New rebel owner questions

[Captain Stack]

Not sure if the OP has E-Torque or not. I have no experience with E-Torque.I have owned six 5.7 Hemi gas motors over the years though. They don't seem to care which octane you use. I run a high octane tank through it every 4th or 5th fill up. Otherwise, I just use 87 octane.

Be sure to read the break-in section in the manual. You do want to take it on the highway and floor the gas pedal at speed to get the RPM's up for break-in purposes.

 

[Patsy1099]

I recently purchased my Rebel and have put almost 8k miles on it. I am very pleased with the truck overall. I do however have complaints and questions that I hope haven't been covered to many times before. I tried the filter but must admit to being slower than most with regards to that sort of thing (Me Caveman, ugha ugga ugga). The front of my rebel has some paint flaws on the matted portions. The main issue is with the skid plate looking part of the front end. It sorta resembles a skid plate but I doubt that is what it is. It appears to have water spots or some sort of chemical stain. The FCA said that they have had complaints and the only thing they could do was have it replaced. I walked the dealership and all the new rebels were doing the same thing. So why replace it when it will just look like crap in a few weeks? Anyone else have this issue or am I being duped by my dealer?

Second, I purchased the pedal commander and will be getting a Air grabber hood or similar along wit a cat back exhaust upgrade. My question is with the intake side of things. With what I want to do, does anyone have comments about a spacer and possibly a different throttle body (85mm or 90mm)? I want MPG's for the daily and then the ability to giggle at some of the tuners around me!

Thanks in advance and I will get better at the searches.

welcome and congrats on your rebel. My first suggestion is for you to start a new thread with a proper title so that your questions don’t get overlooked. The members here who have experience with throttle bodies, exhausts, tunes, etc might not read this. Maybe title it exhaust/tune upgrade questions or something like that. Anyway just a helpful tip.

to answer your skid plate question. I have a rebel and do not have any discoloration. It’s about 9months old and I just painted it the other day and it wasn’t discolored. It was however pretty chipped up, which is to be expected. My suggestion would be to ask your dealer to either replace it under warranty OR pay to have it properly powder coated/line-x’d. If they can’t/won’t do the latter, then I would ask them that when the new skid plate comes in, allow you to send it out to be powder coated or line-x’d, and then they can install it. This way you will have a nice looking and more durable skid plate IMO. You do this yourself but removing the skid plate is a huge pain and taping off the car to paint it in place is also a pain. Getting the dealer to do that heavy lifting (for free) would be a win. Good luck. Keep us posted.

 

[Jdub69]

welcome and congrats on your rebel. My first suggestion is for you to start a new thread with a proper title so that your questions don’t get overlooked. The members here who have experience with throttle bodies, exhausts, tunes, etc might not read this. Maybe title it exhaust/tune upgrade questions or something like that. Anyway just a helpful tip.

to answer your skid plate question. I have a rebel and do not have any discoloration. It’s about 9months old and I just painted it the other day and it wasn’t discolored. It was however pretty chipped up, which is to be expected. My suggestion would be to ask your dealer to either replace it under warranty OR pay to have it properly powder coated/line-x’d. If they can’t/won’t do the latter, then I would ask them that when the new skid plate comes in, allow you to send it out to be powder coated or line-x’d, and then they can install it. This way you will have a nice looking and more durable skid plate IMO. You do this yourself but removing the skid plate is a huge pain and taping off the car to paint it in place is also a pain. Getting the dealer to do that heavy lifting (for free) would be a win. Good luck. Keep us posted

 

[Jdub69]

Thank you Patsy1099. I will repost my other questions later.

 

[ramButz]

My non etorque Rebel has 2300 miles but only delivering 11-14 mpg. Is there a certain mileage point that seemed to show "break in" achieved with improved mileage numbers? I did install Magnaflow cat back recently but no apparent difference in mileage (but great sound) How do you shut off mds? The +- buttons?

good question i didnt know they could be disable

 

[bbbeeennnjjjeee]

It's not so much a "break in" as a learning process your truck does. Your fuel trim values are set lean but within safe tolerances from the factory and as you drive the truck will analyze the fuel air ratio in a o2 sensor in the exhaust, making changes as necessary. Most of the time this will result in better power and more efficient combustion over a few thousand miles.

As a separate issue, never believe the sticker from the factory on milage. 15 is basically what you should expect unless you drive like a granny. If that bothers you and 20 is really what you need to feel happy, I don't think you're driving the right truck.

 

[edgarrian]

I purchased my 19 i febuarary. I have gotten 19.8mpg. I have recently been only getting 14 b/c my drive is so short. Seems like when ever I utilize cruise control my MPG does much better. Before I never used it and would rarely see 16. But now I use it when ever I can and it helps tremendously. I have 8800 miles on my truck. I do have a pedal commander hooked up as well.