Trenton Engine Complex
2300 Van Horn Road, Trenton, Michigan, United States
Trenton South
Floor Space: 822,000 square feet
Acreage: 136 acres
Products: 3.6-liter V-6 Pentastar engine -- Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Wrangler Unlimited; Dodge Grand Caravan, Dodge Journey, Dodge Charger, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Durango; Chrysler 300; Ram 1500, Ram ProMaster
Employment: 1,910 (1,658 hourly; 252 salaried)
Union Local: UAW Local 372, 412 and 889
Plant History: In 2007, the Company announced a $730 million investment to produce a new fuel efficient V-6 engine, known as the Pentastar engine. The 822,000-square-foot engine plant produces the most advanced six-cylinder engine in the history of the Company, with an optimized integration of select technologies that deliver refinement, fuel efficiency and performance. The Pentastar delivers a fuel efficiency improvement of up to 8 percent on average when compared with previous FCA US V-6 engines.
The Pentastar engine was first introduced in the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the promise that it would streamline the Company's V-6 engine offerings from seven variations to only one. With the introduction of the 3.0-liter Pentastar engine's debut in the 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Jeep Wrangler, an exclusive to China, that promise has been fulfilled. The Pentastar engine architecture powers 16 models across 11 segments – from mid-size car to full-size commercial van.
Trenton North
Floor Space: 2.1 million square feet
Acreage: 136 acres
Employment: Shared with Trenton South
Union Local: UAW Local 372, 412 and 889
Plant History: The Trenton North Engine Plant was completed and production started in 1952. The plant underwent a major expansion in 1969. The plant ceased building engines in May 2011. At the time the plant was idled, it had built more than 38 million engines.
In June 2011, the Company announced that it would invest $114 million to repurpose one-fifth or nearly 400,000 square feet of the plant for the production of core components to support increased capacity of the Pentastar V-6 engine. On Nov. 15, 2012, it was announced that an additional $40 million would be invested to add a flexible production line to run both the Pentastar engine and the Tigershark (I-4) engine.
In May 2013, Trenton began producing the 3.2-liter Pentastar that powers the all-new 2014 Jeep Cherokee.
The Company announced on Aug. 7, 2013, that it would invest $52 million in its engine plants in Trenton and Dundee, Mich., to increase capacity of the Tigershark engine, creating nearly 298 new positions at the Trenton plant. Of that, Trenton North received $11.5 million to add an assembly line for the four-cylinder Tigershark engine. The remaining $40.5 million converted a line at Dundee to machine cranks, heads and blocks to support Tigershark production at Trenton.
On April 26, 2016, FCA US announced that it will invest $74.7 million to retool the north plant to produce the next generation four-cylinder engine, retaining 245 jobs. The new engine will be assembled on the flexible production line that was installed in 2012.