HondaHawkGT

Hyundai denied warranty coverage for years and thousands of people were stuck with the bill on Theta II engine failures. Maybe they recently began to warranty them, but I saw mountains of angry comments from people that paid out of pocket for an engine replacement for their practically new Hyundai/Kia. Even today they're dragging their feet and telling owners not to park their Theta II powered vehicle in their garage because of the fire risk.

Catch cans will mostly capture water and a tiny amount of oil/combustion byproducts. Mine would freeze solid in the winter and it was extremely annoying. If I didn't drain it every 2 or 3 days, it would be so full of ice that it blocked path between the intake and PCV. IMO, if you live in a region that's cold, catch cans are waaay more of a hassle than they're worth. I'm thankful I didn't damage any seals driving around with blocked off PCV system. If intake buildup is really that big of a concern, a PCV delete setup would be a better way to go. Plenty of sports car guys do it. Auto manufacturers would do it, but the government doesn't look kindly venting crankcase gases to atmosphere.

Dodge was putting those on truck frames since the mid-2000's. They are not particularly good at canceling out vibration from an engine with deactivated cylinders. Hydraulic engine mounts and cab mounts help a lot more. Ram uses vibrators to cancel out MDS vibration: Despite both attempts, you'll still see plenty of Ram owners complaining about MDS vibration. Some even disabled the active vibrators and had vibrations go away.

Mine would on rare occasion go into a deactivation pattern at very light throttle between 25 and 45 MPH that would have noticeable vibration. The odd thing is, it only does it when I use 87 octane ethanol blend gasoline. When I run 91 octane pure gasoline, it never seemed to do it. So I just run 91.

Ram put vibrating electric motors on the frame that will inevitably die a corroded death after a few years of exposure to road salt, and will no doubt cost several hundred dollars to replace with new genuine Mopar vibrators. Kind of like their air ride system solved the squat issue with their trucks, but created a bunch of new reliability issues as the system has a reputation for failing and being quite expensive to fix.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2016/11/best-worst-automaker-recall-rates/

In my state as well as neighboring states all 91+ is ethanol free. Even more so after a few dozen refineries in the US were given exemption from having to add ethanol at all. Maybe dense urban areas mainly have stations with 91+ ethanol blends, but its extremely uncommon in the states I've traveled to.

The truck doesn't need an octane sensor because the engine doesn't care what the octane is since practically all modern engines are tuned to bounce off the knock sensors regardless of what the manufacturer recommends. The AFR isn't going to be different, but the amount of ignition timing possible before there's knock will be different depending on the fuel the engine is running on. The more timing, the more of the combustion energy to be converted into energy to move the vehicle. A factory tuned L83 5.3 is known for having a bit of KR on 87, which is going to cause the engine to run a little less timing and run a little less efficient. From what I've read, companies like GM and Honda have been pushing for higher minimum octane gasoline standards for this very reason, as that's one of the few ways manufacturers can continue to keep up with CAFE fuel economy standards. Also, in most of the US 91+ octane fuel isn't an ethanol blend. Since alcohol has slightly less energy content compared to gasoline, the engine has to burn slightly more fuel for the same amount of power output. Lots of little differences in fuel efficiency that add up when it comes to the calculated fuel economy over long distances. The GM Powertrain engineers make their money coming up with factory tunes that maximizes fuel economy, so I wouldn't expect much to be left on the table.

Defective batteries has been a common issue with AGM batteries these days. Between all the auto-start/stop and electric steering stuff, they get put under a ton of stress. I wouldn't be surprised if the engine bay gets insanely hot when the engine does a regen. Is the battery wrapped in insulation to shield it from heat? If not, I would try to cover it up with battery insulation and heat reflective material.

Considering there's a global pandemic and auto manufacturers have had to shut plants down to slow the spread, delays like yours is inevitable and common throughout the industry.

I have the 8-speed. Zero issues with it. Shifts better than the 6-speed in my last truck.

Your buddy must not realize just what junk the Ram Ecodiesel is. Legendary for bearing failures and emissions equipment failures. Then FCA was caught putting defeat devices in the computer code, they were sued, and the government forced them to remove the emissions cheats. Trucks with the emissions system "fix" drive like crap and the emissions systems fail even more often than before. FCA never has discussed what they did with the latest version of the Ecodiesel to beef up the bottom end, suggesting that they didn't do much.

Yeah 20 mile trips are fine. I mainly meant it as a cautionary thing for anyone considering the LM2 and are kind unsure about it. Some people do a ton of short trips in these newer diesels and end up with a ton of problems because they don't understand just how bad it is for the expensive filters on these things.

The autostop shutting off the engine for 30 or 60 seconds isn't the same as hopping in a cold truck and driving for 5 minutes, getting to the destination, and letting it sit 8+ hours. Doing that 5 or 6 days a week, the exhaust system never gets hot enough to keep the exhaust system cleaned out. The Ecodiesel guy was constantly going into regen because 90% of his driving consisted of in-town strolls and short trips. The autostop feature shouldn't be on this engine IMO, but most guys won't own the truck long enough for the consequences of letting the engine turn off and on like that. GM knows that too (as do all vehicle manufacturers forced to use autostop these days).