Jeep 392 Fail

[Lion77]

Why I SOLD My Jeep Wrangler 392 (It Let Me Down…)

Fastest production jeep ever made, but apparently the engineering doesn't hold up very well. Very interesting and honest video from a 392 fan.

Given a RR cost about 1/2 of that and is more practical, with just a pro-cal + IC, it will run close to a 392 on 1/4 mile, but we have not seen any of the powertrain reliability issues. That stuff just ruins the fun entirely. I know having had a 2016 Mustang GT PP manual. Ford's manual in that car was not so good (auto's with 6R80 were bullet proof).

I think the RR is just a much better overall truck for Baja + Trails, if you want a crawler, get a BR or mod the RR with Portals.

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[John E Davies]

"I need a vehicle I can rely on.." LOL. he drives Jeeps, what does he expect? He needs a Land Cruiser 200, they never ever have drivetrain problems. I love my RR, but have no illusions about its capabilities or lack of toughness, it is a hoot to drive but it does NOT inspire confidence when you are alone in the desert...

Check Engine Light come on, and a total loss of power when descending a steep drop-off in 4 Low first gear, rough idle, six hours from help. Clear the codes and restart, it then runs fine.... This is common in RRs! And completely unacceptable BS.

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

 

[superj]

that chart is hilarious!!

the jeep dude in the video needs a 2.0 powered wrangler if he wants dependability.

 

[BuenaRaptor]

I came from a 392 and while I loved the crap out of it and took it to Baja 4 times last year I didn’t like that I went thru 3 transfer cases with the last one going out in Baja and me having to force two wheel drive to get home back to Colorado. Put in an Atlas tc and sold it. Took 5 months to get the atlas tho. F that! So doing the RR to Baja in a month. Can’t wait!

 

[BtheCarGuy]

"I need a vehicle I can rely on.." LOL. he drives Jeeps, what does he expect? He needs a Land Cruiser 200, they never ever have drivetrain problems. I love my RR, but have no illusions about its capabilities or lack of toughness, it is a hoot to drive but it does NOT inspire confidence when you are alone in the desert...

Check Engine Light come on, and a total loss of power when descending a steep drop-off in 4 Low first gear, rough idle, six hours from help. Clear the codes and restart, it then runs fine.... This is common in RRs! And completely unacceptable BS.

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

I gather you have never seen Doug DeMuro’s (5M subscribers, more than all the legacy brands sum total) video of his Land Cruiser 200 ownership? He purchased it with well under 100k mi. because “you just can’t kill a Land Cruiser,” he said. To make a long story short, he ended up spending $18k+ with various repairs before finally throwing in the towel. But he doubled down on stupidity by refusing to even consider another brand because of course, reliability is king. So he bought a Sequoia, which is by a country mile the worst rated large SUV (e.g. Car and Driver Oct/Nov 2025). I worked in the repair information industry for 30+ years and we were the 800# gorilla, and I can tell you unequivocally that the new Toyota trucks have been garbage. The old days of large displacement (albeit gas hawgs) fairly rudimentary and reliable trucks are long gone.

 

[Onceaneagle]

Why I SOLD My Jeep Wrangler 392 (It Let Me Down…)

Fastest production jeep ever made, but apparently the engineering doesn't hold up very well. Very interesting and honest video from a 392 fan.

Given a RR cost about 1/2 of that and is more practical, with just a pro-cal + IC, it will run close to a 392 on 1/4 mile, but we have not seen any of the powertrain reliability issues. That stuff just ruins the fun entirely. I know having had a 2016 Mustang GT PP manual. Ford's manual in that car was not so good (auto's with 6R80 were bullet proof).

I think the RR is just a much better overall truck for Baja + Trails, if you want a crawler, get a BR or mod the RR with Portals.

Don't trust JEEP assembly line employees. They take some pretty interesting lunch breaks.

