Engine Trouble

[LagunaH1]

I heard recently that many manufacturers don't pay the dealership techs for diagnostics time. -If thats the case with RAM, then I can see how the dealership in some cases will want to have their time covered one way or the other when spending time diagnosing

If you are under warranty everything is covered. If not, they will charge you 1 hour labor for diagnostic time then deduct that from the cost if you have them do the work. I have paid them to diagnose something before then fix it myself for a lot less, depending on the situation.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me

[Colibri]

I don't specifically know how Fiat Chrysler does it, but having worked for Nissan many years I can say the tech gets shafted on warranty work every time. When corporate is footing the bill the work is billed at a very reduced rate and diagnostic time is usually not paid to the tech. Warranty jobs typically pay around 1/3 what the same job would pay if a customer was covering the bill. Everyone in the shop avoids warranty work if they can lol.

[Ed1774]

Good luck with the new long block. I'm sure you'll get many more reliable miles out of the truck and you won't be adding oil between changes.

[coder]

I found out more information regarding the engine failure. It dropped a valve seat on the #5 piston, after a warm startup while previously running normally apparently is not uncommon in 2003-2008 5.7 Hemi's. Once the seat drops down the cylinder it breaks into pieces and cause piston/cylinder damage and loss of compression. Some guys try to hone the cylinder and replace the heads and bad piston. Youtube has several videos on this.