I’m hearing rumors that Chrysler will not cover warranty on the Cummins engine if those engines have K&N air filters installed on them. The funny thing is that the K&N is standard equipment on the Dodge Viper ACR Coupe as well as sold in their performance books.

The Viper motor is worth as much as the Cummins and it’s safe with that motor and not the Cummins, I’m confused. There must be more to this then just K&N? Is it the installation of the filter maybe didn’t fit properly in one instance?

Personally I have had good luck with their filters and now I’m wondering what is happening. Even their air filters are being approved in aircraft and we know how fussy the governments are with certifying stuff for aircraft.

Does anyone really know what has happened with K&N?

TWK

 

I don't think it's just K&N. The owners manual refers to any performance oil type air filter, so it could apply to the AFE as well.

The problems I've read about on the diesel is they suck a whole lot more air than a gasser. This can cause it to suck oil from the filter onto the oxygen sensor or worse into the intake. The other issue is more air flow could mean more dirt getting into hte engine and that's bad too.

I know a couple guys that have run K&N in their diesels and had no problems at all, but I guess if you move away from paper, you run the risk of being your own warranty.

 

I have had one on all of my trucks (2 gasser & 3 CUMMINS) with no probs yet. Intake tubes are just as clean as new. I think that the dealers will just try to find anything at all to void warrentys . That is just the way they are.

 

As stated the problem is the oil that gets sucked up into the Turbo. If the filter has too much oil in it you will be able to tell by running your hand into the intake tube and will feel an oil residue. The other problem is that the gauze will buch up and let in too much debre and can cause damage to the turbo also. There are several options to using a guaze type of after market filter. Trueflow and AMSOIL use oiled foam based filters. These filters will NOT bunch up and will cajpture as much if not more dirt than the oem filter. Also DC has changed the oem air filter to include a piece of foam on the front of the filter due to too much debree getting in and causing the filter to prematurely clog.
You can always check with your local Cummins dealer and get this same info from them

 

Cummings dealer

 

I have put K&N's in all of my trucks (2 Cummins & 1 gasser) and have not had a problem yet, In fact I have been in a couple of dealerships that sell K&Ns off of the shelves in their parts depts. If the dealer can figure out a way to get you to pay for it instead of them (under warranty) that what they'll do. Just my 2 cents.

 

"I think that the dealers will just try to find anything at all to void warrentys . That is just the way they are."


"If the dealer can figure out a way to get you to pay for it instead of them (under warranty) that what they'll do."


Sorry fella's that's not the case. We would prefer to do the repairs on your trucks, we make money on it, it doesn't come outta our pocket, but Dodge/Cummins pocket. What we dealers do not like is some A hole coming in with a big ol honkin chip (removed from his truck) with a bad ECM and getting us to run it under warranty to only have Cummins charge us back for it when they get it back in their hands and hook it up to their computer and learn that it's been hot roded. This just happened to us the other day.

 

I believe that it is "Cummings" and not Dodge that will void the warranty for using an oiled media air filter.....

 

Cummins............

 

Don't suppose you'd accidently let it slip out which chip cooked that ECM, would ya'?


I don't know if its Cummins or Dodge that will reject your warranty, but it certainly cannot be the dealer, when it states you may cause a problem right there in the factory manual.

 

I think the problem with K&Ns have more to do with spotty quality than performance of their filters that are not defective. Most guys have good luck with them, maybe 90% but the rest of us have had very bad K&N filters that seemed to only stop stuff larger than grains of sand and after a few thousand miles ended up with intakes coated in dirt like what happened on my '01.

Vaughn

 

Vaughn is right. It is a process control issue. With a paper filter you replace it and do not have to think about it. With an oiled air filter you not only have to clean and re-oil it, you have to oil it CORRECTLY. The instructions from the manufacturers on exactly how to do it correctly are weak, and it boils down to some experimentation to get it right. If you are a gearhead and like messing with these things, it isn't much of an inconvenience. If you are not you will not like dealing with the consequences of over oiling. There are numerous stories out there about receiving the filters factory new that are over oiled out of the box, this has never happened to me but it certainly is possible. I have had and will continue to use K & N's and aFe's and there are several satisfied users of Amsoil foam filters on this board. You are trading airflow for the responsibilty of improper oiling. It's your choice.

 

The oil is what gives the filter it's fine particle rating right? So if you don't coat the media enough you get dirt, if you add too much you coat your intake. I had K&N's on both a big block and small block Chevy gassers and they never gave me a problem, but it seems to be a lot more tricky deal with the diesels.

At some point the mods I make may force me to need higher intake CFM's and sure don't want to damage the truck by going the wrong way...

 

Most Dodge dealers in Canada can read the older ECM's deeper now and see the fingerprint that a power box left.

I may be wrong on this part...I was told that the ECM on the 04 is no longer a Cummins program but now completely Daimler Chrysler with different access for them. The 03 was different as well. Anyone care to comment on this with facts? Not rumors?

Two reasons an oiled filter is not suggested.
Fleetguard likes to promote their own line of products so therefore Cummins will not suggest it and will take things out of proportion when it comes to statistics.

If Cummins gets a few hundred engines [not just the RAM] that have a failure due to dirt and they see that it has an aftermarket filter...they use that as their way to not honor the warranty. Then they honor the other several hundred with their filters. They just saved a ton of money on warranty this way.
What they forget to tell folks is how many faulty VP-44 pumps were on their engines and how many hundreds of those failed.
They also forget to mention the hundreds of #53 engine blocks that failed in the RAM and other applications and they forget to disclose any issues with the dowel pin on other engines. They avoid that because its their design and combination that failed.
Fix those [maybe] and carry on. Millions of engines out there...they gotta run a tight ship with warranty.

The other issue is the poor quality of the K&N and the issues of what Nevada mentioned. I have seen hundreds of aFe and K&N filters and for the most part...they are all pretty much the same for amount of oil. However, especially lately...I have seen my share of saturated filters and I do not like that one bit.

Like Luke S stated...hiding your performance stuff gets the dealer later. They get charged back. That later gets passed on in some form to the consumer.

Like I said before...

YOU WANNA PLAY BE PREPARED TO PAY

Theres room for a margin of error for ANY product. I have experienced this firsthand several times.

 

I may be wrong on this part...I was told that the ECM on the 04 is no longer a Cummins program but now completely Daimler Chrysler with different access for them. The 03 was different as well. Anyone care to comment on this with facts? Not rumors?

Hey Scotty , your right , the Dodge uses a CM 848 ECM and Cummins insite can not communicate with it , Cummins uses a CM850 on the ISBe , Dodge really doesnt want anyone bringing thier trucks to the Cummins distributorship for work.