3.6 Pentastar V6 cam and lifter issues

The time has come for me to get over myself and buy a minivan (or SUV) for my small but growing family. I see on here quite a bit of praise for the Mopar minivan's, and I like the idea and utility of stow and go seats, flat load floor, ease of getting kids in and out and such, Will be buying used, trying to stay under 15k.

In looking at Grand Caravans and T&C's, I'm concerned about the longevity of the 3.6 engine. I know Chrysler put that engine in pretty much everything and there are a lot of them on the road, doing just fine, but the high rate of cam failures I'm read about gives me pause. I also see that there is a class action lawsuit pending, related to these cam and lifter failures.

Does anyone have any experience with these failures, or have comments on the Internet once again made a mountain of a mole hill?

From 40k to the current 77k, my experience with my 2019 Grand Caravan has been good.

In this thread you will find some additional insight into Mopar minivan shopping. 

I'm not sure there actually is a high failure rate. The T&C / GC was the go to momma van/rental van for ever and though I know a lot of folks with one I know of no issues with cams (lots of filter housings). Since it's had a lot of YouTube coverage it is getting some looks but I'm seeing most of them seem to be in Jeeps. 

We had both cam phaser sensors fail due to sludging up. I thought i was always using quality oil before the oil life meter got to 0%. I am more of heavy footed driver.

When it happened, it couldnt figure out where the phasers were in its stroke and would spit out a "implausible torque demand" error. 

This happened leaving Yellowstone for Wisconsin, and we limped our Grand Cherokee back to Billings hanging gears. Traded it for a Hemi Durango which is "basically" the 3rd row seated version of a Grand Cherokee. Not really fun thing to happen on vacation.

Minivan have more room but the Hemi Durango still seats 6 and has a Hemi.

The Grand Cherokee was too tight for stroller duty, the Durango has better room, but the minivan will have more. But the Durango will tow 7200 lbs with a trailer brake from factory.

chandler said:

I'm not sure there actually is a high failure rate. The T&C / GC was the go to momma van/rental van for ever and though I know a lot of folks with one I know of no issues with cams (lots of filter housings). Since it's had a lot of YouTube coverage it is getting some looks but I'm seeing most of them seem to be in Jeeps. 

It's not really a high failure rate so much as there are a bazillion and a half out there.  And a lot of them are in vehicles that get poor maintenance.  Ignore the oil life monitor, that is only the bare minimum maintenance to squeak a vehicle through its warranty period.  And a lot of people ignore even that.

I saw five 3.6 engined vehicles in the shop yesterday.  They're common as dirt and they usually have no issues other than oil cooler leaks or water pump drool.  I did have one week where I saw three that had an injector decide to go open circuit, none before that and none since.  I dread the day that I have to do a water pump on a Ram 1500 with the big electric motor bolted to the front, on the wrong side of its belt, a dozen coolant lines routed through it all.

In other news, I have ten 3.6 injectors of dubious long term reliability in my possession...

Oh! There was a period where they were having random valve spring breakage.  Always on the rear bank.

What seems to cause the camshaft issue is the hydraulic lash adjusters can get gummed up.  In hot and cold cycles, they don't really adjust properly, which results in the roller beating on the cam, which damages the roller and its bearings, and the damaged roller starts chewing up the cam at worst.  Replace the cam and all lash adjusters and rockers.

I've had, roughly, a thousand 3.6 Mopars through my shop.  I've changed one rocker arm.

I've changed a few dozen oil filter housings under the intake manifold.

Thanks for the replies and thread suggestions. It seems to me that cam and rocker failures are possible, certainly more than other engines, but not a given. 

I'm also looking at SUV's. Trying to strike a balance between fuel mileage (wife commutes 50 miles one way to work), interior space, and ease of getting kids in and out. Minivan wins for space and egress/ingress, but something like a CRV, Escape, RAV4 etc. with better fuel mileage might suit our needs just fine. Decisions, decisions...

A friend just DIY'd the cam and lifter deal in his 2016 at 112k. He said it was not difficult. Van is running like a champ again.

My BIL had what we thought was cam/lifter issues in his 14 Durango 3.6, causing a cyl 4 misfire.  Turned out to be cracked valves.  That one went to Carvana as the fix was a freshened head and I didn't want to do it for him.   Oil cooler/filter housing was also leaking.  145k miles, he is not great at maintenance 

In reply to TheRyGuy :

Did you say the wife puts on 100 miles a day?  If 5 days a week, that's 26,000 miles per year!  Add in some pleasure miles and you're over 30k miles per year!  

Tip: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/

Use the compare feature.  This would allow you to compare say a 2014 Rav4 mpg to a 2018 Grand Caravan mpg to a 2009 Prius.  The default is for 15k miles per year so when you look at annual dollars spend to drive each then just double that amount for your 30k miles per year.  

I feel your answer is that the wife needs a 2004-2009 Prius for travel duty.  Your two kids will fit fine in it and she'll get 42 mpg with minimum repairs needed.  

In reply to TheRyGuy :

I see your profile says Ohio.  This is a rare sight in Columbus.  '04 w/110k @ $3.6k

I never had one of these (but we did have a Mazda5) but people who owned them loved them and often called them "the perfect size."  Size is smaller than Grand Caravan but mpg is no better and maybe just slightly worse at an expected 21 mpg. 

I looked for GC's on your behalf in Ohio.  Here are two that I find intriguing. 

Both are over priced.  How do I know?  Because in both, the trees in the pictures have no leaves.  That would mean that both have been up for sale for more than a couple months!  

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/840453927909316/?ref=saved&referral_code=null

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2209097122784264/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3A76968728-2470-4fd8-9eb3-5bd865c64f98

I would start a conversation with each by asking a few real questions to seem genuine.   

I might start with,  "I am interested in your van for my wife. Does yours have the heated seat and heated steering wheel option?  (It does but neither mention it, I see the buttons on the dashboard at the HVAC)  Are both working?  

Continued conversation:  "I just want to be up-front with you, my spending target is more like ($14k for red) ($12k for gray) but if they are as nice as you say, I might be able to come up a little on price but honestly not as high as ($17.7 red) or ($15.9 gray).  If that interests you, I'd like to set up a time to test drive the car.  

The intent here is to set up the possibility of $4k off but be flexible which might set you up for $3k off.   

Is it at all possible that you'll be in Louisville, KY area any time soon?   $11.9k w/92k

In reply to John Welsh :

Thanks for looking into all that, I very much appreciate it! I'll have to do some comparing on the fuel economy site.

On the 50 miles one way to work thing, it's not quite as bad as you'd think, since she works a 24 hour on, 48 hour off schedule. Still a lot of miles, but not quite 26k a year. 

I'll look into those Grand Caravans, see if they'll deal on them. Looks like they get low to mid 20's on fuel mileage, so that wouldn't be too hateful. Her commute is 90% 2 lane highway, with light traffic in the 2 towns she goes through.

We haven't even test driven anything yet, might go to CarMax or something like that just try a few different vehicles on for size. I personally like the idea of a Ford Explorer, (with a push bar and steel rims,) but she may not.😄 Not sure if the few more MPG's of a smaller SUV would out weigh the utility of sliding doors and extra cargo space in a van. Toyota Sienna's also pique my interest, however the Toyota tax is real. 

Whatever we do end up getting, I'll be the one working on it when it needs maintenance or repairs, plus I tend keep vehicles around for a long time. With the amount of miles I anticipate her putting on it, low-ish miles and a good previous owner(s) are important for me to consider. 

Wish I had time to look at the one in Louisville though!

2012 T&C here.  FWIW I just ran a 350-mile round trip into the hills of western Maryland and back.  I averaged 22.6 mpg with most of that time spent between 75-80 mph.  Fully loaded on the way out, almost empty on the way back.

I've owned a number of the Chrysler minivan's, and one horrific, craptastic, hateful Odyssey. I'll say this: do not underestimate the awesomeness of Stow N Go. Stowing the seats in 3 minutes to load 4X8 sheets of plywood is awesome enough, but just yesterday I was running around and had to leave the van in a parking lot for a few hours. I had a computer and a tablet I didn't want to leave out in plain sight. 7 seconds later they were both stowed in the huge cubby that is used for the middle stow and go seats. 

