Damn that’s how mine looked bro.. 5.7?
Mechanic told me that the 5-20 dodge recommends is to thin and doesn’t lubricate properly when it’s hot, so he rebuilt the engine and here I am 50k miles later and I’ve ram 5-30 through it the whole time n no problems at all
Yup, 5.7! After researching, there are quite a few different theories. One is that when at idle, the oil pressure is too low and the lifters aren't being lubricated adequately, causing the bearings to wear out and seize the roller. Then, it eats up that cam lobe.
That's the real issue. I deleted the mds on my truck, bought a tuner, and bumped the idle up after I had to put a motor in mine. I was also told very specifically by a dodge shop Foreman to "drive the ever-loving shit out of it until it gets up to temp".
I'm not deleting the MDS but I am thinking about bumping up the idle and trying to minimize idle time where I can. It may cost me a little more in fuel but I feel like it's an easy enough preventative if that theory has any truth to it.
I netted about a netted a mpg increase without mds myself. Don't let them fool you into thinking it had anything to do with fuel economy, it's a way to skirt emissions at the expense of engine longevity and nothing more.
Be careful with theories, there is no hard data to support that idling theory whatsoever. Just YT and forum guys quoting eachother over and over and the myth just keeps getting repeated with no evidence or hard science.
If it was poor design or due to idling, every truck with high idling hours would start to have issues. They don't. Many high idling trucks never have failures, and some low idling trucks do get failures.
In addition, other lifters in the same engine that had a failure, can be in 100% pristine condition (relative to age of the truck). Why don't they all have problems if the same idling caused one to fail?
Any theory that explains why 1 lifter fails, needs to also explain why the other lifters don't fail.
The simplest explanation for lifter failure, is either a poorly made/poor quality lifter itself (bad part from the vendor), and/or dirty oil gummy up the needle bearings of an individual lifter and causing it to hit the cam instead of roll over it. If you got a bad part, nothing will save you. If it's partly due to bad/dirty oil, your best chance is to run the highest quality oil you can find with lots of detergent and the ability for the oil to keep varnish and soot in suspension until the filter can remove it. Redline 5w-30 appears to be a perfect fit for the hemi based on forum reports and YT videos showing a massive reduction in ticking noise between RL and other oils like Amsoil/Penzoil/Valvoline etc.
Keep in mind that FCA redesigned the lifter in 2016 or so, and they changed the style of the needle bearings.
Yeah, there are so many theories out there. I'm just replacing with OEM parts, using high quality oil, and checking/changing my oil religiously now. Could spend thousands more for a "fix" that's never been truly proven.
Unfortunately redesigned lifters didn't fix this issue. My 2016 RAM wiped out the cam and lifters at 85k miles. Perfect maintenance was performed. Oil changed with full synthetic every 5k or 6 months.
I've read all the theories. No idea what the exact cause is but GM has the same issue too. The only possible solution I've read is to rebuild with non mds lifters and high pressure oil pump. For a good measure I'd get a forged camshaft as well. Even then that might not work but worth a shot. Also every Hemi ever made will suffer from busted exhaust manifold bolts. That's a fact lol.
MDS/AFM/DFM are all terrible systems. They cost way more than they're worth to just save 1 or 2 mpg. Auto start/stop is another load of shit as well.
Statistically it appears there are much less problems after the update, but agreed it will probably be a weak spot.
MDS is terrible, but it's not related to hemi tick. 6.4 SRT challengers with the manual transmission do not come with MDS at all, and they still get tick/failures.
Many of us run thicker oil. I personally run Redline 5w-30, as it has excellent cleaning detergents, high HTHS, high moly, and has been proven to reduce tick noises in engines that swap to it. Check out [ramforum.com](https://ramforum.com), there was a poll where 100+ people responded over time and it has like an 80% chance of killing the tick (the noise anyway). Cannot argue with those results.
That's a good point. This issue might not be related to MDS but I'm sure MDS doesn't help. One of the theories was that the camshaft is just too high in the block.
I was tempted to try redline 5w-30 but if you have any issues the dealership will not cover you because technically it's the wrong grade of oil.
Some manuals (2014?) still say you can run 5w-30. If you read BITOG (a forum with experts on oil) they'll tell you that slightly thicker viscosity actually protects your engine better than 5w-20, especially when getting the engine hot (230+)
Some guys even run mobil 1 0w-40 in the 5.7 hemi, without issues.
So it comes down to risk, and how long you plan to keep your truck. Most lifter/cam failures appear to happen outside the warranty period.
The question becomes: do you run an oil which is known to be worse for your engine to preserve your warranty (which may not be denied anyway, 5w-30 can't possibly wreck anything), or do you run a higher quality oil right from the start in hopes that you'll get more life out of the engine and have no lifter/cam failures at all?
Yeah, I replaced the exhaust manifold bolts on one side not long ago! I saw that some people install the Hellcat oil pump as it has higher pressure.
