Costs for repairing a spun bearing, rebuild or shortblock?

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005, Corky Scott wrote:

> Got a friend with a 2002 Dodge grand carivan with a six cylinder
> engine and four wheel drive.

ALL wheel drive.

> It has 102,000 miles on it and they're mostly highway miles. Two days
> ago, the engine suddenly developed a loud banging. I ended up calling a
> friend who used to work in the bay beside me when I was a mechanic. He's
> a natural at it and immensely experienced.

Er...not as "immensely experienced" as you and he seem to think he is.
Read on.

> I asked him about the engine and his first question was "3.0?" I
> wasn't sure but I thought so. Bad news. He characterized that engine
> as "soft", meaning that it was prone to breaking and he wasn't
> surprised that the con rod bearing had let go. Many do he said. H

Both of you are several kinds of wrong.

The 3.0 was not available in the 2002 Chrysler minivans. The two V6s
available were the 3.3 and the 3.8. What's more, both of those engines are
extremely stout, and hard failures are not at all common. Further, the 3.0
was not prone to bottom-end problems. Early 3.0s pre-'94 were prone to
*TOP* end problems (valvetrain- and crankcase-ventillation related
issues), but neither early nor late 3.0s were prone to bearing troubles.

> All in all, he did not think highly of the engine.

All in all, I do not think highly of his knowledge.

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 12:18:10 -0400, "Daniel J. Stern"
> wrote:

>On Mon, 11 Apr 2005, Corky Scott wrote:
>
>> Got a friend with a 2002 Dodge grand carivan with a six cylinder
>> engine and four wheel drive.
>
>ALL wheel drive.
>
>> It has 102,000 miles on it and they're mostly highway miles. Two days
>> ago, the engine suddenly developed a loud banging. I ended up calling a
>> friend who used to work in the bay beside me when I was a mechanic. He's
>> a natural at it and immensely experienced.
>
>Er...not as "immensely experienced" as you and he seem to think he is.
>Read on.
>
>> I asked him about the engine and his first question was "3.0?" I
>> wasn't sure but I thought so. Bad news. He characterized that engine
>> as "soft", meaning that it was prone to breaking and he wasn't
>> surprised that the con rod bearing had let go. Many do he said. H
>
>Both of you are several kinds of wrong.
>
>The 3.0 was not available in the 2002 Chrysler minivans. The two V6s
>available were the 3.3 and the 3.8. What's more, both of those engines are
>extremely stout, and hard failures are not at all common. Further, the 3.0
>was not prone to bottom-end problems. Early 3.0s pre-'94 were prone to
>*TOP* end problems (valvetrain- and crankcase-ventillation related
>issues), but neither early nor late 3.0s were prone to bearing troubles.
>
>> All in all, he did not think highly of the engine.
>
>All in all, I do not think highly of his knowledge.

Scary - but I have to agree with Mr Stern on this one. The Mitsu****ty
3.0 had an almost bulletproof bottom end, capped off by a pair of
"timb-bomb" heads. Wasn't a question of if they'd fail, but when.But
you always knew what the failure modes would be - dropped guides on
the first generation, and worn out guides on the second.

About the only way to do in the bottom end ov either of these 3
engines is to neglect the lubrication system - like run it out of oil
- or never change it.

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 12:18:10 -0400, "Daniel J. Stern"
> wrote:

>The 3.0 was not available in the 2002 Chrysler minivans. The two V6s
>available were the 3.3 and the 3.8. What's more, both of those engines are
>extremely stout, and hard failures are not at all common. Further, the 3.0
>was not prone to bottom-end problems. Early 3.0s pre-'94 were prone to
>*TOP* end problems (valvetrain- and crankcase-ventillation related
>issues), but neither early nor late 3.0s were prone to bearing troubles.
>
>> All in all, he did not think highly of the engine.
>
>All in all, I do not think highly of his knowledge.

Turns out you are correct, but my friend was not wrong, I'll explain:
I called him and gave him the information but at the time I called, I
did not know what model of Chrysler minivan my supervisor had. Given
that we were talking about a spun bearing, he simply assumed it was a
3.0 because he'd seen so many of them go bad.

When I found out a day later that we were talking about the Grand
Caravan, he was REALLY surprised because he said it would have either
the 3.3 or 3.8 and neither was a weak engine, he had one himself and
thought very highly of it. He really had not heard much bad about the
engine and as I mentioned, was surprised that it had a spun bearing.

The car is at a Chrysler shop right now (they confirmed the con rod
bearing was shot) and they quoted about $4,200 for a shortblock
replacement, complete back in the car running. My mechanic friend
quoted about $5,300 for a long block, in the car running.

A lot of money regardless which way he goes.

Sorry about the misdirection at first.

Corky Scott

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 23:20:46 -0400,
wrote:

>The Mitsu****ty
>3.0 had an almost bulletproof bottom end, capped off by a pair of
>"timb-bomb" heads. Wasn't a question of if they'd fail, but when.But
>you always knew what the failure modes would be - dropped guides on
>the first generation, and worn out guides on the second.

Yes, that's actually what he told me. He called it the "valve guide
syndrome". But he liked the 3.3 and the 3.8. He called them really
good engines and was surprised to learn that it was one of them that
had gone bad.

Further information, I asked my supervisor where he changed his oil,
he said "JiffyLube", mostly.

My mechanic friend mentioned that JiffyLube uses a relatively cheap
grade of oil and he doesn't trust it.

Corky Scott

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Corky Scott wrote:

> When I found out a day later that we were talking about the Grand
> Caravan, he was REALLY surprised because he said it would have either
> the 3.3 or 3.8 and neither was a weak engine, he had one himself and
> thought very highly of it. He really had not heard much bad about the
> engine and as I mentioned, was surprised that it had a spun bearing.
>
> The car is at a Chrysler shop right now (they confirmed the con rod
> bearing was shot) and they quoted about $4,200 for a shortblock
> replacement, complete back in the car running. My mechanic friend
> quoted about $5,300 for a long block, in the car running.

www.car-part.com , searchable used auto parts nationwide.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 11:29:08 -0400, Corky Scott
> wrote:

>On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 23:20:46 -0400,
>wrote:
>
>>The Mitsu****ty
>>3.0 had an almost bulletproof bottom end, capped off by a pair of
>>"timb-bomb" heads. Wasn't a question of if they'd fail, but when.But
>>you always knew what the failure modes would be - dropped guides on
>>the first generation, and worn out guides on the second.
>
>Yes, that's actually what he told me. He called it the "valve guide
>syndrome". But he liked the 3.3 and the 3.8. He called them really
>good engines and was surprised to learn that it was one of them that
>had gone bad.
>
>Further information, I asked my supervisor where he changed his oil,
>he said "JiffyLube", mostly.
>
>My mechanic friend mentioned that JiffyLube uses a relatively cheap
>grade of oil and he doesn't trust it.
>
>Corky Scott
And no guarantee the oil got in in the first place, or stayed in. I've
had customer who had oil changed on Tercel back in the 80s at JL. Came
into our shop smoking badly with a toasted manual trans' JL had
drained the trans/diff and overfilled the crankcase.
Another one came into our shop with no oil pressure - and no oil (or
drain plug) less than 2 miles after leaving JL. The drain plug had
been stripped and fell out.
Another one had not had any oil put in, JL started it to check for
leaks and when the oil light didn't go out they gunned it. THEN they
put oil in - and a week later we got it with a spun bearing.

And all those were from ONE Jiffy Lube, on one model, in a period of
less than 2 months.