FCA Agreed to Cover Three Valve-Train Parts for Seven Years or 70,000 Miles — the Same Term California Publishes for High-Cost Emissions Parts. Every Vehicle in the Class Is a 2015–2020 Model. Claims Close October 12.

The only authorised site is FCAwarrantysettlement.com, built and run by Kroll Settlement Administration LLC. Its Important Dates panel lists four entries, and three of them are the same Monday: the claim form deadline, the opt-out deadline and the objection deadline, all October 12, 2026, with the Final Approval Hearing on October 28, 2026.

The Long-Form Notice puts the claim deadline like this: “You must submit a Claim Form online by 11:59 PM PT on October 12, 2026, or postmarked by October 12, 2026.” The hearing, per the same notice, is “at the United States District Court, Central District of California at 350 W. 1st Street, 5th floor, Courtroom 5C, in Los Angeles, California,” at 1:30 p.m. PT.

The notice also explains where that October 12 came from: “The deadline for submission of Claims is October 12, 2026, which is forty-five (45) days after Notice to the Settlement Class.” Forty-five days back from October 12 is August 28, 2026. If a letter about a Ram, a Wrangler or a Grand Caravan arrived at the end of August and got put aside, that is the letter.

Three components, named the same way every time the documents mention them: the Valve Rocker Arm, the Valve Stem Oil Seal and the Valve Tappet. The Long-Form Notice sets out the term in one sentence: “FCA US has agreed to extend its existing warranty obligations for the Class Vehicles to cover the costs of all parts and labor for replacing a failed Valve Rocker Arm, Valve Stem Oil Seal, or Valve Tappet component for the earlier of seven years from the Class Vehicle's in-service date or 70,000 miles driven.”

Nobody has to pay first and claim later: FCA US covers the work “without the Settlement Class Member having to pay out-of-pocket and then having to seek reimbursement.” But the sentence that follows carries a condition worth reading twice, because it is the one that decides whether the benefit is real for you: “As long as the diagnosis and/or repair is performed at an authorized FCA US dealership within the earlier of seven years from the Class Vehicle's in-service date or 70,000 miles driven, FCA US will not impose any fees or charges related to the diagnosis and/or repair.” An independent garage is not the address for this. The dealer is.

The catch is not in any of that. It is in the word earlier.

The clock does not start when the settlement is approved. It starts at the vehicle's in-service date, and it stops at whichever comes first: seven years, or 70,000 miles.

The newest vehicle in the class is a model-year 2020. Seven years before today, September 10, 2026, is September 10, 2019. Every Class Vehicle placed in service before that date is already past the calendar half of the term, however few miles are on it — and for model years 2015 through 2018 that is all of them, since a 2018 model sold new in late 2019 is the rare exception rather than the rule.

The mileage half closes the door on most of the rest. To be inside 70,000 miles today, a vehicle placed in service in 2015 would have to have averaged 6,364 miles a year across eleven years; one from 2017 would need to have averaged 7,778; one from 2020 has to have stayed under 70,000 across six years, or about 11,667 a year. Those are not impossible numbers for a garage-kept Challenger. They are well below what a Ram 1500 or a Grand Caravan does for a living.

So for a large part of this class, the headline benefit — free parts and labour at the dealer — is a benefit that expired before the notice arrived. Nothing in the documents hides this; the term is stated plainly on the first page. It simply does not survive contact with the model years.

The figure looks oddly specific because it matches a figure California already publishes. The state's Air Resources Board sets out the warranty periods every 1990-and-newer passenger car and light-duty truck must carry there. There are two tiers. The first, three years or 50,000 miles, “covers all emissions related parts.” The second, seven years or 70,000 miles, is the High-Cost Emissions-Related Parts Warranty and “covers specific, high cost emissions-related parts as listed in owners manual.”

That is the same term the complaint says these three components should have carried. The allegation, in the notice's own words, is that FCA US “did not provide the appropriate warranty coverage for certain valve train system components as ‘high-priced' warranted parts under the California Emissions Warranty (13 CCR §§ 1950, et seq.).” The settlement applies seven years and 70,000 miles to them. Whether that is best read as a new benefit or as the regulation's own floor is a judgement the documents do not make for you — but the two numbers are the same, and that is checkable.

It is worth being precise about what this settlement is not. It is not a recall, there is no defect notice, and there is no safety campaign attached to it. Anyone searching after a repair bill should keep those apart.

If the warranty extension has already run out on your vehicle, the money question is the past repair. “Any Class Member who previously paid for a diagnosis and/or repair of a failed Valve Rocker Arm, Valve Stem Oil Seal, or Valve Tappet component entitled to warranty coverage under this Settlement may submit a Claim to the Settlement Administrator for reimbursement upon proof of a paid qualifying diagnosis and/or repair.”

