I’m not sure if we had 5k miles on it before I was introduced to the well known leaking oil cooler problem.

I ordered a replacement kit and swapped it out. The kit came with new sensors.

One of the sensors was bad.

Took it apart a second time to access the sensors on the back of the cooler and re-installled one of the original sensors. Memory escapes me on which of the two was bad.

The next year with the Jeep was trouble free. Here’s archery season earlier this year.

 

Maybe within two weeks of returning from the hunting season the engine had a catastrophic failure without warning.

The vehicle was sitting in the garage for around 24hours and the wife went to run an errand. I was in the kitchen and heard it start cranking. Sounded normal for maybe two rpm, some sort of clunk, and then it was noticeably different and wrong. I was convinced it was a timing chain issue by what I’d heard. Stuck my head out into the garage and told her ”that isn’t going to run for a LONG time.”

Spent the rest of that day tearing the intake and valve covers off. The chains were fine and I was confused so I did a compression and leak down test. Might have made sense to start there first. All six cylinders ranged between 50-90psi at the MOST. Leak down was all out the valves.

Now I did the research and learned about the 10yr 150k mile extended warranty on these engines and reached out to the local dealer.

 

The local dealer runs the VIN and agrees the vehicle has the extended warranty and they would look at it. I buttoned it up for transport and had it towed

Dealer confirmed my findings and discovered a missing cam follower on the passenger side. Valve was dropped and bent.

 

Dealer said they could warranty the driver side with bad compression and leaking valves but the passenger side would be on my dime. I was quoted $6500 and that was with the driver side under warranty. Who am I to say how they should run a business but it felt like, while the driver side might have been “warranty”, they were making up for it on the passenger side.

These days I expect vehicles to go 250k miles without serious repairs like this and I’m sitting at 121k on this one. I told the dealer that I may as well do a crate motor at that price and they asked to quote it. That one came back at $7600 including a 100k 3yr warranty. That option was tempting but I had the time and wasn’t eager to part with that much money.

So I winched it on a U-Haul and hauled it back home behind my ‘06 Dodge Ram 2500

 

Sorry for your troubles... it blows me away how the Pentastar is on Ward’s long-running Ten Best Engines list. How much did Ward's get paid under the table for such an unworthy award?

Pentastar back on Ward’s Best Engines

One of the most reputable Top Ten lists is Ward’s long-running Ten Best Engines inventory; and one engine that’s had more than the normal share of appearances on that list is Chrysler’s own 3.6 liter Pentastar V6. The Pentastar was started under Daimler, continued under Cerberus, and launched...

www.allpar.com

 

I used car-part.com to find a salvage engine. The websites show ‘12-‘13 engines as a match but I wasn’t going to put that series back in. Couldn’t figure out what changed on the ‘14-‘17 engine but the transmission part number was a match from ‘12-‘17 so I was determined to make a newer engine work.

I took a little gamble on a ‘17 engine with 39k miles. Salvage yard said it was in a front end collision. And then while on the transporter to get fixed, the transporter rolled and finished off the vehicle. Maybe it’s cursed.

the engine had damage on the back of the passenger valve cover and a hole on the driver side of the upper oil pan. Reaves Auto Salvage in Missouri had it and after talking with Brian Reaves on the phone, I felt he was giving me the straight story. Said they removed the pan for visual inspection and did a compression test.

engine including shipping for $2300

 

Couldn’t figure out what changed on the ‘14-‘17 engine but the transmission part number was a match from ‘12-‘17 so I was determined to make a newer engine work.

Two things I'm aware of is the oil filter housing in 2014 and the PCM if I recall correctly. I think FCA locked the PCM in 2015. See Diablosport website.

"Warning—2015-2017 Jeep vehicles require a DiabloSport modified PCM be installed prior to tuning.

DiabloSport Predator 2

The legendary Predator Performance Tuner has made a return! For 10 years, the Predator was known as one of the most rock solid performance tuners ever made, and now it is back with a vengeance! The Predator II performance tuner continues where its predecessor left off by giving users tremendous...

www.diablosport.com

 

Before the engine arrived, I had some help pulling the old one

coming out

 

Swapping out the oil pan from the ‘12 to the ‘17 because of the accident damage. It appears that certain front end collisions may shift the axle and driveshaft into the upper oil pan on the driver side. Didn’t find anything in the pan that didn’t belong on the ‘17. Found some metal parts in the ‘12 but never could account for the missing cam follower.

