A former supervisor had a mopar sedan with that 2.7 V6 engine
He drove an SUV to work, and the wife drove the mopar . . . might have been a 300 . . . to work
Sure enough, that 2.7 bit the dust, due to sludge, neglect, not maintaining the oil level, infrequent oil changes, etc.
He blamed it on the wife, but if he’s the mechanic in the family, that tends to reflect poorly on him . . .
In all honesty, I know some people who took excellent care of their MOPAR 2.7L with synthetic oil changes at 3000 miles (normally way overkill) and still had them blow up. I can tell you they probably didn’t check the PCV system, timing chain guides, and water pump they way they should have, knowing what I know about this engine. I understand the water pump had a weep hole that allowed it to leak INTERNALLY to the crankcase. What kind of design is that?
The funny thing is the guy who has the wife with the Camry that had oil the oil use issues was once a mechanic and is still a car guy. I guess with a kid on the way, new job sometimes working odd hours, and just overall busy, checking the oil once per week slipped by. Obviously he told her to check the oil but the check happened only when the oil light came on, not once per week.
They got rid of it before catastrophic failure hit.
“weep hole that allowed it to leak INTERNALLY to the crankcase.”
I’d like an engineer’s opinion on this
There’s plenty of engineers on this website, so I assume we’ll hear something soon enough
The water pump weep hole on Chrysler 2.7L engines can be found on the left side of the engine below the thermostat housing.
I guess it is the shaft seal and not the weep hole. Either way, it is designed in a way that coolant gets into the oil. http://www.foobert.com/blog/2006/12/11/water-pump-replacement-in-a-chrysler-27l-engine/
“weep hole that allowed it to leak INTERNALLY to the crankcase.”
I’d like an engineer’s opinion on this
That is a poor failure mode. A puddle is better than “milkshake” oil, by far.
If there is a weep hole to the outside as the diagram @Nevada_545 shows, that should be from the seal outlet to the outside world. Looking at the picture on Rockauto, it looks like a typical water pump. Bearing and seal between the impeller and the outside world with the impeller in the cooling jacket.
The same as many other engines. A seal leak there looks like it exits the engine without the oil passages being involved unless the water pump housing somehow allows water to enter the oil.
@Mustangman Look at the picture you linked. The water pump is not driven by a belt. It’s driven by the timing chain, the whole assembly located inside the timing covers. The weep hole is routed to the outside world, but should the bearing develop play and/or the seal fails more than marginally, you’re leaking coolant directly into the timing chain cover and into the crankcase. And for an engine that is not particularly robust to begin with total engine failure is not far away.
Yes, the article I linked indicated that the external weep hole was insufficient of there was much damage to the water pump seals/bearing and would then leak internally and then you have a chocolate milkshake and engine damage. This engine is a joke. I have read about people who keep them running many thousands of miles but all those I personally know had them blow.
I can’t say they were on top of everything but they did change the oil every 3000 miles. One used synthetic oil and got quite a bit longer than most. His engine was knocking for a while and I told him it was about to come apart. He told me not to tell him his engine was about to blow so I didn’t say anything more. Well, he lost his job and was driving home with his head hung low that day and BOOM, the engine finally let go. He bought another Chrysler product after this and it started having problems once again. He traded it in on a Nissan and has been getting those ever since. He says you just put gas in them, drive them, and change the oil and nothing ever goes wrong.
Whoa @asemaster, I did NOT catch that! I thought that pulley was for a cogged belt!
Wow, BIG stupid on ChryCo’s part. Seriously bad design! They pretty much ignored any semblance of design failure mode analysis (DFMA) in the design of that engine!
It seems like the 2.7 runs fine as long as NOTHING else goes wrong. Water pump, timing chain guides, or PCV goes and it is all over! This is not a robust engine at all. The funny thing is that I have driven several of these cars when they were working and it was a nice running engine. It just doesn’t seem to stay that way.
From The Horse’s Mouth:
I Bought A 1999 Intrepid With The 2.7L When It Was A Year Old And Had 10,000 Miles On It.
I change oil every 5,000 miles. We ran that baby to over 250,000 miles with no major engine repairs. I did have to replace rusted out steel coolant lines (one under upper intake manifold and one out the back of the water pump? [… trying to recall…??] ). They were difficult to access, but did not need to get into any oil lubricated part of the engine.
I had concerns about sludge and worn chain guides and water pump issue, that are said to haunt these machines, but never had a problem. The vehicle was extremely smooth running and extremely reliable.
It was a very comfortable, roomy, easy car to drive. This was my wife’s car and she absolutely loved it. My wife and daughter were very sad (like I shot Bambi) when I sold it before problems developed.
I had a 97 Intrepid 3.5L that I drove as my daily driver for many years and it goes down as certainly one of the best cars I’ve ever owned (all except for poor headlight illumination!).
