[19johned53]

So what are the chances of this happening to your car? Also is there anything we can do to prevent his from happening . I don’t need these headaches, it scares me that we have a time bomb waiting to happen

Don't worry about it. One "worry wart" on a mission is enough! 😆

Drive and enjoy your ride. Follow the factory service/ maintenance schedule and you'll be fine.

Dr

 

[70iselin]

Your right, You work hard for everything to get these cars which aren’t cheap. Just want to enjoy with no problems

 

[Lordofthehomer]

How do you disable the MDS also idling what do you mean by idling? Traffic, letting the car warm up in the morning, you should not do. Also when does this happen after what mileage. Just a worrying I guess

You can either buy a kit to plug it, or tune it off. I meant excessive idling. You can’t prevent all idle. With a tuner you can increase the idle to high RPMs to promote better oil flow though. If you don’t have MDS I think it’s less of an issue and less likely to happen but it happens to non-MDS cars like I said. As for mileage, I’ve seen it happen to cars with 30K miles and some with over 100K. Not all are doomed to suffer this fate. When I examined the problem, it looked like cylinder 7 roller just locked up and that led to the cam getting eaten up. Maybe better quality oil will prevent it? I use Motul now but I ran pennzoil platinum when the car had free oil changes. But I hope it never befalls upon you.

 

[Hal H]

Well, Dodge may have beefed up the lifters on newer cars, so that may reduce the likelihood, but the design itself allows it to happen. Best bet is to not let it idle for longer than it has to, and disable MDS if applicable. This is what I’ve found out so far. The problem lies with where the cam is placed in the car as opposed to where LS motors have their cam placed. LS motors have the cam constantly splashed with oil, where the Hemi doesn’t have that benefit due to the cam being placed further above the crank. It uses oil trickling down the pushrods onto the roller lifters. Or so I’ve heard. Keep in mind this problem still happens in Non-MDS vehicles. I guess just stay vigilant. My lobe was completely worn down before the CEL started to prock. It didn’t help I was running an MPG tune and associated the sluggishness of the car with the tune that tries to save fuel by making the car run a little slower.

modern OHV pushrod engines don't rely on splash lubrication - going back to the Small Block Chevy, Mark IV (big block), the Ford Small Block, FE, Big Block they Chrysler LA, B / RB, Street Hemi have high pressure galleries for the lifters, cam bearing journals

as does the Gen III Hemi. Splash lubrication is used on small power equipment engines

you'd have go back to engines designed before the mid 1950s - R & D had determined that splash lubrication was marginal and that approach was abandoned when more modern OHV designs were coming to market

that "uncle Tony" video that circulated around is full if mis-information and opinion not founded on facts. Even the LS engines have had lifter needle roller bearing failures and their Displacement on Demand (Active Fuel Management) can get stuck inbetween on / off cycles as well as the trunion bearing (more needle bearings) in the valve rockers which can send those through the engine...

 

[Lordofthehomer]

modern OHV pushrod engines don't rely on splash lubrication - going back to the Small Block Chevy, Mark IV (big block), the Ford Small Block, FE, Big Block they Chrysler LA, B / RB, Street Hemi have high pressure galleries for the lifters, cam bearing journals

as does the Gen III Hemi. Splash lubrication is used on small power equipment engines

you'd have go back to engines designed before the mid 1950s - R & D had determined that splash lubrication was marginal and that approach was abandoned when more modern OHV designs were coming to market

that "uncle Tony" video that circulated around is full if mis-information and opinion not founded on facts. Even the LS engines have had lifter needle roller bearing failures and their Displacement on Demand (Active Fuel Management) can get stuck inbetween on / off cycles as well as the trunion bearing (more needle bearings) in the valve rockers which can send those through the engine...

A lot of these issues seem to have a common problem-the displacement on demand system. Which makes you wonder why even bother with such systems?

 

[gapi]

A lot of these issues seem to have a common problem-the displacement on demand system. Which makes you wonder why even bother with such systems?

Total BS.

 

[Lordofthehomer]

Total BS.

I agree! It is total BS that a system designed to save some MPGs could cause long term damage. But I still can’t confirm that. But some signs point to that being the case.

 

[Hal H]

Total BS.

to stay out of the Gas Guzzler Tax and it helps a manufacturer's CAFE numbers - they pay fines is their fleet CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) range is below the thresholds established by D.O.T. - NHTSA (established in 1975...)

 

[gapi]

To say the MDS is the root cause of the cam and lifter failures is the BS I was referring to.

I never had a problem with MDS before I installed the blower. I wish I could run it with the blower. Everything points to I could as it disables at any sign of a load.

I'm running the OE MDS Cam on new MDS lifters I swapped in @135K miles. No problems. I shift @6k.
Car is a 2013 R/T.

I'm taking this back to back to back lifter failures with a grain of salt. Where is Dodge Cares?

 

[Nuke]

So what are the chances of this happening to your car? Also is there anything we can do to prevent his from happening . I don’t need these headaches, it scares me that we have a time bomb waiting to happen

There are certain year models which experienced this issue more than others, 2011-2016 being the bulk of them I believe. If your car is within this range, your chances are higher than if it were outside this range.

