I’m inclined to agree. I suspect your father is being “blown off”.
As mustang said, you father needs to immediately contact a lawyer. Be sure he keeps copies of every document, photo, etc. and immediately sits down and details exactly what happened and exactly what the dealership told him, right down to dates, times, and names, while his memory is still fresh.
NOTE: there are failure analysis companies that can do sophisticated failure analysis on the parts and document the cause of the part failure definitively. Using sophisticated equipment, they can actually look at the grain structure at the break and document without question that it was a tensile failure. A good lawyer should be able to help your dad with this.
I’ve never heard of water in the gasoline causing this serious of a problem. Water draw in through the air intake can cause this, b/c liquid water cannot be compressed nearly as much as a gasoline/air mixture, and trying to compress liquid water will indeed do serious engine damage such as this. But from water in the gasoline? Possible I guess, but seems unlikely. If you had that much water in the gasoline the engine would run very, very poorly, if at all. The only exception might be if you had just filled up with gas at the gas station, and that gas had a high concentration of water in it somehow. But that explanation seems sort of far fetched.
There is a recall or customer interest bulletin for misfire problems on some of the 300’s engine configurations. Severe misfiring I suppose could cause something like that, or even severe engine knocking due to an ignition system or valve timing problem. But that would usually turn on the check engine light. Was the check engine light ever on in the weeks before this occurred?
Based on the photos above, little doubt that the diagnosis of connecting rod failure is correct. How that happened still remained to be determined imo.
If you are in Michigan, have your father contact lawyer Steve Lehto. He specializes in these types of cases as well as writes articles and Vlogs on YouTube.
thanks you everyone for all the replies and the suggestions. im sorry if it seemed i disappeared but the system wouldnt allow me to reply for 21 hours since my account is new and therefore i was limited to a certain number of posts.
on advice in these posts and my mechanic friend i messaged the service shop and asked
"how are the other rods? its just this one rod which is broken? where is the rod cap and bolts?"
and the response i received is “End cap is in oil pan along with all the bolts. Yes but theres hole in the engine block”
i didnt hear it from the technician but this is what was the service rep who i was connected to told me when i called the chrysler company customer service line to ask why they rejected the warranty claim. i have that call recorded.
im sorry i dont have the technical expertise or understanding to address your second question but the engine had enough oil and it wasnt dirty or overdue on an oil change. it was actually treated to 10,000 mile full synthetic oil change less than 3000 miles ago. the technician just told me yesterday there is a hole in the engine block.
no warning lights of any sort before engine shut down. also no knocking seizing or anything like that. actually no warning at all. car was driving normally on highway and without warning just fell into neutral and never recovered.
I had a connecting rod break on a push mower with a Briggs and Stratton engine about 60 years ago. I wasn’t going through thick grass and certainly water wasn’t being ingested through the carburetor. I was just pushing the mower along and it suddenly died. Pulling the starter rope indicated that there was no compression. On tearing down the engine, we found the rod had broken into several pieces. Several years later our neighbor’s mower failed in the same way.
I just got email back from Chrysler corporate office.
Thank you for contacting the FCA Customer Assistance Center.
I do understand why you wanted to look into this further.
I see that you were able to speak with representative here who advised
that this restriction was placed on your vehicle’s warranty through the
business center, who would have received information from the
dealership. Once this restriction is placed on your vehicle, we are not
in a position to change that. We would be upholding the dealership’s
decision at this time.
Thank you again for your email. Should you require additional
assistance, or have any new information to provide, please reply to this
email message or call 1-800-247-9753.
Sincerely,
Avery
Customer Service Representative
FCA Customer Assistance Center
The part which strikes me is where he says they will be "upholding the dealerships decision"
The dealership originally told me this would be covered under warranty then they changed course and said Chrysler company rejected the warranty but it seems the dealership has more to do with that decision than they let on
Let me add, nothing said by anyone on a forum means anything. I am not going to wade through the posts but it seems the person posting was not driving at the time so the driver/owner needs to get legal help.
mustingman thanks for your advice so far, i havent been ignoring your recommendation and just continuing to post just to air my grievances. ive contacted steve lehto - i was excited to see hes a top lawyer in this field and hes so close to us- he seems perfect for the job. ive spoken with him and messaged him the documents now im waiting to hear back from him. hopefully he can help us but in the meantime im waiting to hear back from him.
I must say, that’s sort of an unusual way to say it. The direct way: ‘We uphold the dealership’s decision’. or ‘We agree with the dealership’ I think that would be what they’d say if they actually intended to stick by the dealership’s decision come hell or high water.
So it may be good news for you. I think the way they worded that sentence is a clue that they aren’t quite sure about the facts, and they want a believable out should they ever be asked to defend that wording. Before resorting to legal action, I think you should keep on pestering them, polite pestering, but pestering just the same. My guess is they’ll eventually get tired of telling you “no”, and come up with a compromise you can live with. One tip: Avoid using email: Telephone or write actual letters delivered by the post office.