Chrysler has announced that its new Pentastar V6 engine is to be available across 13 vehicles including trucks and sport utilities by 2013 and that significant cost savings will be realised with the shift from seven engines to just one V6.

Introduced in the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, the new V6 engine will soon be available in new Chrysler Town & Country, 300 and 200, Dodge Charger, Avenger, Durango and Journey models.

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The Pentastar V6 is described by Chrysler as the most advanced six cylinder engine ever produced by Chrysler Powertrain group. It is slated to be the ‘workhorse’ engine across many models and will eventually replace seven different V-6 engines over the next three years. By 2014, the new V6 is expected to account for more than a third of the powertrains in the vehicle line-up and substantially contribute to an overall corporate fuel efficiency improvement of more than 25%.

“The Pentastar engine is suited to meet the requirements for a full range of vehicle applications in terms of power and fuel efficiency including passenger cars, mini-vans and sport utilities,” explained Bob Lee, vice president of engine engineering for Chrysler Group LLC.

“It has been designed for today and many years to come. Already, we are looking forward to adapting future technologies as they become available to the Pentastar V-6 for even more fuel efficiency and performance.”

The Pentastar V6 will be used in front-, rear- and all-wheel-drive models. Already standard on the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, the V6 will gradually phase out seven V6 legacy engines ranging from 2.7 litre to 4 litre.

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Chrysler says that the new Pentastar will enable Chrysler Powertrain to reduce major engine components from 189 parts to just 32, resulting in a greatly simplified build process and improved quality. Significant cost savings also are realised with purchasing efficiencies and a reduction in limited, high piece cost parts.

Some parts, including the exhaust manifolds, will completely disappear by virtue of being cast directly into the cylinder head. Today, the engine line-up features 32 different left and right exhaust manifolds. That will drop to zero with the new Pentastar V6.

Upper and lower intake assembles, which accounted for 21 and 11 different parts numbers (respectively) have been reduced to two upper and lower assemblies. Camshaft variations will drop from 14 to four and just two fuel rails will be required rather than the current 14.

“We feel the new Pentastar V6 represents the best technology to deliver exceptional refinement, fuel economy and performance,” Lee said. “This engine allows increased flexibility to apply new technologies while providing significant cost savings to the company by substituting the state-of-the-art Pentastar for previous V6 engines.”