2005 Holiday Connecting Rod Failure

[Dollfundeb]

Wednesday afternoon we were leaving out of Socorro, New Mexico while accelerating from 45 to 55mph we experienced a loud explosion and looked in the rear mirror to see a huge amount of smoke and as my husband always travels with the Aladdin system displayed in the main engine page he looked down and saw there was only 3psi of oil pressure after noticing that and pulling over it was then that the alarms went off. Please note the alarms did not go off prior to the loud explosion. It was after he said wow we only have 3psi of oil pressure and made his move to pull off to the side of the road immediately. Went to the back of the coach and found a huge oil puddle. Looked under the engine to find a large hole in the side of the oil pan. We were towed to Statkus Engine Service in Albuquerque New Mexico. They downloaded the computer and the code was Oil Pressure low and it was recorded for 14 seconds. No alerts or alarms prior to event. This is a 2005 Holiday Rambler Scepter it only has 23057 miles on it and it was running exceptional until that moment. We checked the Cummins recall and this s/n on this engine falls just outside the range of s/n that Cummins calls out. According to the owner of the shop that checked all of his resources no one will touch this engine - why I do not know??? The owner also seems perplexed that no one will touch it. The owner also told us that in his 41 years of business he has only seen this happen 3 or 4 times. He also wants to cut the rear fiberglass fascia apart and cut the rear cross member and hitch out of the coach to get the engine out - is this how you remove the engine out of this coach??? We would really appreciate anyone and everyone help and advice on this. Thank you so much in advance

[tinkerer]

If you can prove it was a wrist pin failure, I would strongly suggest you take it to an authorized Cummins dealer. I did that with my cracked #53 block that was out of warranty. The dealer can't do much for warranty work, and Cummins tried to blow me off, but I had a lawyer get involved and they took notice. I did get a settlement. It wasn't for the whole repair but it was better than nothing. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Mr_Mark1]

Usersmanual, do not private message me. I'm not going to read the message that you sent. Block me if you don't like reading my posts.

I have zero interest in what you think or have to say.

Merry Christmas,
MM.

[Dollfundeb]

We will definitely let everyone know how the process goes along

[usersmanual]

ISL 400 engine within a specific S/N range for Wrist Pin failure. The S/N range is 46543077 - 46603939 for the 2005- 2006 year.

cummins will assess each application for warranty on a case by case

[Mr_Mark1]

Mile High, yep, got a private message from him 4-1-16.

He didn't like my response to a post. Some people just can't move on.



Deb, I also want to hear updates on what Cummins will do for you.

MM.

[Mile_High]

Just a PS, anyone had to block a "lafrentz" on PM? Seems like the same person.

[J-Rooster]

Deb, I'm also sorry to hear about what happened to you! I'm in hopes that Cummins will step up to the plate and take care of you. It's all about customer service! Keep us posted to what happens!

[DSDP_Don]

Back to the OP.....as I said earlier, I thought they handled the wrist pin recall poorly. I've always thought that Cummins and especially the ISL were one of the best motor home engines ever built. It's still a preferred motor, 10 years after it became a standard motor in many coaches.

With that said, they should have repaired all of the engines within the wrist pin recall (reallistically impractical) or give an extended time frame for the warranty, since most of the engines were deemed okay if they got past a certain mileage, which I think was 25K.

Push them hard for a repair, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and all they can say is know. You have nothing to lose. Good luck.

[Mile_High]

Dollfundeb wrote:
After all of the excellent advice from everyone, we have taken every bit of it and put it to good use. We called the RV rep from Holiday Rambler and he said to get that coach out of there immediately, and he gave us a reps name at Cummins who told us the same thing and move it over to a Cummins dealer in Albuquerque as he believes this catastrophic event may indeed be part of the recall with the bad wrist pins and they will take the motor apart and verify and they will be able to help us out. We cannot thank everyone enough for all of the advice. This group is beyond awesome

If you can get it to Denver, we have a HUGE Cummins service center. It would be about a 400 mile tow but might be worth it in the end. They do a lot of motorhome service there, as I always am in awe at the rigs that pull out of there.

[Mile_High]

X6 and 7

[hanko]

So I"ll be X5

[rgatijnet1]

I'll add an X4

[mike_brez]

X3 I'm with you guys.

[Mr_Mark1]

Ivylog wrote:
I'm with you DSDP, in just four months I'm tired of his BS and I've never blocked anyone until today. Kind of neat that he no longer exists in any of the above posts. Merry Christmas.

X2. I had a round or two with the guy. I just ignored his posts after a while but didn't block him. The guy is supposed to be in the RV business since 1985. Surely he doesn't talk to his employees and customers like he talks to people here.

Anyway, I'm glad to see the OP is going to Cummins for the evaluation and work. We had good luck at the Cummins centers with our other coach.

Safe travels and Merry Christmas,
MM.