Stellantis Won’t Admit

It started the first day I left the dealership 8years ago from up North. I was beyond excited to pick up my new 2017 Jeep Chief JKU and couldn’t wait to be part of the Jeep crew. I was going to be using this as my daily driver and would be putting some miles sitting in traffic.

About 3 months go by and I would notice radiator fluid smell in the garage and when I would head out somewhere, get out of the Jeep after I parked it and the smell was there. At first I thought it was just a Jeep thing as others have complained out there about the same thing. Didn’t think much of it.

A few months more go by and just under a year of having the Jeep it was getting stronger. I then started to look into issues it may have, so I took into the dealership. They would tell me, no DTC codes, all looks good no leaks. Should have realized they were full of dung.

As I started to add more things to the Jeep as we all do, after installing a K&N cold air intake, I noticed the smell was pretty strong but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I got under the jeep and by the transmission area I noticed radiator fluid and some oil. Like it’s been sprayed from the front of the engine towards the back but it wasn’t coming from the front part of the engine underneath.

I picked up a USB-C snake camera you can hook up to your phone or iPad and started to check in my upper intake area behind the Oil filter location and low and behold there it was a ton of radiator fluid and some oil in the cavity area under the upper intake.

I took it back to the dealership and showed them my pictures and video and they said, yep the oil cooler on the Jeeps from the manufacture tend to go as the plastic gives around the bottom portion. Pretty pathetic on the design from Stellantis, they could have used an all-aluminum (which I installed later on, on my own down the road). Dealer did what they needed to do, but installed a plastic OEM style oil cooler.

Into the end of the 2nd year of having the Jeep, there it was the smell came back and guess what, it was the oil cooler, again. My reservoir tank by the way kept going low as well, another indicator. This time I ordered a Mishimoto all-alluminum cooler and installed it on my own. Not a 1, 2, 3 job as you have to take the upper and lower plenum out, while I was in there I replaced my spark plugs and ignition coils with superchip brand to match my already installed Traildash 2.

Issue was good to go for the next 3 years which now took me into almost 5 years of having the Jeep. At this point I have install lift kit, changed gears, etc. Guess what the smell started coming back but this time it wasn’t my oil cooler which left me scratching my head. No leaks were visible by the back of the transmission, etc. After using my Autel OBII scanner, it picked up a DTC code pointing to cylinder number 5 (last one on the passenger side). Great, now I has some issue with my spark plug or the ignition coil I installed sometime ago, so I thought.

I removed the upper plenum and made room to get to the back left spark plug and coil. Pulled the coil out, tested it’s continuity and I was all good there, I pulled the spark plug and nothing wrong with it as well. I also forgot to mention, I started having a sweet, small white smoke coming from my exhaust of about 60 seconds at each start up when the radiator smell was coming back. I took my snake camera, fed it down the spark plug and into the engine and guess what, there it was radiator fluid on my push rod. I knew I was screwed and had either a warped head or engine block. Period.

Took it to the dealership, showed them my pictures to avoid a day of them diagnosing, I had done it for them already. 2 days later, I receive a call from the service manager, hey Mario you are not going to like this by the engine is warped and you need a new one. I was like are you kidding me? I take care of this Jeep, etc. and it always had that radiator smell from the get go. I bit the bullet and had it replaced and they gave me a 4 yr warranty extended for that engine. Cost me 8k in total.

I came to find out as I dug out there and in speaking with other service managers from other Jeep dealerships, the particular engine I had was sand casted in Mexico and when they “clean” the sand out, they didn’t do a great job and left some in the block which later one will heat up and cause the warp. I should have known I wasn’t the only one with this issue when the service manager told me they had them in stock 3.6 and had done a few already.

Stellantis hides the fact that these particular engines that were sand casted in Mexico circa 2015-2017 are an issue.