Spun Rod Bearing - 2021 Yukon Denali 6.2 L

[Jocko PDX]

A work colleague of mine had the 6.2 go bad and they put in a "remanufactured" engine.. That went bad.. Now he is filing a lemon law case if they won't replace his rig. We will see.

 

[homesick]

I'll never buy another new one, they're way too far down the path from machine to sealed, and spyware laden, appliance for me.

This '07 Escalade is already further down that path than I like; and is my last. If it ever needs an engine, it'll be a crate engine.

joe

 

[West 1]

I can't say if GM is still using this company but AER in Texas had the GM contract to supply long blocks and short blocks to the GM dealerships. They are a first class operation, I have toured the plant and seen their equipment and test facilities.

GM does not do any of the warranty engines in house they farm it out. If the engine is still in production, exact engine you need GM may pull one off the assembly line for these failing 6.2L engines.

At one point AER was rebuilding warranty engines for GM, Ford and Nissan along with many smaller customers. I think they rebuilt 60,000 engines the year I toured the plant. I would be happy to have one of their engines supplied as a warranty replacement unless they have changed ownership and management style. It has been almost 20 years since I toured the plant. They are not small time, the plant is 700,000 square feet.

GM used to source engine bearings from Federal-Mogul and Clevite (made in America) and had almost zero engine bearing failures for many years. I bet GM has now switched and is using bearings from China or India. Bearing failures were pretty much eliminated decades ago in OEM engines. The fact that they are back in huge numbers tells you clearly somebody decided to drop quality for better pricing. Chrysler did it first, went to a low cost provider, (China) and had numerous bearing failures due to this cost savings.
Sad fact. Who knows maybe competition has made Clevite and Federal Mogul move manufacturing overseas also. Engine Bearings might be going the way of brakes. You can't buy a Disc brake made in America anymore. All the major players moved production to China 20 years ago. Even Timken automotive wheel bearings I have seen lately state made in China? Sad to see and now we live with the results of this shift.

 

[GMCChevy]

I can't say if GM is still using this company but AER in Texas had the GM contract to supply long blocks and short blocks to the GM dealerships. They are a first class operation, I have toured the plant and seen their equipment and test facilities.

GM does not do any of the warranty engines in house they farm it out. If the engine is still in production, exact engine you need GM may pull one off the assembly line for these failing 6.2L engines.

At one point AER was rebuilding warranty engines for GM, Ford and Nissan along with many smaller customers. I think they rebuilt 60,000 engines the year I toured the plant. I would be happy to have one of their engines supplied as a warranty replacement unless they have changed ownership and management style. It has been almost 20 years since I toured the plant. They are not small time, the plant is 700,000 square feet.

GM used to source engine bearings from Federal-Mogul and Clevite (made in America) and had almost zero engine bearing failures for many years. I bet GM has now switched and is using bearings from China or India. Bearing failures were pretty much eliminated decades ago in OEM engines. The fact that they are back in huge numbers tells you clearly somebody decided to drop quality for better pricing. Chrysler did it first, went to a low cost provider, (China) and had numerous bearing failures due to this cost savings.
Sad fact. Who knows maybe competition has made Clevite and Federal Mogul move manufacturing overseas also. Engine Bearings might be going the way of brakes. You can't buy a Disc brake made in America anymore. All the major players moved production to China 20 years ago. Even Timken automotive wheel bearings I have seen lately state made in China? Sad to see and now we live with the results of this shift.

Where's the source for Chrysler using Chinese bearings? That's a new one. They never had major engine issues like these ones. Their biggest problem has been the same sort of lifter issue as GMs are having.

 

[jfoj]

Mahle acquired Clevite back in 2006. Like any company that is acquired, problems come up. I have never seen much good come from most European/US mergers acquisitions. The culture differences and engineering philosophies collide and usually the Europeans do not understand the US business operations or consumers IMHO.

What I do know from some very good sources is Mahle/Clevite did have bearing laminate issue around 2021 (COVID era) probably due to supply chain or material issues. Not sure how big of a problem this really was and how soon things may have failed.

The primary problem with the 6.2l failures is caused by fuel diluted 0W20 oil that has lost a significant amount of its viscosity and the reason the 6.2l are failing so much more frequently than the 5.3l is the Low RPM, High Torque the 6.2l can produce and the fact that the TCM has the engine loading at 70%-100% at 1500-1700 RPM on the highway pulling slight grades. Fuel is solvent and in the crankcase does not do well lubricating and cooling highly loaded bearing surfaces.

 

[West 1]

Chryslers problem with bearings was with the 2.7L V6, they were building it with zero issues and then switched vendors for the rod bearings and had many failures due to the switch. I have been out of the business since 2019 so no longer have access to the direct information on who is using what products.
If you have a failed GM bearing on hand the back of the bearing is stamped, the numbers will tell you who made the bearing, the part number, size and date code of production.

I worked for Federal Mogul for 30 years, in the engine bearing development labs they had 26 dynos running 24/7 doing development work for everything from Detroit Diesel to Briggs and Stratton. Up till 2004 you could not sell a bearing to the major manufacturers unless you could prove they met standards in actual running dyno tests, Ford had a standard for Pistons where they insisted on a 300 hour wide open throttle test for a piston to pass. Think about that one, who would run an engine even 1 hour at wide open throttle but they insisted on a 300 hour test for certification.

Edit: The 300 hour test was done at the RPM the engine reached max torque, if that was 4800 RPM that is where it was held for 300 hours at full throttle with the Dyno limiting the RPM to 4800 rpm.

I understand today most of the development of the new parts is all done with computer simulations rather than actual running engines on dyno’s.