Most oil-grade questions have one answer. A few have two, and the thing that decides between them is the model year — not the engine, not the trim. Four Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram engines were specified on one grade early on and a different grade later, and because the engine badge never changed, the wrong answer looks right.
We went through FCA’s own owner’s manuals year by year to find where each line moved. Here is what they say.
The 3.7 V6 and 4.7 V8 changed at MY2007
Through the 2006 model year, Chrysler asked for SAE 5W-30 in both engines. From 2007 it asked for 5W-20, and never went back.
You can watch it happen in two vehicles independently. The 2006 Durango manual reads “3.7L, SAE 5W-30” and “4.7L, SAE 5W-30”; the 2007 Durango reads 5W-20 for both. The 2006 Grand Cherokee reads “3.7 Liter Engine (5W-30)” and “4.7 Liter Engine (5W-30)”; the 2007 Grand Cherokee reads 5W-20. Two model lines, same boundary, same year.
So a 2005 or 2006 Durango is a 5W-30 truck, and a 2007 one is not. The 5.7 Hemi sitting next to them in the same table was 5W-20 the whole time, which is part of why this one gets missed — one engine in the range moved and the others did not.
The Pentastar 3.6 changed at MY2013
The Pentastar arrived for 2011 specified on 5W-30. From the 2013 model year it is 5W-20.
Again, two vehicles pin it. The 2012 Chrysler 300 manual reads “3.6 Liter Engine (SAE 5W-30, API Certified)” and the 2013 Chrysler 300 reads 5W-20. The 2012 Avenger reads 5W-30 and the 2013 Avenger reads 5W-20. The 2012 Charger, Durango and Grand Caravan manuals all agree with the earlier figure.
That makes 2011 and 2012 the odd years across a lot of cars: the Charger, the Grand Cherokee, the Durango, the Grand Caravan and the Town & Country were all 5W-30 for two model years and 5W-20 afterwards.
And it kept moving. By 2016 the Grand Cherokee’s 3.6 is listed at 0W-20, and the 2020 Ram 1500 and 2020 Durango list 0W-20 as well. If your Pentastar is recent, check the oil cap before assuming it matches the one in a ten-year-old forum post.
The SRT engines were never 5W-20
This is the one worth getting right, because the consequence is not academic.
The 6.4 SRT 392 and the 6.2 supercharged Hellcat and Trackhawk are specified on SAE 0W-40, and not merely any 0W-40 — FCA calls for oil meeting its own MS-12633 standard, which is printed on the bottle. That covers the Challenger SRT and Hellcat, the Charger SRT and Hellcat, the Durango SRT, the Grand Cherokee SRT and Trackhawk, the Chrysler 300 SRT and the Grand Wagoneer’s 6.4.
There is no model year where these took 5W-20. If a listing tells you otherwise, it has copied the figure from the 5.7 Hemi in the row above.
The Wagoneer’s 5.7 is not the Ram’s 5.7
Same engine family, different specification. In the Ram 1500, Durango, Charger and Challenger, the 5.7 Hemi is 5W-20. In the Wagoneer, the 2022 and 2023 manuals both read “Engine Oil — 5.7L Engine: Mopar SAE 0W-20 Full Synthetic … Material Standard MS-6395”.
The 3.0 Hurricane in the same vehicle has a sharper version of the same problem: the standard-output engine takes 0W-20 (MS-6395) and the high-output takes 0W-40 (MS-A0921). They are both “the 3.0 twin-turbo”. We publish both on that page rather than picking one, because picking one would be wrong half the time.
Two smaller ones, since you are here
The 2.4 Tigershark is 0W-20 — in the Cherokee, the Compass, the Renegade and the 2015–2017 Chrysler 200. It is commonly listed as 5W-20, which is the grade the older 2.4 World Engine used.
The Dodge Dart is the reverse trap: its 1.4 MultiAir turbo takes 5W-40, while the 2.0 and 2.4 Tigershark engines beside it take 0W-20. One Dart is not like the others.
And the Cherokee’s 2.0 turbo is 5W-30, with FCA asking specifically for API SN PLUS — a rating introduced to protect small turbo engines against low-speed pre-ignition.
Why capacity does not travel either
While we were in those manuals, one more thing came up that is worth knowing if you buy oil by the jug: the same engine does not take the same amount of oil in every vehicle.
The Pentastar 3.6 is 6 quarts in the Grand Cherokee and the Charger, and 5 quarts in the 2020 Ram 1500 and the 2022-on Grand Cherokee. The Wrangler’s 3.6 is 6 quarts as a JK and 5 quarts as a JL — same engine, one quart apart, and nothing on the engine tells you which.
That is the short argument for looking up your own year rather than your engine. Every figure above came from the manual FCA publishes for that specific vehicle and model year, and where the manuals disagreed with each other, we left the answer open rather than average them.