Also changed rear main seal. Flex plate from the ‘12 looked to be better than the ‘17 so I swapped that as well. The ‘17 didn’t come with motor mounts so those got moved over from the ‘12

 

Any issues getting the engine out of jeep?

 

removal went pretty smooth.

 

They quoted you $6500 to replace both cylinder heads? Cylinder heads are less than $1000 combined after core charge.

 

yep.

And it was already tore down to the heads.

kinda bitter about that. Just not sure if it was the local dealer or Chrysler corporate trying to screw me there.

 

Went with a dorman aluminum oil cooler housing on the ‘17

side by side

installed

 

Went with a dorman aluminum oil cooler housing on the ‘17

side by side
View attachment 4530342

installed
View attachment 4530341

Just did mine also. Dorman seems to have gotten it right with that beautiful hunk of aluminum. Now all I have to do is carry a spare set of emergency seals in my Jeep's Backcountry kit instead of worrying about a whole housing. 👍🏻👍🏻😎

 

And going back in. The angle shown in photo was too flat, I had to reposition and drop the rear of the motor more to get it to go. I also replaced the front transmission seal while it was apart.

and once it was all back together I had a P0152 oxygen sensor code to sort out. Looks like the wire shielding had got brittle and cracked off the sensor wires on the engine side of the harness. Three of the four wires were bare and shorting out on each other.

 

I'm surprised you didn't remove the radiator to get some extra clearance.

Like @m998dna said, Oil cooler changed in 14 and they locked the PCM in 15 are the only changes.

Pretty sure it's the local dealer trying to take you for a spin. Corporate doesn't make any money from repairs besides selling the parts. Now the extended warranty was only for the warped head so maybe that was full price for both sides, but that was still more than I would expect. All the rocker arm threads I've seen, this is the first I've seen where the arm straight up fell out of place and if that happened, who knows what damage it may have caused or had already happened to make it fall out. Replacement probably was the better choice.

 

I'm surprised you didn't remove the radiator to get some extra clearance.

Like @m998dna said, Oil cooler changed in 14 and they locked the PCM in 15 are the only changes.

Pretty sure it's the local dealer trying to take you for a spin. Corporate doesn't make any money from repairs besides selling the parts. Now the extended warranty was only for the warped head so maybe that was full price for both sides, but that was still more than I would expect. All the rocker arm threads I've seen, this is the first I've seen where the arm straight up fell out of place and if that happened, who knows what damage it may have caused or had already happened to make it fall out. Replacement probably was the better choice.

hi, thanks for the thoughtful reply. Yes, the dealer said the driver side was covered and the estimate showed zero for that head. But I agree, I think they were taking me for a ride and I have no good words or feelings to share on that matter.

have driven it for a week now. Scanner shows all systems checked out. Running well and praying this ‘17 isn’t plagued with the same problems going forward.

 

Now....drop that motor off at a dealer and have them fix the driver side head under warranty. Lol

 

I like how you think!

 

Nice work doing it yourself. 👍🏻👍🏻😎 Honestly, the peace of mind I get from doing most work myself is hard to measure monetarily. It's really hard to find good mechanics these days.

 

Great job, always good feeling when you do it yourself. Id never pay someone to work on my vehicles either!

 

Was it literally just plug and play on the new engine? I've been fighting my 2012 for a year now and there is a 2016 engine on local FB for cheap.

 

yep

 

Did the 2017 have an egr or is that for 2018+?

 

The 2017 and 2018 as far as I know are exactly the same.

 

Sorry to revive this. I'm in a very similar situation with my 2012. Looking for a newer 17-18 donor replacement engine. My question is... did you use your 2012 ecm or the newer ecm? I'm hoping I can retain my 2012 ecm since it doesn't require an unlocking.. Thank you!

 

Yes you would use your current ECM

 

Found a 2018 JK engine with 58k. Hoping I have the same experience with install. Tried to find the newest I could. The shop I bought it from was saying there is a knock sensor on the head the is different from the 2012. I wonder if he's confused with the JLs.

 

Some 17s and 18s had a different oil pressure sensor. I found this out because I just replaced the engine in my 2017 with another from 2017 and the harness for the oil pressure sensor wouldn't plug in. I pulled it off and compared it to my old one and they had different PNs. I just used my old one, but the PN just showed select trims for 2017 and 2018.

 

Thanks for the heads up. Hoping that's all I'll run in to.

 

I believe the grand cherokees started using the PUG version of the engine in 16 which won't work