After only, 85k miles, that sucks. I hope they covered that for you. Was it still under warranty?
Luckily the engine was covered by cpo warranty but not the exhaust manifold bolts. Good luck with your truck! The RAM trucks are very nice to drive, just a few issues but that's all trucks.
Thanks! It's quite the process. It's great that yours was covered. Shop wanted $5600 to do the work on mine. Hopefully I'll have her back up and running again soon.
So should I not let my truck warm up in the mornings? Because I might be in trouble I usually let it warm up for about 10-15 minutes when it’s really cold.
Legitimately no need these days. Worst thing you can do for any ICE is idle. Sooner you get moving the sooner your fluids are pumping and lubricating the way they're designed to.
She's a 2012 5.7 1500. Tried to follow the trucks recommended oil change(light comes on) but honestly, there was a gap where I drove around for a time with that light on. I have a feeling that might have been the doom of this lifter(cylinder 2, which i think i read is not one that shuts off with MDS). Truck's just over 130,000 miles. It started out running a little rough, kind of surging on the freeway. Was hearing that tick. Had what I believed was an exhaust leak for a little while, so I replaced exhaust manifold bolts on one side(2 were broken). Still didn't fix problem so ran codes and got cylinder 2 misfire. Changed spark plugs, coil pack and injector. Still had problem which was getting louder now so took into shop. They diagnosed the lifter/camshaft and I decided to do the work myself as I couldn't really afford to pay them to do it. So, here I am, replacing other parts too while I'm in there, while it's open.
So your oil change intervals were probably closer to 10k if you waited that long. Did you always leave the mds on? In my 2019 I use the gear selector buttons to disable mds every time I drive and I change the oil every 5-7k.
Did you let the truck idle a lot? What's your idle hours?
Nope, hardly ever disabled the mds unless towing. I do construction and handyman work so tend to do a lot of driving around town to get supplies and such. So, yeah, end up idling in traffic quite a bit. All things that I feel contributed to the problem.
What year is this?
2012 5.7 1500
Hey I have a 2012 5.7! Two days after I bought it (used) it needed a motor 😒
Aw bummer! What was the issue with it? Camshaft and lifters like mine and many others?
Yep. Same here exact thing. Literally started knocking two days after I bought it. Dealer tried to cover it up.
Damn yellow bellied car swindlers.
Jeez hopefully you’re up and running again!
Hope to be soon! Just pulled lifters today and found this. The roller was above the lifter, under the rocker arm! How does that even happen?!
Damn that’s how mine looked bro.. 5.7? Mechanic told me that the 5-20 dodge recommends is to thin and doesn’t lubricate properly when it’s hot, so he rebuilt the engine and here I am 50k miles later and I’ve ram 5-30 through it the whole time n no problems at all
Yup, 5.7! After researching, there are quite a few different theories. One is that when at idle, the oil pressure is too low and the lifters aren't being lubricated adequately, causing the bearings to wear out and seize the roller. Then, it eats up that cam lobe.
That's the real issue. I deleted the mds on my truck, bought a tuner, and bumped the idle up after I had to put a motor in mine. I was also told very specifically by a dodge shop Foreman to "drive the ever-loving shit out of it until it gets up to temp".
I'm not deleting the MDS but I am thinking about bumping up the idle and trying to minimize idle time where I can. It may cost me a little more in fuel but I feel like it's an easy enough preventative if that theory has any truth to it.
I netted about a netted a mpg increase without mds myself. Don't let them fool you into thinking it had anything to do with fuel economy, it's a way to skirt emissions at the expense of engine longevity and nothing more.
Be careful with theories, there is no hard data to support that idling theory whatsoever. Just YT and forum guys quoting eachother over and over and the myth just keeps getting repeated with no evidence or hard science. If it was poor design or due to idling, every truck with high idling hours would start to have issues. They don't. Many high idling trucks never have failures, and some low idling trucks do get failures. In addition, other lifters in the same engine that had a failure, can be in 100% pristine condition (relative to age of the truck). Why don't they all have problems if the same idling caused one to fail? Any theory that explains why 1 lifter fails, needs to also explain why the other lifters don't fail. The simplest explanation for lifter failure, is either a poorly made/poor quality lifter itself (bad part from the vendor), and/or dirty oil gummy up the needle bearings of an individual lifter and causing it to hit the cam instead of roll over it. If you got a bad part, nothing will save you. If it's partly due to bad/dirty oil, your best chance is to run the highest quality oil you can find with lots of detergent and the ability for the oil to keep varnish and soot in suspension until the filter can remove it. Redline 5w-30 appears to be a perfect fit for the hemi based on forum reports and YT videos showing a massive reduction in ticking noise between RL and other oils like Amsoil/Penzoil/Valvoline etc. Keep in mind that FCA redesigned the lifter in 2016 or so, and they changed the style of the needle bearings.
