prier to to them getting your truck didnt plug in a scaner and try to help figure out the problem and clear codes. Their looking at how many starts the ecm has since the last flash being a scan tool clearing codes or a downloader getting undownloaded and put back to stock. (and that came from a dealer tech)

 

[john3976]

What I find really interesting about all this, is that John3976 was criticizing "Big Oil" Companies (Exxon) on another thread for "raping the public" in regard to the price of oil.



Long story, short; I own a "small oil" company and for some reason John3976 wants me to risk my money drilling oil wells (to manufacture a product; fuel) and give my profit "back" because he thinks I make too much money.



Oil companies do not control the price of oil, consumers do. If someone does not "like" a product "as is", don't buy it.



Now I see that he objects to the manner in which another "Big" company manufactures a product it sells on the open market and wants the company to "give back" the profit when the consumer abuses said product.



If the consumer does not like a particular motor vehicle, don't buy it. Or start your own company and "build" your own.



Or start your own oil company, to make your own fuel to put in your own vehicle.



Socialism was, and is an economic failure.



What, unmitigated gall.

You really need to go take some night classes and learn how to understand what you read.

 

[john3976]

Unless you bought an extended warranty for your truck, the only bumper to bumper warranty you have is 3 years, 36,000 miles. The 5 year 100,000 mile is on the powertrain only.

Could he be talking about the Cummins 100,000 mile warranty on the engine?

 

[john3976]

You must have taken a different statistics class then I did in college. A completely volountary "poll" on a biased website is not a clean cross section of overall Cummins owners. If the failure rate was truly 15% you would more than likley see a recall.

Not really, because mixed in with these Numbers are trucks that have been modified.



Look at your major polls they sample around 500 people, the only difference is they are calling random people where in hear as I stated it is a Dodge form so it will be on the biased side, but I think it is a fair look at the problem, Dodge has had injector problems with these trucks even when stock, their excuse is always you idle to long and they refuse to correct the bad injector.



The reason I feel this is a fair look even biased is due to the fact we are only interested in Dodges, not Fords and Chevy's.



Further you don't need to hear from people who have not had problems all you need to do is find out how many trucks with the Diesel engine Dodge sells each year and you can figure out from that how many are having problems and be pretty darn close.

 

[john3976]

And buy the way thers no way that DC can tell if a shop prier to to them getting your truck didnt plug in a scaner and try to help figure out the problem and clear codes. Their looking at how many starts the ecm has since the last flash being a scan tool clearing codes or a downloader getting undownloaded and put back to stock. (and that came from a dealer tech)

With the latest Triple Dog, Bully Dog says it does not reset the key cycles, and it is undetectable, the programmer working on the smarty also claims that his product is undetectable as well, the only difference is the Smarty is not available for sale for the 3 Gens yet.



Besides detectable or not, the dealer nor DC can come in and just say oh, you had a down loader your warranty is void, they are still required under the law to provide proof that the aftermarket product is what did in fact cause the failure.



The law came about because of dealers and manufactures rubber stamping the voiding of warranties just because an aftermarket part was used, even when the after market part had nothing to do with the failure.

 

[MLee]

Jonathan;

I was wondering if you are a young person, mid 20's? early 30's something. Are the Rep and the dealer trying to profile you and blame you cause your young. I had this happen to me when I was younger and was told "All young guys are Lead foots" and to say the least, I did not appreciate it.



Marv.

 

[JonathanBurk]

Jonathan;

I was wondering if you are a young person, mid 20's? early 30's something. Are the Rep and the dealer trying to profile you and blame you cause your young. I had this happen to me when I was younger and was told "All young guys are Lead foots" and to say the least, I did not appreciate it.



Marv.

Marv,



I am 26, so I would say yes, however, the dealer has not seen me. I broke down on the road, had it towed to the dealer on a day they were closed, put my keys in the nightdrop box, and haven't seen them since. They have talked to me on the phone but that was after the Chrysler Reps looked at it.



Now they are telling me they didn't fly the Chrysler reps in, and that they just happened to be there on the lot and saw my truck with the gauges and everything, so they plugged in all their crap to figure it out and the manager says he doesn't think they're going to let him cover it.



They required him to get approval from me to tear into the engine because more than likely I'm gonna have to pay for it. Ugh!



I may fight the power and have the prove to me my mods did it, because if stock injectors are failing then I'd like some kind of proof if it's gonna cost a whole new engine or something. Not sure how much damage was done yet, and I can't find the dealer manager to give me an answer. Won't return my calls.

 

[MMeier]

If you're going to foot the bill on this, why not take it to one of the performance engine builders, you know, someone that knows what they are doing!