2013 Chrysler Town & Country 3.6L Pentastar P0018

[xtac1080]

Hello Pico Forum,

I recently received my PicoScope & am eager to get to using it!

The vehicle is a 2013 Chrysler Town & Country with the 3.6l Pentastar engine. It has 108k miles. The vehicle is throwing an intermittent P0018 code. Analyzing history freeze frame data of the P0018 did not yield any notable patterns, though it does seem to occur before operating temperature is reached (previous 4 occurrences all within 110-148 degrees Farenheit at the ECT). I can post freeze frame data if needed.

I hooked up the Pico to both exhaust & intake CMP sensors and noticed they are not in-sync (B1 Intake CMP should match B2 exactly, same for exhaust). Off by several milliseconds. From other reading online I was led to believe they should match perfectly. I've attached the waveform I pulled from a Key-on Engine-idle session earlier today. It appears B2 Exhaust CMP is triggering before B1 Exhaust CMP as if the two are out of alignment. It stays this way fairly consistently, but they will occasionally line up as they should. Intake CMP is a different story. For most of the time B2 will trigger first and drop out first, but sometimes it will be B1 which doesn't make sense for a jumped tooth situation. I would think it would be consistently off on one or the other. Perhaps the chain is stretching/constricting ever so slightly causing this?

I probably should add in/compare the CKP signal since P0018 is a CKP-CMP correlation problem, but it's a pain to get at the connector and I know these 3.6's are notorious for camshaft issues. It is a new CMP sensor on Bank 2.

If anyone has any input I would greatly appreciate it. Look forward to hopefully aiding others on this forum!

[Mitchroberson]

I would look hard at the Oil control valves, and possibly the Advance Mechanism. I had a similar issue post timing chain replacement. We had replaced All the oiler bolts. And found that the replacements had 2 holes missing so they did not control advance like they were supposed to. But based on this walking through how the advance works I wonder if the oil control valves are dirty or stuck. You can run a clean with a scan tool which works some times.
Also on these the reluctor wheels on the camshafts are known to slip. it requires a special tool to measure it. but I think you may be able to rig something up.