Watch Idle Hours & Change Oil every 3k Miles to Avoid Engine Failure!!

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HEMIMANN

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As stated, the lifter / cam failure rate is around 5-10% of all Hemi engines, according to Chrysler Technicians in this Forum, so those members posting they had no issues so all is well isn't helpful to the issues at hand as per this OP.
 

Snoopy

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Thats crazy of any manufacture ! You should be able to idle any engine without it being starved for oil. I just replaced my 2012 Ram 5.7 hemi due to same lifter/camshaft failure. The engines design is flawed thats why its being starved for oil. This is my first Ram hemi and my last .
 

Remington15

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What did they change to the 6.4 after 2018??? I have a 2022,
 

kurek

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I agree that any engine should be basically able to idle for all of eternity, it's under the least load, producing the least heat...

But also it's probably worth mentioning that the way we use cars has changed a bit over time. Remote starts weren't as common a decade ago, delivery gigs weren't a thing ten years ago, real good chance that we're doing more idling when we make fast food runs these last couple years with indoor dining closed or reduced depending when and where you are.. nobody was trying to market 20,000 mile engine oil ten years ago either. So the operating conditions to which a machine is built today might not be the same as 10 or 20 years ago. The modern Hemi is... something like 19 or 20 years old now right?

I don't think my Ram's seen more than 7000 miles on its oil and usually I get that taken care of before 6k. Way before the indicator says but oil's cheaper than payments. So far so good on my end :favorites13:
 

Snoopy

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I never go by any indicators. Every 7500 i dump oil and filter. Synthetic says good for 10k easy but I always do it at 7500.
 

Marmay

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Thats crazy of any manufacture ! You should be able to idle any engine without it being starved for oil. I just replaced my 2012 Ram 5.7 hemi due to same lifter/camshaft failure. The engines design is flawed thats why its being starved for oil. This is my first Ram hemi and my last .
Strongly agree, this is a bad design engine,and worst the philosophy of the FCA follow the procedure, change the oil accordingly to the orange light minder,this in fact is a false info made by FCA,no FCA technicians will tell you different, what a BS company
 

JerryETX

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If you own 2014-2018 heavy duty with 6.4 Hemi; do yourself a favor and try to never idle engine and change oil every 3k miles or earlier. If you can’t do those 2 things, get rid of truck now!

Just went 2 months without a truck due to engine failure and $9,000 later(for rebuilt) due to having to go to more than one shop for fix. Parts are scarce and marked up. Hard to find new 6.4 engines anywhere for Ram Trucks. Most places won’t warranty 3rd party engines. If you know how to work on engine yourself, you’ll spend half of what I spent.

My truck only has 105k miles (+\- 900 idle hours and 3,500 drive hours). Camshaft was completely destroyed, it clogged oil pump and starved engine of oil. I changed oil whenever truck oil notification went off (I learned my lesson not to trust it). Always used recommended pennzoil and never drove with engine light on or went cheap with replacement parts for engine. If you have an engine tick that doesn’t go away after truck is warmed up, get truck fixed immediately before it gets worse or trade in for another one. Seriously! I’m out a total $19,000 total since owning my truck with repairs. Tranny destroyed itself at 85k miles. Water pump at 90k miles, coil packs and spark plugs at 95k miles, ball joints at 104k miles, etc.
Man hate to hear this! This is why I spent $2500 on an extended warranty when I bought my 2016. I'm covered for 6 years or 120K miles. Peace of mind alone is worth it for me.
 

2012RAM1500RT

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I've got 2 2012 5.7 Hemi engines, one with 141,000 miles and one with 220,000 miles with no issues so far but I can tell you I won't be the least bit happy about having to spend $8000 to $9000 on any engine of mine either. I don't consider under 300,000 miles high miles.
 

HEMIMANN

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It's the way it is. Further ranting just gets your blood pressure up. Stellantis, or whoever they are now, isn't changing any more stuff. They tried a new lifter vendor in 2017. Never heard any outcomes. By that point, they were just trying to get their engine replacement costs down. They f'd up the Gen III design from the get go, then threw bandaid attempts at it over the years. I believe it'd require a fundamental re-design of the oilflow from the heads to the lifter rollers.

As I've said, volume manufacturers strive for 6 sigma levels of standard deviation defects. That's something like 1 failure in 1,000,000 (million) products. Technicians in this Forum estimate they see Hemi engine failure from cam wiping app. 5-10% of all Hemi engines they sold. This is 50,000 to 100,000 failed engines per 1 million built. This is why it is not a "trivial" quantity. Yet, the Forum has had success in repressing failure with the proper lubrication strategy.

Reports from other Forums are GM is losing lifters in their 5.3 and 6.2 V8 engines as well. So maybe it's a cheap Chinese roller bearing assembly that can't tolerate borderline lubrication? One of the failures checked on this forum showed the lifter roller hardness was still very high, yet the roller stuck.
 

DILLIGAF

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Its a super easy fix thats been posted numerous times.

- Get HP Tuners and Bump your idle to 750-800 RPM and disable MDS. or Get a Custom tune.
- Use Redline or PUP with RP filter.
- Install Hellcat lifters with an aftermarket cam.
 

2020PW

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Our state DOH runs 5.7 and 6.4 Hemi’s. They are not easy on them, don’t do the recommended maintenance and have high idle times. A lot of federal and state agencies run the Hemi, if it was such a widespread problem do you think they would use them?

You roll the dice on any vehicle you purchase.

Its a super easy fix thats been posted numerous times.

- Get HP Tuners and Bump your idle to 750-800 RPM and disable MDS. or Get a Custom tune.
- Use Redline or PUP with RP filter.
- Install Hellcat lifters with an aftermarket cam.
Well two of them is easy.
 

Willie Mosher

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Sorry I think 6.4 gas motor is pretty good engine, yes Excessive idling with the lifters has known problem,
But for most people who pay for they
Owen gasoline, it not a problem.
Most people can drive one I think
250k before any major repair
W/right oil ever 5000 to 7500 miles oil change
 
OP
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C

Coming in Hof

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I’m definitely going to look into the HPTuners to have idle RPMs a little higher. After reading some of the responses I’m thinking other factors possibly contributed to my bad luck. Like living in Southern California where traffic sucks and climate is warmer than most parts, lifting my truck 6 inches with larger tires, and my truck being a 2014 the first model year the 6.4 was put into a Ram truck. Besides the tuner, more frequent oil/ fluid changes are the only changes I do for better luck with the rebuilt motor and transmission. Only time will tell.
 

Jeepwalker

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Can cyl deactivation be turned off with AlfaOBD?
 

wgreggking

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2017 6.4 88,400 miles, 145 idle hrs, drive hour reset itself as others have said here. About at 30-40K went from PUP to RL oil, always with a RP filter, at 5K to 6K intervals. Last blackstone was 79K all good.
Many of the 6.4s that I hear at idle are certainly "noisy" as is mine.
I try to keep all the trucks Ive owned over 200 K, most made it but not all.
 

HEMIMANN

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No, you need a real tuner for that.

Unless you don't want to pay for tune just for that, you can shut off MDS by using the manual gear selector. Every time after engine start.
 

2012RAM1500RT

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Keep in mind there are other things you can get rid of with a tune also like the speed limiter, adjust your RPM's higher and get Hemifever to give you an 87 octane tune. I did those to mine and now I can pass grandma's car that will run over 105 MPH!
 

Marmay

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Keep in mind there are other things you can get rid of with a tune also like the speed limiter, adjust your RPM's higher and get Hemifever to give you an 87 octane tune. I did those to mine and now I can pass grandma's car that will run over 105 MPH!
Yes ,that was a surprise for me,the RPM blockade,no more then 4000 wow
 
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