Fuel injectors fail open or closed?

[Number1DAW]

My truck is in the shop and we will get to that in a moment. I feel like the dealer is being pretty shady. I'm an electrician who works on marine outboards currently and the previous three years worked on marine diesels. I'm not always able to pinpoint an issue but I'm usually able to call BS.

I need to know if the injectors on a 2015 5.7 hemi are open or closed when they have no power. I'm very certain all injectors only open when powered by the pcm but you never know when some engineer decides to throw a NO in the mix.

Here's the issue. I guess during the hurricane last week a squirrel decided to make my engine bay it's home and completely chewed the wires from the harness to two of the injectors on the driver's side bank, as in there are no wires left going to the injector clips. This obviously isn't covered under warranty which sucks, but whatever, I'm fine paying for. They spliced in new injector clips and now they have told me that they believe there is fuel in the oil. (my first thought is did they run a viscosity test or check with a vis gauge? Probably not because they probably don't even know what that is and they don't know what oil I use to have a comparison.) I asked what evidence there was and if the work would be covered under my warranty. The service specialist said that she would have to call tomorrow with the tech to explain the evidence but the work would not be covered because the rodent chewing the wires would have caused the injectors to dump fuel into the cylinders.

My thoughts are:
1) the vehicle was off when the wires were chewed up so there's no way they could have been stuck in the open position for an extended period of time dumping fuel into the cylinder.
2) when I tried starting the truck since there was no connection powering the injector, it would have remained closed and not dumped fuel.
3) even if it did dump fuel, that fuel would have been evacuated on the exhaust stroke and the only way it could have gotten in the oil is if the piston rings failed.

Definitely need to know if I'm just completely wrong about how injectors work, and I'm also thinking I need to get my truck towed to another shop and lawyer up on these people.

 

[indept]

Sounds like complete bull to me. The only way fuel got dumped from the injector is if the squirrel was sitting on the positive battery post while chewing the injector wires...

 

[BWL]

Injectors are normally closed, but when dirty they have been known to stick open. Also possible the chewed wires caused them to pump fuel if exposed wires were crossed and it's not like the rings form a 100% seal. Are they asking for more than just an oil change to get the contaminated oil out ?

 

[Ribtipram]

Insurance claim? Could go under comprehensive

 

[RedSRT4Me]

Its impossible to "dump" fuel with the vehicle off.

Ram trucks have a dead head or return less fuel system. There is usually a shraeder valve on the fuel rail or rails to depressurize the system. When doing so just take a shop rag and screwdriver to get the fuel out. It will come out at around 58 psi ish so wear eye protection!

Now the amount of fuel that would come out when depressurizing the system is the same amount that "could" have dumped into your cylinders.

That also tells us the injector stays shut when in the off position because the other 6 cylinders didn't "dump" fuel. Now that we know the fuel system will stay pressurized if driven consistently.

With that said if this squirrel did ground out the injector Where is the body???? Its not like squirrels carry screwdrivers to ground out our vehicles

Lastly if fuel is being dumped into your cylinder that means your ring lands are failing or you have a hole in your piston. Compression test??

PS have the oil changed regardless

 

[Joshua Collins]

All very valid point above including the OPs. 100% injectors are NC on the hemi and any engine i have personally worked on as you have to have power to fire the injector. Now with the statement above it would seem that if you have fuel in your oil you would have ring failure, washed a cylinder or holed a piston (not common on the hemi). Im supprised they did want to charge you for a compression test. Just for purely messing with the tech if they actually call i would ask what oil analysis he used that no dealership i have ever seen has on site. I believe you need to pick the truck up and take it else where as the dealership is really trying to pull one over on you to say the least. Good luck dealing with them im sure you will needed it.

 

[Number1DAW]

An update to this.

Finally got a call from there service rep with her tech to explain what happened.

After they replaced the injector clips they started the truck three times, it stalled every time, then on the fourth attempt they hydrolocked the engine. (genius)

They tell me then they changed my oil and pulled spark plugs. I told them that they did almost $400 of work that I did not authorize because I wanted to hear what their evidence of fuel in the oil was.

Silence for a solid minute.

They admitted they screwed up and that's on them, hopefully they honor that. Now they believe either the injector is stuck open or the PCM shorted out telling one of the injectors to stay open. We will see how this plays out

 

[RedSRT4Me]

Gasoline doesn't hydro lock a motor. Only water does that. It breaks pistons and bends rods.

 

[Tach_tech]

Gasoline doesn't hydro lock a motor. Only water does that. It breaks pistons and bends rods.

Any liquid can hydro lock an engine. It would take a fully stuck open injector to hydro lock an engine, and even then I doubt it would flow enough to actually do it. I’ve seen it in the race car world but that’s a little different.

As for the OP issue, as others have said, yes the injectors are normally closed. It could have been stuck open from debris or the chewed wiring may have shorted it open. As for fuel in the oil, if there’s enough of it, you can smell it, as well if the oil level is over full, that’s another indicator in this situation.

Seems like you’re not getting the full story though, which is pretty common, tech explains something to advisor then they try to explain it to you. Most the time the advisor doesn’t even know what they are explaining.