Note the qualifier: entitled to warranty coverage under this Settlement. The repair itself has to fall inside the seven-year / 70,000-mile window. A rocker arm replaced at 92,000 miles is not a qualifying repair, however much it cost.

A valid submission needs three things, and the notice lists them as (a), (b) and (c):

• “a completed Claim Form”;
• “proof of payment (e.g., a paid invoice, receipt, or credit card statement showing amount paid and date of service)”;
• “documentation identifying the vehicle (including the Vehicle Identification Number or VIN), owner, the component diagnosed and/or repaired, and the name and contact information of the repair facility.”

That third item is the one that trips people up. The invoice has to name the component. A line item reading “engine repair” does not identify a Valve Tappet, and the shop that did the work is the only place left to get that in writing.

Claims may go in by post, by email to claims@fcawarrantysettlement.com, or through the portal. And nothing is paid quickly: “No reimbursements under the Settlement will be issued until after the Court gives its final approval to the Settlement and after any appeals are resolved.”

The class is defined by engine first. It is “all individuals who, as confirmed by FCA US's records, purchased or leased one or more of the following vehicles equipped with a 3.6L engine” in California — the California Class — and in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont or Washington, which the notice calls the “Reg. 177 States.” Ten states plus California.

The vehicles, with their model years exactly as the notice gives them: Ram 1500 2015–2020; Dodge Journey 2015–2019; Jeep Wrangler 2015–2020; Dodge Challenger 2015–2020; Dodge Charger 2015–2020; Chrysler 300 2015–2020; Chrysler Town & Country or Dodge Grand Caravan 2015–2020; Chrysler 200 2015–2017; Ram Promaster 2015–2020; Dodge Durango 2015–2020; Grand Cherokee 2015–2020.

The exclusions are worth reading before filing. Out of the class are FCA US and its affiliates, officers, directors and employees, the assigned judge and their spouse, anyone who validly opts out — and “consumers or businesses that have purchased or leased Class Vehicles previously deemed a total loss (i.e., salvage or junkyard vehicles) (subject to verification through Carfax or other means).” A salvage-title Charger is not in this settlement, and the administrator has a way of checking.

Here the document does not speak with one voice, and a reader deciding what to do deserves both halves.

The rights table on page 2 is blunt. Against the option it labels Opt out or exclude yourself, it says: “You will receive no Settlement benefits, but you will retain any legal claim you have against FCA US.”

Question 12, seven pages later, answers “If I exclude myself, can I receive a benefit from this Settlement?” differently: “No. You may still receive the benefits of the warranty extension, but you will not be entitled to any other benefit under the Settlement.” Question 9, on doing nothing, points the same way: “If you do nothing, you may still have the benefit of the warranty extension, but you will not receive any reimbursement for a past qualifying diagnosis and/or repair of a Valve Rocker Arm, Valve Stem Oil Seal, or Valve Tappet component you paid for.”

We are not going to resolve that for you, and we are not going to pretend it is settled. If the warranty extension matters to your decision, the number to call before October 12 is the administrator's, (833) 930-0207.

What is not ambiguous is the release. Class members who stay in give up, among other things, California Class claims under Section 17200 of California's Business & Professions Code and Reg. 177 Class claims for breach of contract, plus claims “based on a malfunction of the Valve Rocker Arm, Valve Stem Oil Seal, or Valve Tappet component in the Class Vehicles as alleged in the Action.”

Two carve-outs survive it, and both matter. “The Released Claims do not include claims for death, personal injuries, damage to tangible property other than a Class Vehicle, or subrogation.” And: “Nothing in this Settlement will be construed as a waiver, release and/or compromise of any pending automobile lemon law claim.” Anyone with a live lemon-law case in California should read that sentence twice — it is there on purpose.

Class Counsel are Jordan L. Lurie and Ari Y. Basser of Pomerantz LLP in Los Angeles, and Robert L. Starr of the Law Office of Robert L. Starr in Calabasas. Their fees do not come out of anything class members receive: “Members of the Settlement Class are not charged for Class Counsel's services. Class Counsel will be paid by FCA US, subject to the Court's approval.”

The ceiling is modest by class-action standards. “Class Counsel will seek an order from the Court requesting that they be awarded up to, but not more than, $1,005,000 for fees, costs, and expenses incurred,” plus a service award to the Class Representative “of up to, but not more than, $7,500.” There is no common fund here to divide — reimbursements are paid claim by claim, and the warranty extension costs FCA whatever it costs FCA.

One quiet detail in the release paragraph tells you this took a while: the operative document is the “Second Renewed Class Action Settlement Agreement and Release.” The case number, 2:22-cv-05521, dates the complaint to 2022.