Engine 5.7 hemi problem camshaft

[RAMKevin85]

@Kap1

The shop is one I have worked with a few times before. Small town business, so there aren't many online reviews. My wife went to high school with the owner. They've been good to me in the past and I trust him. He said that they do several engine swaps, which is why he's able to get good pricing.
I'll make sure to get the terms and the paperwork on it.

The company I have the power train warranty with is Auto Advance. Claims process wasn't too bad, so far. They wanted oil change records and a visual inspection of the failure by their agent. My fear is the coverage, because they said they will shop used engines with the same or less miles to determine a value for the claim. Once they get a value, they will send a check that I can apply to the repair.

A junkyard motor with high miles will never equal the crate motor, but it's something. I'm just hoping that I get more than I paid for the policy back. The max amount would be great, but it could easily be less.

 

[Silver Goose]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I do have a question.

I remember several years ago Mercedes had a bad batch of camshafts, poor heat treating was the end result.

Has anyone reviewed the camshaft specs? Has anyone presented this to MoPar? It is hard to tell how widespread this problem is as this forum is a small sample, but from what I have read the problem appears very often.

I suggest having a camshaft tested as to the heat treat on each lobe, be it new or out of a used engine. The same test would apply to lifters.

Just an armchair quarterback's opinion.

 

[Burla]

When these hemi's crap out, kinda puts us in a box. Nobody is gonna pay **** for a ram truck body anymore. It's either eat the bullet and fix it, or take a bath. With the crate engines having a 3 year warranty and only being 6300 bucks, seams like the best option aside from making a go at swapping the cam yourself, which also can be done. Maybe you can order a crate engine with upgraded cam, as in quality metal, I dunno?

 

[Ramnewbie]

I was playing around awhile back looking at reman Hemi's. One of the company's I was looking at actually said their remans had updates to fix this problem or that. Can't remember what company it was and several of them won't tell you crap unless you put all you're info in like you really want to buy one.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

[Kap1]

@Kap1

The shop is one I have worked with a few times before. Small town business, so there aren't many online reviews. My wife went to high school with the owner. They've been good to me in the past and I trust him. He said that they do several engine swaps, which is why he's able to get good pricing.
I'll make sure to get the terms and the paperwork on it.

The company I have the power train warranty with is Auto Advance. Claims process wasn't too bad, so far. They wanted oil change records and a visual inspection of the failure by their agent. My fear is the coverage, because they said they will shop used engines with the same or less miles to determine a value for the claim. Once they get a value, they will send a check that I can apply to the repair.

A junkyard motor with high miles will never equal the crate motor, but it's something. I'm just hoping that I get more than I paid for the policy back. The max amount would be great, but it could easily be less.

That's good, hopefully they'll do a good job. That's interesting how this 3rd party warranty operates... They'll see how much a used motor cost to reimburse you on the repair .... No comment. Please keep us posted on this process.

I myself was scammed into buying 3rd party warranty at dealership, from Century warranty. I canceled it and got half back as I realized I'll be dealing with all sorts of bs bc it wasn't factory warranty. Was stupid of me to buy it...

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I do have a question.

I remember several years ago Mercedes had a bad batch of camshafts, poor heat treating was the end result.

Has anyone reviewed the camshaft specs? Has anyone presented this to MoPar? It is hard to tell how widespread this problem is as this forum is a small sample, but from what I have read the problem appears very often.

I suggest having a camshaft tested as to the heat treat on each lobe, be it new or out of a used engine. The same test would apply to lifters.

Just an armchair quarterback's opinion.

What you're suggesting requires getting a lawyer who'll be fighting this ... Much much more expensive than fixing the truck with a new engine, or probably buying a new truck

 

[Silver Goose]

From direct experience with my Mercedes, I can say that the fight was worth it. The cams were found to be soft and that the car had been serviced as required. I received a new car and a warranty that covered the car for as long as I owned it. Court fees were paid by MB. It was later found to be a worldwide problem. Sometimes it is worth kicking up some dust, but if it is no problem then I good with that.

larry

 

[huntergreen]

I was playing around awhile back looking at reman Hemi's. One of the company's I was looking at actually said their remans had updates to fix this problem or that. Can't remember what company it was and several of them won't tell you crap unless you put all you're info in like you really want to buy one.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

Sounds like Jasper.

 

[Garce421]

There is a guy on the other site who made a post in the 2011 can and lifter thread. He said he reached out to an attorney and they are looking for people to join in on a class action suit. Not sure how all that works but if you have been affected he’s looking.