So to wrap this up and put a bow on it, the wife and I purchased a 2017 Pacifica with 93000 miles on it last night. It ticked all the right boxes for us, and we hope the 3.6 in it holds up over the miles and years to come. Thankfully it has recently received a new oil filter and cooler assembly, though I would ding the mechanic for significantly overfilling the oil.🤨

Too late, but for the next guy:

stow and go is amazing.

I had a Caravan which was good. I got rid of it on here after experiencing enough random no-starts to make Tunawife nervous. This was way over 100K, and the engine was always fine. The buyer replaced the alternator on the way home (it failed, I was really upset), and it has been solid ever since I believe. I did have to replace the torque converter, which I did in my driveway.

I have a Pacifica. It's a nicer safer place to sit. The suspension clunked a lot until we got them to check everything. Apparently a few bolts were not screwed down properly. We also had trouble with a valvebody which they replaced under warranty. It's now at 115K and no issues with the engine other than a light telling me I don't have start/stop, and I still don't know why.

In both cases the Pentastar was fantastic. It makes more power than it needs, doesn't use oil, doesn't leak, and has possibly the best oil change ever. They mount the cartidge filter upright, so you change the filter from the top - no mess. I usually end up with around 10K oil changes.

In reply to tuna55 :

Does yours have bench seat in the middle? Mine has stow and go with the two buckets in the middle, but as I found out, the bench seat 2nd row models do not.

It does feel like a nicer place to sit than the Caravans I drove. Mine is an early '17 model, so it does not have the start stop (thank God!). In researching the models, I came to understand that the start stop models have two batteries, one main and one small one just for the start stop. Check your secondary battery, it might be weak, causing your light.

Yeah, it's looking like oil changes will be so much less of a chore! I was even able to extract the quart and a half extra they put in it through the dip stick tube with an old school suction gun. Got it to just above the top dot before it wouldn't pick up any more.

I got involved with a 2015 Jeep Wrangler with 3.6L Pentastar.      Only about 40K miles.    Rattling.  Three other shops said it was a failed oil pump.  But, the kid keeps driving it.   I'm thinking its the lifter/cam issue.  I've never seen a failed oil pump allow the engine to go on for 100s of miles.   At the point he had gotten to it looked like a replacement engine was the only cure.  The whole scene was so sketchy that i sent him on his way.  No money, up-side down on the loan.  Sad story.

On the other hand.  We had a '08 Town and Country, and when over 125K miles without any hassles.  

Is this the same 3.6 they used in the Durango? My parents' 2017 Durango had a tricky misfire that was eventually found to be the cam/lifter failure on the left bank. They had it replaced. About a year later, the same issue popped up. It was the same problem on the other bank. They just finished having it replaced, probably about $6,000 in repairs total. They've had it for about 50,000 miles, good maintenance the whole time. So there's one anecdata point for anyone reading this.

In reply to TheRyGuy :

Buckets in the middle. I do not know why anyone would order a bench there, as it makes the interior as useless as a three row SUV, and you lose stow n go. We bought ours new, so we talked about that with the dealer.

We already tried replacing the smaller battery, no dice.

In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :

Yup, it sure is the same engine. You'd think FCA would've solved it by then.

In a little bit of Internet reading, I'm finding that on cold start up the 3.6 has a tendency to rattle, because the cartridge oil filter mounted up between the cylinder banks, does not have an anti drain back valve, so it takes a few seconds to build oil pressure, especially in the valve train. Just speculation of course. I also have discovered an aftermarket oil filter mount, that takes a spin on filter with an anti-drainback valve. 

My thoughts are that, it is possible to have valve train issues, but it's not a foregone conclusion that you will. So I payed my money's and takes my chances on this van.

In reply to TheRyGuy :

The oil filter housing is designed to drain the oil filter when you loosen the cap.  This prevents a mess.

A spin on filter would make oil changes a messy nightmare.

Purple Frog said:

I got involved with a 2015 Jeep Wrangler with 3.6L Pentastar. 

In my somewhat limited and largely anecdotal experience, the 3.6 Pentastar seems mostly a problem when installed in Jeeps.  Really not sure why, but I know several Wranglers that have had 3.6s replaced and I know of zero minivans with that same engine that have had issues.