I have seen lots of 03 and 04 hemi rods break even in the best cared for engines. I have one under the shelf from an 04 Ram and the bearing looks brand new, piston and cylinder have almost no wear, ZERO sludge the rod just clean snapped off down by the big end and I have done quite a few of them like that. I have seen broken springs but mostly they just cause a missfire, not seen one hit a piston yet. I can see if they sucked up water bending a rod or breaking a piston but it is not just the Durangos and these broken rods look to break not bend, it also looks like they must have failed as the piston tried to pull the rod back down.


The one thing that seems to spell instant death that falls under lack of maintnance is if they overheat, even one overheat can let the valve seats fall out, holt the valve open smack pistons...