we bought new 2500 ram with cummins ho diesel. should be bullet proof, ha.
it started running rough a few weeks ago and immediately took it in to dodge. they determined the engine was blown and they say because water got in through the air intake and hydrolocked. we live in southern california and the only rain we have had has been about .25 inches in sept. now they say several weeks later the engine has hydrolocked and will cost $16,200 for a new engine. the truck is driven on so cal freeways about 100-150 miles a day as my son drives to his mortgage brokers to service them. how could this have happened while driving on freeways with no rain? dodge is being real jerks about it.

 

Something does not sound quite right. If any engine truly hydro locked while driving in the rain (VERY doubtful unless some very odd circumstances were to happen) it would LOCK while driving or cause catastrophic damage (ever see a Top Fuel car push the head(s) off). Now if enough water got in it could damage the engine (head gasket, piston, and or rod damage). This could happen but if the truck is stock it is doubtful. If it did happen in normal driving then it would be a fault in the stock intake system. Now if someone made a badly designed ram air type set-up it could happen very easily.

OR

If someone was “playing” with water crossing or hitting a flooded street at excessive speed (kids and some adults will play, I know this as I am one of them :-)) the stock intake could be overwhelmed with water and send a big gulp of fluid to the turbo.

Overall, it appears that something is missing from the story or the dealer is just pulling something out of their rear.

JMHO

 

How did they determine it hydrolocked?

I would think they would have to disassemble it to find any evidence of a hydrolock (bent connecting rods and/or valves and pushrods...).

 

have a good look at the airfilter and see if it is distorted or appears to have been wet.

Second have the intercooler removed and then drain it to see if any water comes out of it.

third check the turbo vanes and see if they show signs of abnormal wear, if the engine is hydro locked the vanes might show some abnormal wear.

check the oil cause it will have water in the block if that is the case.

check the fuel filter and see if their is water in it. and if their is then check the fuel tank.

check the coolant level and see if it is low.

Ask your self, is their any way the truck could have driven through the water at any point in time. Really try to remember, some of these trucks are having a problem sucking water and snow into the air filter to the point of clogging it and having the air filter distort and allow water and other debris through.

ask the dealership what has caused the hydro lock, It would be interesting to see what they say.

Post back and let us know.

 

Wow, that is really bad news (Sorry!)

My thoughts on how/what:

a) Your son hasn't told you something... (Dad, uhhh, you know, the other night...)
b) Head gasket problem caused a cylinder to fill after the engine was shut off.
c) BS - it's some other problem and they're just "wrong".

It may be easier to tell if you can go there and have them show you the evidence, as others suggest, such as the waterlogged filter, water in the intercooler, etc.. Every engine I know of can be hydrolocked under the right circumstances, and the damage will most often be catastrophic - the real issue is "how", isn't it?

Let us know where this goes - since it's not the kind of event that would happen without you noticing (typically!) - if it happened when you were driving the truck.

Good luck - don't give up!

Mark
-

 

if I was you... I would call your local Cummins distributorship and ask for the DFSE . and pay him to have a look at that engine if they have it apart and let him tell you exactly what happen. to me it sounds like a injector needle stuck and fill that cylinder and hydrolock it , it not common but do happen with the common rail ISB. that DFSE is factory trained for all failures.

 

they have sent an engineer from dodge to look at it and he has asked the dealer tech to pull engina a part and check to see if rod is bent by sticking a screw driver in and marking the hieght of the pistonin the first and third cylinders. not very high tech it seems. i was with my son the weekend before it started running bad on a 500 mile trip to lake havasu and other than that it was driven on the freeway in so calif with no rain.

one thing that really bothers us is we were told we could be there to talk with the district manager when he came and then they never informed us he was coming. then they said we could be there when the engineer came and looked at it. we waited saw the engineer and waited for a chance to talk with him. the service guys kept saying they were trying to get him for us to talk then all of a sudden they said he left without ever allowing us a chance to speak with him.

the air filter was distorted and they say there was evidence of it having been wet. there is water in the oil and gas but no sign of coolant.

thanks for all your input

 

I blew an engine in my brand new 93 Dakota 318 4x4. As others have stated, I was running full speed through about 12" of water and it got sucked into the intake and blew the engine. Fortunately for me Dodge believed my story about heavy rain and rebuilt the engine free of charge. I was smart enough to get it home immediately after the damage and change the oil 3 times to get most of the water out. Then, all they found was some residue on the walls of the engine so they had no idea about what I had done. The tech gave me one of the piston/rod assemblies. It's twisted into an "S"!!

Good luck with yours.....

 

it looks like dodge might fix it after all. the engineer gave some test for the tech to do and check to see if rod is bent. rod is not bent so i guess they are going to fix it, i will find out today.

i kept telling them we had not ran through water or anything, but we were still suspected.

will add to this post after i hear back on the final word about it being warrantied.

 

after argueing with dodge for over a month, bringing in my own diesel expert of 33 years, forwarding countless emails from other dodge/cummins owners, having the dc district manager out twice a chrysler engineer come out and tell them what tests to run (the same ones my tech expert told them to do), arguing with the gm at the dealership, waiting for them to get the "special tools" to do a compression check, which i located for them and told them where they could get it, informing them of my several conversations with you at cummins and that your opinion was the truck would almost have to have been submerged for that to happened still carried no weight, and etc. the only thing that counted was their young ill-trained tech that had no idea of what he was talking about. we were told we could talk with both the dm and the engineer and then denied access to both.

they have now decided it was never the rod, but an injector was the problem and it will be fixed under warranty.

this has been a nightmare. we took weather reports showing there has been almost no rain and no matter what we said it they would not listen, insisting it needed a new engine and would not be warranted.
even if we had gone to another dealer it would have been the same district manager that was either too busy to do his job or did not know his job.
even the dealers service manager, after they determined the rod was not bent at all, told me part of the problem is the techs have been trained to pull the valve cover and manifold cover off and if there are signs of water it means the engine is blown and needed replacement. this almost cost us $16,000+

how could they say this without running the proper test to determine the exact problem?
how could a dealer that sells these vehicles not know what tests to do, not have the tools to do them and care so little about the customer they just blow them off?
how many others have had to pay thousands of dollars needlessly?
why would the district manager not even tell them the proper procedures to follow and simply listen to a 25 year old tech and make such a costly decision?
after all this dc will not even spring for a rental car for a couple of days.
thank goodness this is almost over with. i am just waiting for the truck to get fixed and move on.

this is only a brief outline of what we have been put through. i have spent about 20+ hours at the dealer waiting and arguing for them to do their job right.

we believe strongly in the cummins motor, dodge is a joke and we have no faith in dc at all

i still worry about another call from them telling me there is now something else.

i would like to contact an exec at dc to inform them of these problems. cannot call dc customer service because when i did that all they did was call the dealer while i was on hold and then said the dealer said it is out of warranty and that was that, so much for customer service. My email to them last week was returned with their agreement with their local business center and it was not going to be warranted.

 

I know I'm a bit late on this post, hopefully Dodge fixed the truck already. If not your auto insurance should cover this as flood damage, I hydrolocked my old car and they replaced my motor without any problem. I don't think your's was hydrolocked but if the dealership won't warranty it it's worth a shot, just keep a copy of the repair order with the hydrolocked diagnosis. Good luck!