fishinfart Posted November 21, 2020 Report Share Posted November 21, 2020 (edited) Wife was driving last night alone when she heard a strange noise from under the hood, within seconds it started skipping and by the time she found a safe place to pull over, the engine died as she came to a stop. The plastic tee that has the two main coolant hoses and the radiator cap attached broke and one of the radiator hoses completely separated from it. Of course that caused an immediate overheating that done major damage within seconds. She said it never read hot on the gauge and had no warning lights or bells. I attached a pic of the broken tee. I had it towed home this morning - it obviously had low compression when I tried to start, so I checked it - 15, 0, 0, and 30 psi. Engine is toast. I included pics of the spark plug boots where two of them had part of the plastic sleeve they fit in melted to them and all were cracked. That sucker got HOT. No evidence that the radiator cap ever released any coolant into the reservoir, as it is at the same level as it usually is and reservoir cap is intact. Appears as though the plastic tee just gave up the ghost under normal operating conditions and now I have a destroyed engine. I have no doubt the head is toast, but do you guys think there is a chance that the block and lower end may be salvageable? 2013 Journey SE, only 99k miles, well maintained, never had any real issues except heater hose tee cracked and I replaced both with brass tees several months ago.. Edited November 21, 2020 by fishinfart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larryl Posted November 21, 2020 Report Share Posted November 21, 2020 Time for a new junk yard engine . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John/Horace Posted November 21, 2020 Report Share Posted November 21, 2020 Yeah LKQ has pretty good inventory of stuff. Sucks, tough time of year for this kind of thing. My daughter in law has same engine, I’ll need to give some of the plastic cooling parts are real close look. Thanks for the info, very helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armando G Posted November 22, 2020 Report Share Posted November 22, 2020 5 hours ago, fishinfart said: but do you guys think there is a chance that the block and lower end may be salvageable? A chance, but slim. I had the same thing happen to a previous car and after a new head, a bit of reboring part of the block (I think that's what it was that they did), and replacing a few other parts that over heated, the car was good. It was that @ $3500 or a little over $6000 for a full engine replace... used at that. Sorry that happened to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishinfart Posted November 22, 2020 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2020 Thanks guys - I'll take a look at some used engines and weigh out the options. Might just sell it as a parts car - undecided for now. larryl 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2late4u Posted November 22, 2020 Report Share Posted November 22, 2020 was just checking lkq and found out the 3.6 engines are listed almost 1k cheaper than the 2.4 are, guess because their are more of them available Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agm2112 Posted December 2, 2020 Report Share Posted December 2, 2020 (edited) I almost killed my 3.6 with an oil cooler major leak. Hopefully I had an overheating chime and light. No damages. PS: Who created this plastic parts holding high pressure/temperature fluids ? Edited December 2, 2020 by agm2112 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2late4u Posted December 2, 2020 Report Share Posted December 2, 2020 3 hours ago, agm2112 said: I almost killed my 3.6 with an oil cooler major leak. Hopefully I had an overheating chime and light. No damages. PS: Who created this plastic parts holding high pressure/temperature fluids ? well we can blame the car manufacturer who have their engineers looking for the lightest and cheapest way to build a car, because as most of us always look to buy the cheapest and best looking car as well. DONT get me wrong i am not condoning this use of plastic as we all dont want it to happen to us,to be honest as we look at new models and whoo and wow at all the fancy new electronics and we dont think hmm what is going to go wrong with all this stuff in a couple of yrs like the journey with its common electrical gremlins and navigation problems and such, and lets not forget the battery location. jkeaton 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agm2112 Posted December 2, 2020 Report Share Posted December 2, 2020 Makes me angry to see a perfect working engine being destroyed in seconds because of a cheapo plastic piece. Here in Brazil all of the Fiat Freemont (2.4 Dodge Journey) owners are replacing this part with a "machine shopped" (??) made of aluminium. NavalLacrosse 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John/Horace Posted December 2, 2020 Report Share Posted December 2, 2020 This aluminum/plastic style oil cooler is being used on a whole range of cars now. Plastic is even used for engine oil pans. If properly designed it should last a long time. Milled aluminum would later forever. A lot of other car parts are better designed today than 20 years ago, like spark plugs, braking systems, even radiators. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JhamB Posted December 3, 2020 Report Share Posted December 3, 2020 That sucks! Plastic gets brittle with age which you would think a hose T would last a bit longer than that. I’d check for a decent used engine. They’re pretty common since they were also used in the Avenger. If you have a good local mechanic who knows what they’re doing then a rebuild might be possible but there’s no telling what has happened on the inside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agm2112 Posted December 3, 2020 Report Share Posted December 3, 2020 Plastic on intake manifold, engine covers, fuel rail(!): ok. Water pump, thermostat, oil pans, oil coolers: long term suicide ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim h Posted August 22 Report Share Posted August 22 On 11/21/2020 at 5:14 PM, larryl said: I have one now it'sy second one don't know why I bought a better looking crossroad I'm pissed because you whole engine is plastic. All the things melt from the coolant hoses filler neck thermostat housing all melted I'm really tired of changing everything in this car Dodge knew what they was doing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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