This will be short and to the point.
My 05 CRD was a daily driver. I work in emergency services so being at work is a Command Performance. I drive a service truck for A cubed. Last October I was driving to Cabelas to get some ammo for dove hunting and after getting off the freeway and driving the side street for about half a mile, the engine just faded away, lost power and died at the entrance to Cabelas. No restart, just gawd awful noises from trying. Dispensed with that. Had it towed to a well respected local diesel shop and the verdict was obvious, a new engine. The aluminum head had cracked, letting coolant into the combustion chamber, breaking a piston, two valves and cracking the block between two cylinders. Nothing very reparable and since NOBODY rebuilds these the only alternative is a new engine. ($17K from Jeep) Ha Ha factorial! By, by, CRD, got enough salvage to pay for the tear down and went home licking my wounds. I loved this thing like a mistress, cared for it like a baby, but all in all it's a very bad investment. In retrospect, an aluminium head on a cast iron block for a diesel is ludicrous and a recipe for disaster, which I experienced. I keep getting solicitations from local dealers to buy it, but I just can't bring myself to tell them my tale of woe. Let 'em burn.

Seventeen thousand... These guys must really be desperate. This could really save my neck.
Get back to the ship, get her ready.

Sorry... Had to do that. Someone at the stealership just didn't want to do the job, obviously. Did they show you the actual failures? That is a catastrophic level of fail, and I can't believe that the engine just suddenly did all that and didn't show symptoms long before.

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Proud supporting vendor of LOST Jeeps
TRAVELING CRD TECH. I come to you!
Need help? Just ask! I've taken it apart more than most.
Email jeep [at] maincomputer [dot] com - BOARD MESSAGING IS BROKEN
Over 225 CRDs currently driving with my valves, timing belt, rockers, or ARP Studs.
Bad noises = REALLY bad things.

Duramax engines have aluminum heads and they have been very successful. So not all aluminum head diesels are bad.

I agree that something is wrong with the heads on these CRD engines.
There have been several reports of cracked heads along with the few reports of dropped valves.
The reasons for these failures could be:

1. a bad batch of castings/assemblies from the factory. My cracked head had a 2004 date on it. (my replacement head has a 2007 date)

2. the aluminum head is getting too hot, possibly because:
a. hot EGR gas intake
b. poor coolant flow through the head
Most of the reported problems have been with cylinders 3 and 4. I know on no reports of failure at cylinder #1.
Cylinder #1 is closest to the thermostat outlet and therefore runs coolest.
Cylinder #4 is furthest away and therefore runs hotter.
Also, the coolant temp sensor is in the thermostat housing so we never really know how hot #4 is in relation to #1.

Its possible that the engineers at VM understood this and is the reason why a 176 deg thermostat was chosen. A cooler thermostat would allow the head to heat up more slowly and evenly. Which is not to say that the factory thermostat is a well engineered part but it may have been "just good enough" for this engine.

However, this is all conjecture.
All we really know is that the parts are failing. We don't exactly know why.

I still have my old head. If anyone wants one to conduct some sort of metallurgical(?) analysis I'll send it to you.

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U.S. Army Retired

Mis-diagnosis is the orders of the day any time a postmortem tear down is performed by a dealership or diesel shop that doesn't understand these engines. Most likely your engine experienced a valve failure and the carnage that ensued was mislabeled as a cracked head.....most likely NOT the root cause. Root cause was most likely a snapped valve and these engines don't run well on a diet of jagged steel. Either way, you certainly nailed it when you said that "NOBODY" rebuilds these things. Not sure why.....they are simple. Probably just the cost.

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2020 Ram 1500 CC Ecodiesel Limited
1995 Dodge Ram 2500 4x4, 5.9 Cummins, 47RH, Reg Cab
2005 Liberty CRD,fixed the rockers and a couple more things,GDE Hot tune,Weeks Stage 1 and 2 EGR delete,Hot Diesel solutions Tstat assembly(wonderful heat!), ARP studs, OME 1.5" lift.....thanks Seth! (Sold)
2006 Liberty CRD....The Moose Hit

My outgoing Land Cruiser, 3.0L D4d (Diesel)
Sold it with 275,000 miles
Cast block
Ally head.
Only sold it because my commute was way to far to experience @ 30mpg

vette