I've read a lot of negative things about the 4.7 engine, especially when in a Dakota. Why all the negativity?

I've wondered that myself. I had a 2000 Dakota with one and beat the snot out of it, never missed a beat. Wasn't my favorite for towing, but hauled a (over) load well enough and never missed a beat. Over 120K with nothing but oil changes and air filters. I only did the brakes once on that thing. Transfer case had a small drip, but that was it.

Because people don't take care of their vehicles properly then whine about the thing having the durability of a potato chip.

I had a Durango, VERY clean. The 4.7 gave up the head gasket at 147,000. It was a shame to junk it as like I said it was a super clean truck

The plastic timing chain guides are bad, most of the issues come from that, they get hot and get brittle and start breaking between apart around 100,000 and 150,000 miles, there are a few outliers that go more but most will start to have issues with start up rattle and progressively get worse and it seems to have no bearing on how well or poorly the engine was cared for, plastic like that just don't belong in an engine. The only time I have seen bottom end issues is when there are plastic bits plugging the oil intake. When the chain noise gets real bad most shops will diagnose a bad engine. The head gaskets and head surface seem to be very susceptible to overheating, if you have a water leak FIX IT, any overheating will blow a head gasket and probably need head re-surfacing, most shops diagnose this as a bad engine. Sometimes after sitting a while (usually a week or more but ocasionally just overnight) a lifter will bleed down and allow the rocker to fall off causing weird noises and severe misfires that most shops will diagnose as a "bad engine", typically we can just re-install the rocker in an hour and the engine keeps going. We see a lot of people bring their rigs to us with a "bad engine" and it does not need a new engine. We offer timing chains as a menu item here with all guides, tensioners and chains for $750 and if you want head gaskets at the same time $1500 plus $150 if you need them re-surfaced, most shops refuse to dig into one of these at all and most shops in the valley send their customers to us because you can't find a "good 4.7" in a junk yard.

I've never owned one, but had a GMC mechanic tell me a few years back that the dealer he worked for has fixed plenty of those engines on trade-ins. Now the service manager prefers to take them to the auction as they have been burned by these under their used vehicle warranty program.

And pretty hard to fill the shoes of the 318, which it was sort of doing. Sort of.

It doesn't seem to survive abuse and neglect quite as well as the 5.2 and 318.
It is overshadowed by the 5.7 in larger vehicles.

Shopping used vehicles, personally it seems every time I have found what seemed like a deal on a vehicle with one,
most of them either needed a timing chain related repair, or already had it replaced incorrectly and were throwing codes.
The others that were even less expensive didn't have a timing chain issue had blown head gasket, cracked head, cracked block type of issues.

I lived with one in a 2002 RAM 1500 for almost 5 yrs. Never had any serious issue with it mechanically, but, no matter what I did or how I drove, it would only give me 14MPG. Downhill with a strong tail wind, 14. Around town in stop and go traffic.....14. I could get the MPG lower (easily) but never higher. When I owned this truck, there was a guy on here insisting he had essentially the same truck and he was knocking out 20+ MPG all day long.

And it was kinda gutless at lower RPM. There would be instances where I'd have to slow down for traffic, and just needed a little oomph to get back up to speed, no where near full throttle, and it wouldn't do it.

I had a dealer and an independent shop look at it to see if the computer needed to be reset or if anything was wrong and neither found anything. Both basically said it was just too small of an engine for such a big truck

I bought it when it just turned 40K miles, and I got rid of it when it had about 90K. For giggles, I recently found an old registration with the VIN on it and ran it thru Carfax. Truck is still going with over 250K on it somewhere up around Dallas. I wonder if it's still on the original engine.

I have a 2005 Durango with the 4.7 and it is quieter then the 2014 5.7 Hemi I had with 50k on it. It scoots pretty good with decent gas mileage too. No complaints .

This is a story I read all too often (new engine in a 150,000 mile vehicle).

https://okaloosa.craigslist.org/cto/d/crestview-jeep-4x4-new-engine/6886870856.html

Gee an off the road vehicle that needed a new engine. Who would have guessed.

Probably true but from all I've heard (first-hand) and read about them, I'll never own one. Plenty for sale around here (Daks & 'rangos) with bad 4.7s in 'em.



Tim

Ain't afraid of them at all and have had 3 of them over the years .

Generally, when I buy a vehicle, it has around 100k miles on it. I can't afford to buy something that has a motor with the rep of having a major issues between 100K and 150K miles.
I have 3 friends that lost the 4.7 in Dakotas before they made it to 75K miles. No thank you please. Gene

I had an '06 HO 4.7. I liked it other then the fact that at 25K miles I could not keep oil in it. When I traded it in with 60K on it it smoked so bad on startup it appeared the truck was on fire.

Let's remember that the 4.7 is only 286cid. We kinda loose track just how small an engine it is with the use of the metric numbers. And is just a bit complicated and fragile especially for a truck engine. Lots of premature failures. Of course, some go on forever, but then some early 2.7s went a long way too.

The 4.7 is just a crap shoot. Some deliver a good life span with minimal intrusive repairs while others break parts that require major dollars to fix. You just never know which you will get.

I've never owned one, but did have a rental Dakota with one. Fuel mileage was at least 3-4 mpg worse than my 5.9 Durango. That was enough of an experience with one to know that I wanted a 5.2 or 5.9 Durango when I was looking.

Had an 01 Durango with the 4.7. I bought it with 170k. It ran buttery smooth, do I thought I had gotten lucky. That thought went out the window about a month later when my oil pressure dropped to zero at idle. Come to find out it burned a ton of oil. We drove it from Phoenix to LA and back (300ish miles one way) and went through 4 quarts of oil. We traded it in on a 16 Durango and got $50 for it lol. Only traded it in because I got severely injured and couldn't replace an engine.

I had went down to the local dealership to order a dak R/T with the 360 and was told I could not do it at the time, something like they had to build X amount of economy cars before taking more orders for fun ones. Not sure if true or he wanted to try to sell me a 4.7 truck.

I wasnt happy but agreed to test drive the 4.7, it ran ok, well enough to upset the salesman because I did a smokey launch and waited till he said ENOUGH really LOUD which was about 110mph.

I said runs ok, but not like a 360 and off I went. So for that brief moment the 4.7 did "ok".