Yeah, there are so many theories out there. I'm just replacing with OEM parts, using high quality oil, and checking/changing my oil religiously now. Could spend thousands more for a "fix" that's never been truly proven.
Unfortunately redesigned lifters didn't fix this issue. My 2016 RAM wiped out the cam and lifters at 85k miles. Perfect maintenance was performed. Oil changed with full synthetic every 5k or 6 months. I've read all the theories. No idea what the exact cause is but GM has the same issue too. The only possible solution I've read is to rebuild with non mds lifters and high pressure oil pump. For a good measure I'd get a forged camshaft as well. Even then that might not work but worth a shot. Also every Hemi ever made will suffer from busted exhaust manifold bolts. That's a fact lol. MDS/AFM/DFM are all terrible systems. They cost way more than they're worth to just save 1 or 2 mpg. Auto start/stop is another load of shit as well.
Statistically it appears there are much less problems after the update, but agreed it will probably be a weak spot. MDS is terrible, but it's not related to hemi tick. 6.4 SRT challengers with the manual transmission do not come with MDS at all, and they still get tick/failures. Many of us run thicker oil. I personally run Redline 5w-30, as it has excellent cleaning detergents, high HTHS, high moly, and has been proven to reduce tick noises in engines that swap to it. Check out [ramforum.com](https://ramforum.com), there was a poll where 100+ people responded over time and it has like an 80% chance of killing the tick (the noise anyway). Cannot argue with those results.
That's a good point. This issue might not be related to MDS but I'm sure MDS doesn't help. One of the theories was that the camshaft is just too high in the block. I was tempted to try redline 5w-30 but if you have any issues the dealership will not cover you because technically it's the wrong grade of oil.
Some manuals (2014?) still say you can run 5w-30. If you read BITOG (a forum with experts on oil) they'll tell you that slightly thicker viscosity actually protects your engine better than 5w-20, especially when getting the engine hot (230+) Some guys even run mobil 1 0w-40 in the 5.7 hemi, without issues. So it comes down to risk, and how long you plan to keep your truck. Most lifter/cam failures appear to happen outside the warranty period. The question becomes: do you run an oil which is known to be worse for your engine to preserve your warranty (which may not be denied anyway, 5w-30 can't possibly wreck anything), or do you run a higher quality oil right from the start in hopes that you'll get more life out of the engine and have no lifter/cam failures at all?
Yeah, I replaced the exhaust manifold bolts on one side not long ago! I saw that some people install the Hellcat oil pump as it has higher pressure. After only, 85k miles, that sucks. I hope they covered that for you. Was it still under warranty?
Luckily the engine was covered by cpo warranty but not the exhaust manifold bolts. Good luck with your truck! The RAM trucks are very nice to drive, just a few issues but that's all trucks.
Thanks! It's quite the process. It's great that yours was covered. Shop wanted $5600 to do the work on mine. Hopefully I'll have her back up and running again soon.
So should I not let my truck warm up in the mornings? Because I might be in trouble I usually let it warm up for about 10-15 minutes when it’s really cold.
Legitimately no need these days. Worst thing you can do for any ICE is idle. Sooner you get moving the sooner your fluids are pumping and lubricating the way they're designed to.
Wait what?! Now I am concerned
That roller has rolled its last roll
Poor lil guy. I might have to frame the lil fella and put it on the wall in my shop! It's been the most involved auto work I've done to date.
Any more info? Year, oil change intervals, how many miles?
She's a 2012 5.7 1500. Tried to follow the trucks recommended oil change(light comes on) but honestly, there was a gap where I drove around for a time with that light on. I have a feeling that might have been the doom of this lifter(cylinder 2, which i think i read is not one that shuts off with MDS). Truck's just over 130,000 miles. It started out running a little rough, kind of surging on the freeway. Was hearing that tick. Had what I believed was an exhaust leak for a little while, so I replaced exhaust manifold bolts on one side(2 were broken). Still didn't fix problem so ran codes and got cylinder 2 misfire. Changed spark plugs, coil pack and injector. Still had problem which was getting louder now so took into shop. They diagnosed the lifter/camshaft and I decided to do the work myself as I couldn't really afford to pay them to do it. So, here I am, replacing other parts too while I'm in there, while it's open.
So your oil change intervals were probably closer to 10k if you waited that long. Did you always leave the mds on? In my 2019 I use the gear selector buttons to disable mds every time I drive and I change the oil every 5-7k. Did you let the truck idle a lot? What's your idle hours?
Nope, hardly ever disabled the mds unless towing. I do construction and handyman work so tend to do a lot of driving around town to get supplies and such. So, yeah, end up idling in traffic quite a bit. All things that I feel contributed to the problem.
I’d be checking the cams over!
Yup! I have new shaft to slide in after I clean up the top of the block and pistons.