Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Series 53 Polling Is Flawed!!!

[Lube Man]

I am not sure there is a way to conduct an accurate poll on this forum. Maybe the webmaster has a suggestion.



To conduct a poll with any degree of accuracy or benefit, the poll needs to be answered by a designated number of people. This would normally be a randomly selected group, the more the better. Ideally all of the selected group should respond. Each person responding should provide some basic data such as miles on truck, power modifications, and loading.



To simply ask people whether or not they have had a series 53 leakage problem completely distorts the situation. Those who have had a problem are much more likely to respond than those who have not. It is human nature, and it also gives a false picture.



Getting back to the webmaster. Possibly there is a way to search the TDR member database to determine who might own a truck susceptible to the 53 problem and send them a polling message. But again the response could be skewed by those having a problem. But it would be better than polls conducted todate.

 

[VicR]

Interesting observation. Not sure which of the polls you are referring to, but as I have a few out there I thought I would weigh in on this issue. I agree completely for a definitive conclusion you would need a broader sample size then we can get just on this web site, or even from just the TDR membership and you would need a way to ensure you avoid a response-bias in the data (such as those impacted do respond, those who weren't just throw the survey away). I don't think we are anywhere near enough data to say that a 53 block in a 199X truck has a xx% chance of cracking at 100k miles etc. You would probably also need to factor in usage, which gets a little more subjective, and what about stock vs mild bombs vs total bombs, and there may be other factors that we don't even know about yet... Not to mention there are about 20k TDR members, and how many hundreds of thousands CTD Dodge trucks out there - are TDR members representative of the population of CTD Dodge owners, or are we more prone to cracking from harder then average usage or less prone due to better maintenance? Got to factor in the age issue now too. Some of the blocks from the earlier years are approaching 8 years old. Will we see a rash of new cracks as things age, or will we see them taper off - if it hasn't cracked by now it probably won't theory? Frankly the only one with the correct database to analyze this problem is DC/ Cummins, and they don't seem to be forth coming with info.



But I would submit that at least some of our efforts were not in vain, we did find some interesting info from a couple of the polls. For instance, with a response of about n=40 on the 1999 trucks, its seems to be almost (but not completely) a sure thing that a 99 has a 53 block. I think almost any way you slice it, 39 out of 40 1999's with a 53 casting says there are a lot of 53 blocks out in 1999. Unless of course we have a huge response-bias problem and all of the 1999 owners with NON-53's are out hot-rodding while us 53 owners are at home biting our nails and participating in online surveys... :-laf



Second, there seems to be a fairly even distribution of plants that produced the trucks that have had cracks. While the response was much smaller last time I checked (something like 15), it was pretty evenly distributed by plant. I think it would be safe to say that the plant your 53 equipped truck came from is NOT a good predictor of a future crack. 1/2 of us would have slept well if the problems were rampant at one plant or another, but this even distribution doesn't help anything...



Lastly (and this is where I get to theorize and analyze) we only found about 15 confirmed block cracks. Given the data from point one that most 99's seem to have 53's, I'm going to surmise that the crack problem isn't near as widespread as KDP, Auto-transmission, paint problems, or lift pump problems, etc. Not to say its not out there, and certainly it will strike again, but just trying to get a handle on the scope. I don't see that the information available to support the conclusion that seems to be going around in some threads that 'all 53's are junk', rather I'm going to suggest that "a small number are, but many are not. "



Disclaimer: Maybe there are a lot of active TDR website members that chose not to respond to the poll for a variety of reasons, or maybe CTD owners sold the truck after the block cracked, or maybe I'm just wishing it so... .



Either way, there doesn't seem to be a lot that can be done as a preventative measure, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Although if anyone has any ideas how to back into more data with the limited resources we have here, I'd love to participate.



-Vic

 

[SBall]

53 owner comments

VicR,

I feel I must compliment you on your nice analysis of the issues known thus far on the 53 block. What you say makes perfect sense, and yes, Cummins is perhaps the only source of accurate failure rates on these blocks. What I've been pondering is why Cummins wouldn't just quietly offer to fully compensate any owner of a 53 block that had experienced the crack, in the interest of preserving brand loyalty. If they aren't, could it be that the documented failure rate is so small that they wouldn't see this migration away from Cummins as a threat to their overall reputation? Or perhaps the failure rate is large enough to threaten the earnings bottom line, and that's why they won't make good. Whatever the reason, Cummins really should come up with a strategy that recognizes the importance in preserving their brand loyalty and their (up to now) solid reputation. Losing market share over an issue like this is not an option in today's economy.