This is to everyone that figures the Cummin's is the most reliable engine.
My boss has an 2007 Dodge Cummin's, cant remember if its the 6.7 or the 5.9, but the truck doesnt even have 80k on it. Anyhow, he took the truck to the dealer to get looked at (Towed to dealer) and they found that a rod had gone completely through the block :rof. Truck had absolutely no mods done to it either.
Second is my dad's old company truck. Truck was an 2005 Dodge Cummin's 5.9 and the truck had 75k on it. One day it started blowing smoke and had no power and CEL was on. Towed it to the dealership and all six injectors had gone out
at the same time.
Truck was also completely stock since day one.
Third was a buddy of mine. 2004 Dodge 5.9 Cummin's. Truck had 100k on it, and was not stock by no means. Two chips (Not sure which ones), exhaust, CAI, and it was lifted and everything to. He was driving it home one day and the motor had locked up on him. This one had spun a rod bearing and i cant remember exact details of what happened. He ended up rebuilding it himself (.030 over-bore) with new injectors, bigger turbo, same chips and all that.:rockin
For everyone that figures the Cummin's is the most reliable engine out there, i completely beg to differ. Only engine i have seen to date that can handle the abuse (so far) is the DMax
The two issues dealing with rods and injectors can happen with any brand I don't care which it is, duramax, powerstroke, cummins. I'm curious also as to how the engines have been treated.
As for your buddy with the 04 that blew his engine? You say he had two chips? That's the likely culprit. I'm assuming he had a programmer and then had a chip stacked with it. I believe most of the programmers for the cummins increase rail pressure. And seeing as how most chips for it as well increase the rail pressure, it's pretty obvious that a blown engine will result seeing as how rail pressures can be well above 28k with stacking.
Each of the big 3 diesel engines have their batch of bad engines so we could literally sit here all day and exchange stories of how and why one is better than the other. I don't think cummins is the most reliable, but rather it's one of three competing diesel engines on the pickup market that is rather appealing to me. Parts are generally cheaper. Inline engine so it's naturally balanced. Two less cylinders than either powerstroke or duramax, yet the power ratings are comparable. The block is stiff as nails, having 7 main bearings. The stock bottom end in a 5.9 is easily capable of 4k rpms. It's a good idea however to get some aftermarket valve springs when trying to turn those high rpms with a cummins. The support base is there for cummins. Christ I can literally drive 40 miles from my house and there's four shops off the top of my head that are cummins distributors. One is the dodge dealer, one is a machine shop, and the other two are trucking shops. If it's on the engine, the trucking shops usually can get you better deals than the dealer or machine shop. Cummins is fairly easy to work on. Air enters through the turbo, flows through the intercooler, which then enters the intake manifold, etc. It's easy to follow air flow through the engine making it easier to diagnose air problems.
And to be fair about this I, in no way, know everything there is to know about anything lol. There is a lot for me to learn. Now with that said Lets talk about reliability here. I was having an electrical issue with the tach in cab on my 01 dodge. Almost the same day that issue started my oil pressure gauge stopped working. I figured it was electrical. Well long story short i really had lost oil pressure. And had been running that way for two weeks before the engine decided to spin a bearing. And when I mean no oil pressure, I mean it had no oil pressure due to there being less than two quarts in the pan. I'm baffled as to how the top end of the engine was even going.
Literally the only damage I did was chewing up number 6 rod bearing, while starting to score number 5. no damage whatsoever to the main caps, no scored cylinder walls. The damage was contained to just the crank and the back two rods. Don't sit there and tell me about reliability when I same as run a that cummins same as without oil for two weeks, start knocking, and find that damage was very little in my opinion. I just won't believe you
Of course it wouldn't have knocked if I wasn't being a dumbazz at the time.
Then lets sit and talk about what's wrong with the engine. The fact that it gets power to the ground with a transmission that is basically a carryover from the gassers. An inline design isn't really conservative on space, it's long, so it is definitely more challenging to fit. The engine itself fully dressed is approximately 1150 pounds, so one will see issues with the front end more so than the duramax. Then the engine is enclosed around a body that isn't high end by any means. And let's not forget that the ecm coding is copyright protected so the "efi live" tuning in the cummins world won't happen anytime soon so we're limited to canned tunes. Unless on the newer common rail cummins one has the cash to drop on a stand alone ecm which are just coming to market, then we finally get full control of the engine. Still not nearly as affordable as efi live.
I don't mind any of the things that are considered "wrong" by some. I figure it's the nature of the beast, and thus grow to like it even more lol.
Oh and I must poke some fun at your boss because I don't think many people like their bosses no matter what their particular job is. Lets assume that the tale is true of the rod going through the block. The huge oil puddle resulting wasn't an indication? I'm quite the doofus but I've seen a rod come out of a block. Oil gushes everywhere, almost like water. I'm willing to bet though since you said your bosses pickup I'm assuming it to be the company pickup, in which case I can fully understand why something like that could happen. Nobody ever takes care of the company pickup. Gets even worse when it's a pickup that the employees like.
Well posting this was quite fun. I killed some time. yeehaw
