'99 GC Engine Explodes ... information needed

Could have sucked a valve.... but thats a very rare occurance in a vehicle that's driven 'normally'. Two sucked valves .....nah.

Its pretty rare for such a catastrophic failure (TWO pistons) to occur and NOT have 'some' prior warning. "Judgment for the plaintiff ..... FIVE PERCENT of CLAIM, failed to take reasonable/prudent action to prevent on-going total damage".

Paul, for your own sake, ERASE/DELETE your original message to this NG. How much service or recourse from DC do you expect, now that you've announced to the world that you're "building a case". Honey gets more flys than vinegar.

L.W.(ßill) Hughes III wrote:

All sorts of things. Cracked gasket burning coolant and eroding piston, cracked exhaust manifold or intake leak causing lean burn. Or as Bill says, lots of pinging caused by using low octane fuel.

Not sure about the 99 4.0 I6 being a one-year run. They did make changes to the engine but afaik the block and head are the same from the 93 I6.

You can get rebuilt 4.0 and even 4.7 strokers from several engine shops. And probably at a substantial savings to stealership costs. (sorry, don't have the link right with me) With that much damage your looking at a full rebuild anyway, who knows what damage got caused when the metal started flying.

Wow, that engine is a normally an indestructable one...

We have almost 300K km on ours and when it is down a liter of oil, we are over the mileage tag for an oil change....

Just happened yesterday, it was down a liter so I asked my wife the km's and it has been 6000+ km since the last change.

Sorry I can't help your cause, I have been on this group for a lot of years and your problem is a brand new one, not at all common or even ever happening to anyone that has posted here as far as I can remember....

Mike

paul castle wrote:

You're not going to find many, if any, 4.0L engine owners (I've owned three of them) that will say it's anything but a good solid reliable engine. I don't know why yours blew but it's anything but common. The most common adjective used to describe that particular engine is "bulletproof".

Jerry

Your thinking something does not make it fact.

Also highly incorrect. The 4.0L engine was introduced in 1987, and is based on a design that dates from the 1960's.

How much more do you want? A 'short block and head' is called a long block.

Your repair shop is clueless, then.

It's a proven design with no durability issues.

They tend to leak oil at the valve cover, rear main seal, and cylinder head gasket.

They break up and rattle.

Bad luck. I saw a Toyota engine that put a rod through the block around 50k miles. It was full of clean oil, and was owned by the proverbial little old lady. It was well out of the time warranty, but only a few thousand miles over the mileage warranty. Toyota fixed it.

Yes.

No. Unusual, but hardly unprecedented.

Yes. You will not force DC to exceed their warranty. Remember, you have doubled the mileage originally warrantied by the factory.

Sugar in the gas tank?

Anyway, s> Dear Friends,

A very common, typically bulletproof engine, with quirks that are well known to any shop that knows jeeps.

First you need to check your owners manual for how to get warranty service. Then you can also check the California Bureau of Automotive Repair for essentially the same information from a slightly different perspective.

Which jeep dealer in San Jose? There are only a few.

That isn't the Chrysler warranty period for that vehicle, particularly for the drivetrain which is 7/70.

Unless the dealer has some reason to suspect that this was due to an externally induced fault and not a defect of the engine...OR you are making the mistake of not dealing with an authorised repair facility and want Jeep to give warranty service without giving them a chance to inspect the damage and resolve the issue which becomes a bit trickier to deal with.

Note that you do not have to take your jeep to the same dealer, but you can expect a bit of difficulty getting warranty service thru a non-warranty repair shop unless you have a third party warranty that provides for this.

Any qualified lawyer [without which you don't have a prayer] would have no problems at all gathering this information for you.

You can also gather anecdotal information with any search engine for yourself.

In your owners manual and on the chrysler website there are details as to what the manufacturer warranty provides and does not provide.

Nothing you gain here will be worth anything that you cant get on your own.

Whoever told you this is wrong, and worse, ignorantly wrong since this is information easily checked.

Ahhh, so you don't have your vehicle at a Jeep Dealer? And if that shop gave you the misinformation concerning warranty period and engine series, you may want to get your vehicle out of that shop immediately.

Without seeing the piston, hard to say. Prolonged pinging can take one out rapidly. The ones I've seen like this tended to have a somewhat melted look.

Demand warranty service from an authorised dealer. Which could get sticky since you've already had the engine taken apart by a non-authorized service place and thus given the dealer possible legal grounds to tell you to pound sand.

He can't delete it, as it is included intact in followups which he can't delete.

RichH wrote:

Cats last until you smash 'em, or until you can't pass smog unless you change them. Sometimes they barely last 70,000 miles, sometimes they last twice that.

Robert Bills KG6LMV Orange County CA

I so love living in an area that I don't have to bribe my way through that damn state inspection anymore! Maybe there is a good point to living in this mosquito-swamp after all.

linseed oil works better.