There aren’t many preventative measures that can be taken to prevent it over and above the normal measures you should always take for any engine.

Don’t run extended oil change intervals (5K miles for conventional is fine and 7500-10000 for synthetic should be good), and don’t idle the engine excessively.

By excessive I mean for 30 minutes to an hour at a time, not the typical idling found in stop and go traffic or drive-thru wait lines. If the engine spends 50% or more of its running time idling, that’s too much and greatly ups the odds you could have this failure.

Running some UOAs every now and again could help spot a failure in the works, but it also may happen so quickly that a UOA wouldn’t have caught it.

There is no set mileage after which this is more likely to occur. For regularly driven cars, the failure usually occurs around the 100K mile mark, give or take 25K miles. But for rarely driven cars, it could happen before they clock 25K miles.

I have 2 cop Chargers, both of which experienced this failure. The 2012 got a new cam and lifters at 90K miles, and I got the car at 100K miles. It now has 226K miles on it and still running strong.

The 2014 got a new cam and lifters at 75K miles, and I got it at 90K miles. It now has 130K miles and still going strong.

Both cars had over 50% of their engine hours clocked idling when I got them, with the 2014 having over 60% of its life spent idling. That tracks with what I’ve seen on the cop Chargers I’ve looked at in auctions - almost all had the failure and all spent excessive time idling.

The only cop Chargers with Hemi’s that I looked at that hadn’t experienced the cam failure were the pre-2011 models. (But those had their own issues, mostly with dropped valve seats)

 

[Moparrebel]

I would suspect that the reason it appears to affect more MDS engines than non MDS engines is due to the shear numerical difference between the different engines. There are a lot more MDS engines (automatics) than non MDS (manuals) in service. So while on the surface it would be easy to blame MDS I would imagine if someone were able to gather all the data, you would find the percentage of failures would be relatively equal. Personally if I didn't know my car had MDS, I would never notice it. It is much more noticeable in my wife's Silverado than my challenger. Interestingly enough, my Hemi is quieter than our 5.3's as well

 

[Nuke]

Personally if I didn't know my car had MDS, I would never notice it

The factory exhaust is made in such a way so as to accomplish that goal for sure. Replace it with some aftermarket exhaust, and especially if the resonators are deleted, and you will notice the MDS operation right away. It will sound terrible too!

 

[Lordofthehomer]

To say the MDS is the root cause of the cam and lifter failures is the BS I was referring to.

I never had a problem with MDS before I installed the blower. I wish I could run it with the blower. Everything points to I could as it disables at any sign of a load.

I'm running the OE MDS Cam on new MDS lifters I swapped in @135K miles. No problems. I shift @6k.
Car is a 2013 R/T.

I'm taking this back to back to back lifter failures with a grain of salt. Where is Dodge Cares?

I said it was a common theme but never it was the sole cause. Why are you running an OE cam with a blower? Why not get something more aggressive and have that nice lopey sound? That and a blower would sound awesome

 

[Moparrebel]

The factory exhaust is made in such a way so as to accomplish that goal for sure. Replace it with some aftermarket exhaust, and especially if the resonators are deleted, and you will notice the MDS operation right away. It will sound terrible too!

I'm sure it would sound terrible. I have no doubt about that. What I am talking about is the transition from 8 to 4 to 8 is seamless on my Challenger regardless of whether I am driving through our hills and valleys or out on the highway using cruise control. My wife's Silverado is a different story. There is a an ever so slight lag/hesitation when it switches. It was the first vehicle we had that had the system on it. It is just not quite as seamless.

 

[CarolinaChallengerLover]

Ah yes....gotta Love a 6 Speed!!

 

[ChallyTatum]

Ah yes....gotta Love a 6 Speed!!

I think we are the minority on that one.

 

[70iselin]

I just want my 2020 scat pack shaker to have no problems with the motor, feels like I keep reading all this, it’s a time bomb waiting to happen. I am surprise that Dodge cares don’t chime in because I know they monitor this forum

 

[Nuke]

I just want my 2020 scat pack shaker to have no problems with the motor, feels like I keep reading all this, it’s a time bomb waiting to happen. I am surprise that Dodge cares don’t chime in because I know they monitor this forum

The fact that it's a 2020 will tend to lower your chances of having the cam/lifter failure by quite a bit. I cannot think of many, if any at all, 2017+ engines having this issue. I'm sure there are some, but there are not nearly as many as the years prior.

Don't let it keep you up at night, it would be pretty rare for that car to have this failure from what I have seen.

 

[ChallyTatum]

The lifter was redesign in ~2017 IIRC so I guess less chance of failing. BTW make sure you replace the all plastic timing chain guide with the metal/plastic one if it has not already been replaced under a recall.

 

[Lordofthehomer]

I just want my 2020 scat pack shaker to have no problems with the motor, feels like I keep reading all this, it’s a time bomb waiting to happen. I am surprise that Dodge cares don’t chime in because I know they monitor this forum

Dodge unironically doesn’t care. They know this is a problem. Why would anyone associated with Dodge walk into a minefield? But if they are monitoring the chats: Hi Dodge Cares. I’m the guy griefing your HQ and I won’t stop.