Piston, ring or cylinder wall damage on the 2006 Dodge Charger
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When piston, ring or cylinder wall damage gets reported
There are 4 reports of piston, ring or cylinder wall damage on the 2006 Dodge Charger, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 100,000 miles. It is the 43rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 132,556 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $3,000–$9,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Tl* the contact owns a 2006 dodge charger. While parked, the vehicle was not able to start and a clicking sound could be heard. The vehicle was towed to an authorized dealer where it was diagnosed that the valve seat dropped, which destroyed the cylinder wall. The contact stated that the entire engine would have to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 135,111.
I drove my vehicle to the store and everything was fine. I came out an hour later and attempted to start the car but it wouldn't start. I attempted to start it again and it started but the engine sounded horrible so I turned it off immediately. I had it towed to my mechanic who said there was no compression on cylinder #3 and the valve was unseated causing damage to the cylinder. I take meticulous care of my vehicle and this type of engine failure should have never happened with only 105k miles on it. Upon reading several thousand reviews on this 5.7l hemi engine, this appears to be a major problem and has been identified as a manufacturer defect. The below is the diagnosis for this early engine failure: "faulty valve seats according to the engine company, the original chrysler design presses the valve seats into the cylinder heads. The problem results when the powdered metal the valve seats are made of expands, causing it to drop into contact with the valve and pistons, which leads to catastrophic failure. In this process the seat breaks into many pieces causing deterioration of the piston, cylinder wall, valve and cylinder head…
While pulling out from a stop light my engine began to miss and run bad.I pulled over and shut it off.after letting it sit for a few minutes I tried again,it wouldn't turn over so I had it towed to a shop,they tore it apart and informed me I had dropped the valve seat in cylinder 4,it destroyed the intake valve,mds solenoid and scratched the cylinder wall
Also reported on the 2006 Dodge Charger
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
Other powertrain problem
Stalling while driving
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does piston, ring or cylinder wall damage happen on the 2006 Dodge Charger?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 135,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is piston, ring or cylinder wall damage on the 2006 Dodge Charger?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed