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Vehicle

Dodge Nitro

A body-on-frame compact SUV built alongside the Jeep Liberty KK and sharing its frame, axles and engines, which is where its information lives. The 3.7 V6 is the engine most carry, and its recurring fault is a rocker-arm and lash-adjuster failure that sets cylinder-specific misfires with a distinctive tick — a mechanical fault that reads exactly like an ignition or injector problem on a scan tool. The 4.0 V6 is the better engine of the two. On four-wheel-drive examples the transfer case is electronically shifted, so a driveline complaint may be a motor or position-sensor fault rather than anything mechanical, and the 2.8 CRD diesel sold outside North America carries a particulate filter with its own regeneration diagnosis.

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Dodge Nitro, front view
Elise240SX · CC BY-SA 4.0 (external)

Generations

  • First generation (KA) 2007–2011

    Jeep Liberty KK frame and engines; the 3.7 V6's rocker and lash-adjuster failure sets misfires that mimic ignition faults.

    Body styles
    SUV
    Platform
    Chrysler KA
    Engines
    • 3.7 V6 — petrol
    • 4.0 V6 — petrol
    • 2.8 CRD — diesel · 130 kW (174 hp) · outside North America
    Transmissions
    4-speed automatic · 5-speed automatic · 6-speed Chrysler NSG-370 manual
    Drivetrain
    Rear-wheel drive · Part-time four-wheel drive with low range

Information, not instruction

CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.

Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.

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