 

[Wild one]

From direct experience with my Mercedes, I can say that the fight was worth it. The cams were found to be soft and that the car had been serviced as required. I received a new car and a warranty that covered the car for as long as I owned it. Court fees were paid by MB. It was later found to be a worldwide problem. Sometimes it is worth kicking up some dust, but if it is no problem then I good with that.

larry

GM had the same problem back in the mid to late 70's on the 350 and 305 smallblocks.The cams were soft ,but in those days there wasn't any internet for gathering info from other owners.I was in a high perf shop at the time,and I couldn't count the number of 268 Comp cams we stuck in mid to late 70's GM trucks.I had a coisin who was a shop manager at a GM dealer at that time,and he was throwing the same 268 Comp cam in the trucks they were doing under warrenty,i'm not sure how he was getting away with it,but as he used to tell me,"i'll be f k'ed if i'm putting the GM cam back in a customers vehicle",lol

 

[indept]

GM had the same problem back in the mid to late 70's on the 350 and 305 smallblocks.The cams were soft ,but in those days there wasn't any internet for gathering info from other owners.I was in a high perf shop at the time,and I couldn't count the number of 268 Comp cams we stuck in mid to late 70's GM trucks.I had a coisin who was a shop manager at a GM dealer at that time,and he was throwing the same 268 Comp cam in the trucks they were doing under warrenty,i'm not sure how he was getting away with it,but as he used to tell me,"i'll be f k'ed if i'm putting the GM cam back in a customers vehicle",lol

I did a lot of those cams long with the aluminum cam gear that had nylon on the gear teeth. That crap would crack off. I always replaced those with cast iron gears. At least on those engines you only had to pull the intake manifold to get to the lifters.

 

[RAMKevin85]

I did check with Jasper and they said their reman 5.7 engines include upgraded cams because of this problem. What they were replacing them with, they didn't say.

 

[RAMKevin85]

Update:

They completed the engine swap and will be starting it up and checking things out soon. I went in today and got a look at the cam. The lobe on #8 was chewed up really bad, and a lot of metal was in the pan. Makes me glad I went with the reman engine. If I would have just changed the cam, I would never trust that motor after seeing the shape of the cam when it came out.

Here are some pictures:





Still waiting on the inspector to check things out and decide what kind of money I will get back from warranty. Again, I'm not counting on much more that I paid for the policy. I should know more after the holiday.

I'll keep you guys posted.

 

[Theo2019]

^^^Just out of pure curiosity, not that this was an issue, but what oil were you using and what was your OCI?

 

[Silver Goose]

Jus

Update:

They completed the engine swap and will be starting it up and checking things out soon. I went in today and got a look at the cam. The lobe on #8 was chewed up really bad, and a lot of metal was in the pan. Makes me glad I went with the reman engine. If I would have just changed the cam, I would never trust that motor after seeing the shape of the cam when it came out.

Here are some pictures:

View attachment 147030
View attachment 147031
View attachment 147032

Still waiting on the inspector to check things out and decide what kind of money I will get back from warranty. Again, I'm not counting on much more that I paid for the policy. I should know more after the holiday.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Just a question from an old Engineer. I can see by the photo that the tappet followed the cam lobe to the bitter end. What does the tappet look like? Can a firm cause be assigned? Just because I was trained to look for the failure mode has any tests be ran on the camshaft, e.g., hardness?

 

[RAMKevin85]

^^^Just out of pure curiosity, not that this was an issue, but what oil were you using and what was your OCI?

I was using Valvoline 5W-20 Synthetic and OCI was between 6-7k. Filter I used was STP gold.

After this experience, I will be stepping up to mobile 1 synthetic or Royal Purple and a better filter.

 

[RAMKevin85]

Jus



Just a question from an old Engineer. I can see by the photo that the tappet followed the cam lobe to the bitter end. What does the tappet look like? Can a firm cause be assigned? Just because I was trained to look for the failure mode has any tests be ran on the camshaft, e.g., hardness?

The shop didn't remove the lifters, or do any hardness tests on the cam. I instructed them to only tear it down to failure and seeing the cam was enough for the inspector from the insurance company. After that, I wasn't interested in going further, because it would just be burning cash to satisfy curiosity.

I was also curious, but this event already burned a big enough hole in my pocket. The less hours the shop had to put in, the better.

 

[RAMKevin85]

Update:

The inspector got in for a look and the company came back with a payout value. They did cheap out (covering the value of a similar mileage engine out of a wreck), but with labor, it came out pretty close to the max payout. All said and done, I was out about $2,900 for the swap.
I am pretty happy, considering I would have only been able to get another $500 out of the warranty.

I've only put about 100 miles on the truck so far. Everything sounds and feels good. I will bring it back to the shop after another 900 miles to change the oil and let them check things out, just to make sure there no issues.

After a month (two weeks of which I have been traveling for work), I'm glad to have my truck back!

 

[Garce421]

So they gave you a used engine out of a wrecked truck, or money towards a new crate motor?

 

[RAMKevin85]

So they gave you a used engine out of a wrecked truck, or money towards a new crate motor?

Money towards a crate motor. They just used an engine that was out of a wreck with the same or less miles to assign a value to the engine, which is BS because the price seems to fluctuate on them a lot.

The motor that got put in was a remanufactured crate motor from Mopar with a 3 yr/ 100k warranty.

 

[MileHighRam11]

Currently got mine in the shop waiting for a new cam, lifters, and gasket. 4K for the job, but extended warranty covers it so I'll try and ride that wave for a while...

I'm not really surprised considering it already had 110k miles when I got it. Used vehicles will need something replaced, no matter the make or model.