 

[John E Davies]

I never said that a LC200 never needed repairs, and those can be extremely costly, especially at dealer prices The plastic radiator can develop a seep at 150,00 miles, the EGR crossover pipe near the firewall can crack, requiring removal of the intake manifold, the starter is buried under the intake manifold, so just change it too when you do the pipe, the Nav/ info screen can develop glitches and freeze, it is like $10,000 new (!), so buy a used one. The HVAC recirculate door hinge WILL break if a clueless tech forces it open by hand when changing the air filter. The driver ergos are horrible - switches placed in random locations and many are out of sight or not in easy reach of the driver,

The build quality of the made in Japan LC 200 model is next to none, all major body panels have ID tags with matching serial numbers, the steel is high strength and heavy gauge, they NEVER develop squeaks or rattles, even at 300,000 miles. The soft stock suspension is not optimal for offroading, that requires an upgrade. The offroad assists are stellar (KDSS, Crawl (which can dig the truck out of chassis deep loose sand by itself), Turn Assist, etc.)

The DRIVETRAIN is as close to bullet proof as any vehicle could get. You may lose your nav function but the transfer case isn’t going to trash itself, and an axle shaft isn’t going to snap (like in a Ranger). OTH a stock RR is an order of magnitude more comfortable than a stock LC 200 at high speeds offroad.

I have already repaired a couple of nuisance squeaks and rattles in my RR, and at 11,000 miles my front passenger seat has started to go clunk clunk clunk over small road irregularities. Frustrating, it seems that reliability and performance rarely go hand in hand..,..

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

 

[BtheCarGuy]

I never said that a LC200 never needed repairs, and those can be extremely costly, especially at dealer prices The plastic radiator can develop a seep at 150,00 miles, the EGR crossover pipe near the firewall can crack, requiring removal of the intake manifold, the starter is buried under the intake manifold, so just change it too when you do the pipe, the Nav/ info screen can develop glitches and freeze, it is like $10,000 new (!), so buy a used one. The HVAC recirculate door hinge WILL break if a clueless tech forces it open by hand when changing the air filter. The driver ergos are horrible - switches placed in random locations and many are out of sight or not in easy reach of the driver,

The build quality of the made in Japan LC 200 model is next to none, all major body panels have ID tags with matching serial numbers, the steel is high strength and heavy gauge, they NEVER develop squeaks or rattles, even at 300,000 miles. The soft stock suspension is not optimal for offroading, that requires an upgrade. The offroad assists are stellar (KDSS, Crawl (which can dig the truck out of chassis deep loose sand by itself), Turn Assist, etc.)

The DRIVETRAIN is as close to bullet proof as any vehicle could get. You may lose your nav function but the transfer case isn’t going to trash itself, and an axle shaft isn’t going to snap (like in a Ranger). OTH a stock RR is an order of magnitude more comfortable than a stock LC 200 at high speeds offroad.

I have already repaired a couple of nuisance squeaks and rattles in my RR, and at 11,000 miles my front passenger seat has started to go clunk clunk clunk over small road irregularities. Frustrating, it seems that reliability and performance rarely go hand in hand..,..

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

Pretty frustrating to try to have a dialogue when someone refuses to answer the questions. That said, I’ll assume that you have not watched the video. His expectation was that by rebuilding each system his truck would be reliable. Nope.

This probably isn’t the forum to $&*+ talk Rangers. You can always take your RR to your local Toyota dealer and for $55k get a base 4-cyl. Tacoma just like the one I looked at via Costco. I wasn’t impressed. Or go full monte and drop $70k on a Trail Hunter. TFL Truck and Truck King tested all the midsize trucks and (only) those two had mechanical failures though, so consider yourself warned. Ironically the Tacoma was recalled today for the front differential, what blew on TFL’s rig.

 

[Lion77]

Toyota makes great cars overall, but that doesn't mean EVERYTHING they make is great. It also doesn't mean they are beyond production issues, design flaws or limitations. Same thing with Chrysler / Dodge / Jeep.

When it comes to the Ranger vs. 4th gen Taco, I think the Ranger is a better truck OVERALL. Powertrain is way better even on the regular trims, the 10R60 is pretty well ironed out by now, trans tuning is notably better in the Fords than in the Taco's. A lot of the reviews of the 4th gen Tacos said the trans tuning is much slower to shift, it tries to stay in a taller gear longer than they expected for fuel economy etc. and they had inconsistent shift points, making it feel like it was hunting for gears, not something you would expect from an 8-spd that's been around for a while.