CSA
One of my friends had a 2000 Intrepid. It was a nice easy car to drive except the rear end of the vehicle was black in color from all the oil it burned. If you backed up at night with the headlights on, you felt like you were in a big purple cloud of smoke. It eventually launched a rod through the side of the block. The tow truck driver said these things were always getting towed for the same problem.
That same friend later become a state trooper. He said many of the stranded motorist calls were because of the same problem. Needless to say, I don’t think Chrysler could give him a car today that he would want to drive.
It sounds like everyone you know has a car in poor condition, you are always telling these stories.
A lot of cars develop a bad rap due to the legal profession and the internet.
Someone neglects their car to the point of failure and whose fault is it? The car maker.
A certain percentage of the offended have no problem finding a lawyer willing to file a class action.
Lawsuit filed and/or settlement made = 100% definitive proof the car was doomed the minute it was rolling down the assembly line.
The same goes for pharmaceuticals. Three million people take a drug with no side effects happening. A few do have side effects so off to Classactionville they go.
There’s not a medicine or medical device made that isn’t faulty…
Certain cars/engines seem to have a higher percentage of failures than others. Some are The Chrysler 2.7L is obviously one such engine. Several friends and associates owned one around the model year 2000 or so and had issues with this engine. Not all of these people were car people but they at least did the basic maintenance required such as oil changes. I know of people who just drive their cars and never do anything, then they wonder why they have issues. Those with the 2.7L problems were not that type.
The opposite end of the spectrum is the friend who used to own a Jeep 4.0L engine in one of the boxy model Cherokees. This thing has a reputation for being tough and I can see why. He was HORRIBLE about maintaining the Jeep and changed the oil whenever he felt like it. Of course it burned oil and he only added when the low oil light came on. Somehow he made it to about 300,000 miles with this thing before it would no longer pass inspection without LOTS of work. Besides using quite a bit of oil, the engine still ran pretty well. All the problems that doomed it were related to lots and lots of rust as it had spent quite a few years in Chicago and steering/suspension components that were worn out because of age. He considered repairing it and keeping it until the mechanic told him he had a $500 car needing $5000 worth of work! At 300k with poor maintenance, he got his money’s worth out of it! He literally drove it until the wheels were about to fall off.
I am sure there are people who drive the 2.7L to 500,000 miles without issues as stated earlier but it seems that the mechanics around here refer to them as “future scrap metal” while they don’t with other vehicles (of course most will likely eventually meet this same fate). Obviously this engine is more prone to problems than average. Unlike the issues with the 2011-2012 Sonatas that are being discussed, the 2.7L issues appear to be a perfect storm of bad designs coming together such as the water pump, PCV, timing chain, etc. The Sonata issues appear to be a manufacturing flaw and not overall bad design.
The stories about the people who have a vehicle that runs perfect and never has problems are boring if you ask me. If course I know people who have new cars or well-maintained older cars that don’t have issues. If you look at the overall reliability trends, you will see Chrysler typically doesn’t typically score near the top.
The mechanic I use says something along the lines of “Avoid any Chrysler engine with a 7 at the end of the displacement size.” I never thought of it that way but it seems that some of the other problem units did have a 7 in the end. One friend with an exploded 2.7L bought a Jeep with the 3.7L. I had an oil pump failure. Luckily he stopped when the oil light came on as he was paranoid after the 2.7L failure. It was repairable but he sold the car right after this and was done with MOPAR products for good.
Is the 2.7 Chrysler engine a re-designed 2.5? The Mitsubishi 2.5 had a timing belt with the water pump operated by the t-belt which is quite similar to the 2.7 pump. I was never a fan of the 2.5 and it seems I’m lucky to have never had to deal with the 2.7. Chrysler always gets the worst end of the deal when they merge with a foreign company.
I think the 2.7L and 3.5L had the most in common as far as the design is concerned. For some reason the 3.5L doesn’t seem to be nearly as problematic. The 3.5L has the water pump driven off the timing belt like the 2.5L you describe. It is a pain to work on but not a horrible engine.
Those Mitsubishi engines were also oil burners. They seemed to run forever if you kept them topped off but wouldn’t be my first choice either. Yep, I also knew some people with the 3.0L in minivans. They smoked and you had to keep them topped off but never seemed to die. I did some research into this at the time and think a lot of it was crappy valve stem seals but that was so long ago so it might have been something else.
@“Rod Knox” The old Chrysler 3.0 that you remember from the 80’s and early 90’s had more in common with the Mits 2.5 than the Chrysler 2.7. The 2.7 is a DOHC motor, has main bearing bolts that go both vertically and horizontally into the engine, is chain driven where the 2.5 has a timing belt. It’s an entirely different engine.
One of the firs steps to servicing the timing chain in an Intrepid 2.7 is to remove the headlamp assemblies. Gotta love cars built like that.