Desert Snow

Last week I was doing 65 down a desert highway when my 2011, 92K mile Jeep started ticking (think lifter tick) followed by a thump and complete system shutdown. She was rendered immobile and warranted a $500 tow.

This week the shop says they found water in the oil pan and I likely have a cracked head and blown gasket. They recommended a reman engine, water pump, and a few other parts to do the job “right”. $4000, includes all labor.

A crate engine from Chrysler will be $5000, including all labor.

Ouch.

So, I feel like I need to be asking some questions here. Why not machine work and/or a replacement head? It just seems a complete replacement seems excessive, but I’m not a mechanic. What should I be asking to feel comfortable with their recommendation and not have a thought in the back of my mind that I’m being oversold?

Thanks in advance!

Rednroll

Since you have a cracked head, that seems like a good place to start asking questions. Why not replace just the head? I would be looking into a reman-ed head replacements and it would likely be best if it included the cam and lifters. The 3.8L should have 2 heads, one for each side of the engine. Find out if 1 or both cracked, to find out if 1 particular side or both need to be replaced.

Their recommendation to "do it right", if I had to guess is that they are currently unsure if it's just the head which is cracked. What they know is that coolant is in the oil pan where it could be something as simple as a lower intake manifold gasket leak which could also cause that situation. I think that's your real problem right there, where they may need to tear down the entire top side of the engine to be able to diagnose what went wrong to allow the coolant to flow into the oil. So they're recommending to replace the entire thing, so they don't have to do further tear down to find out, where that tear down could also reveal a cracked block, which would then point them into the direction to replace the engine. The "thump" sound you described could be big trouble of a rod being thrown or a cracked block. So with their "do it right" recommendations, they essentially have all scenarios covered and would avoid the further current engine tear down to find out more.

I wouldn't be surprised if their further plan would be to swap your engine, and then once they have your current engine out, they can more easily tear it down and do that further diagnosis and repair, where if that diagnosis turns into a LIM gasket replacement, they'll repair that and turn around and sell your current 3.8L engine for another $2K-$3K. So their $4K job, now turns into a potential $7K job with $3K of that going into their pocket with minimal investment on the repair. I'm sure they would ask you, "Do you want that old busted engine?", where they're counting on your likely response would be, "What am I going to do with it? It's now worthless to me, so go ahead and dispose of it for me."

Google brought me to here for a replacement head.
2007 JEEP WRANGLER Cylinder Head

I found multiple take off heads on Ebay for the JK 3.8L engine as well.

Here is a good video on head replacements, to provide you some insight of the work that is needed. It's not simple, but seems a heck of a lot easier and cost effective than removing and replacing the entire engine.

jedg

Yeah, I'm with RednRoll on this one. What is their justification for an entirely new engine... what's the specific damage to that block..