That's ok for a daily, but a high performance off-road vehicle is different and I think Ford did a great job with the 3.0L + 10R60, especially after a Pro Cal. Stock was good, better than competition, but Pro Cal on a RR is extremely good and the competition can't touch it, in fact it's better than any auto tuning I've had in any car, even beats my Mazda's. The RR is a muscle Baja truck, but it can do quite a bit of trail stuff too, comparable to other mid-sized trucks and the Gladiator Rubicon (a quasi-mid-sized truck).

As far as mid-sized trucks go, it's ground clearance and size / weight is about on par with its two rivals (ZR2 and TRD Pro or Trail Hunter). About my only big gripe on the stock setup is a lack of angled rock sliders like the ZR2 and Trail Hunter have, that would have really increased it's versatility, but I get that cost was a factor and as a Baja focused truck, sliders don't matter, but they do matter for trails, which the RR is also reasonably good at (at least as good as it's counter parts aside from less clearance than a ZR2 Bison / AT4 with 35's).

 

[AlloyPony]

The 392 engine is bulletproof. Just last night I saw one with 338,400 miles on it. Original engine and trans.

The problem is Stellantis is terrible at software. And since vehicles these days are rolling computers that presents a problem.

Having said that, if I do an Autotrader search for 2024-2025 Ranger Raptors within a 50 mile radius of my little town, there are PAGES of them for sale with less than 5,000 miles on the odometer. So that doesn't exactly give a guy a warm, fuzzy feeling either.

 

[Onceaneagle]

The 392 engine is bulletproof. Just last night I saw one with 338,400 miles on it. Original engine and trans.

The problem is Stellantis is terrible at software. And since vehicles these days are rolling computers that presents a problem.

Having said that, if I do an Autotrader search for 2024-2025 Ranger Raptors within a 50 mile radius of my little town, there are PAGES of them for sale with less than 5,000 miles on the odometer. So that doesn't exactly give a guy a warm, fuzzy feeling either.

Perhaps some of those RRs experienced the thrill of the pursuit, a smoking hot romance, expenditure of a lot of time and money, and then reality set in and got divorced.

 

[superj]

the 392 is not bulletproof and that dude that got over 300k miles had some repairs done to reach that mileage, namely the rocker arm failures. my nephew had a 392 and every time he went to car meets and shows, all anyone talked about was if they had the rocker arms fail yet and how much did it cost to fix. its all over any forum that uses the failure prone arms, and the 392 got them.

you can google it, there is class action lawsuit because of those rocker arms.

i looked at the gladiators and that is how i found out about it.

 

[Lion77]

If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone talk about the "hemi-tick" and it's not just the 5.7L....just do a google search for HEMI tick and it comes up like wildfire just like Ecoboost Cam Phasor issues in the F-150's.

Although I will say I can find far fewer cam phasor issues on 3rd gen 3.5L's, 2.7L's and 3.0L's and the 1st and 2nd gens. There are absolutely some but seems less common now. Most of the search results for 2021 F-150 Cam Phasor issues are threads asking if it's still and issue vs. the few saying "I actually have this problem".

My friend has a 2021 Explorer ST that now has over 130k miles on it, original engine and 10R60. He keeps up with regular maintenance since vehicle maintenance was engrained in him during his tour Iraq as a 19 kilo (he drove M1A1 main battle tank, ASV's and some Humvees later on), but he actually runs it out to 10k every oil change on factory synthetic blend.

He's topped it out at 140 MPH on private airport tarmacs, has no problem hammering it whenever he needs to merge, pass or just wants to Hoon around, but he also is meticulous about waiting until both the coolant and engine oil are up to temp before flogging it.

Just one example. Like others have said, most people come on the forums to vent their frustrations, not because things we well, so I take most forums as anecdotal, there is some merit to the issues, but rarely is it was widespread as people make it out to be.

 

[Onceaneagle]

I had a 2010 F150 FX. When I traded it at 106,00 miles, I had no cam phaser tick. I changed the oil/ every 5K, did other maintenance, and no problem.

 

[hand-filer]

Why I SOLD My Jeep Wrangler 392 (It Let Me Down…)

Fastest production jeep ever made, but apparently the engineering doesn't hold up very well. Very interesting and honest video from a 392 fan.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk is the fastest production jeep ever made.

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