Living with MDS, 2019 6.4 w/ 65k

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DerickE

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Hi all, I've been thinking about, testing, and playing around with MDS on my new-to-me 2500. I guess my question is simply this: what is the best way to manage MDS and live with it?

I've tried doing the gear limit thing to temporarily disable it. My fuel efficiency drops but its predictable and dont have the 'thunk' of MDS engaging and disengaging. The process works fine, but it's dumb and I really dont care to do it each and every drive. So, are we doing 3k oil changes....or using additives...or what? Obviously Durge designed an entire engine platform around it...so they felt it was something to buy into....I just want to know what the average joe can do to make sure the motor is in a reliable state while using the designed MDS system.
 
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DerickE

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FYI, my 2019 2500 6.4 doesn't "clunk" when MDS activates or deactivates and I'm just over 66k miles.
Probably an exaggerated word... Just the nudge of it activating and deactivating. It's clearly evident but it doesn't really seem problematic.
 
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Sherman Bird

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Hi all, I've been thinking about, testing, and playing around with MDS on my new-to-me 2500. I guess my question is simply this: what is the best way to manage MDS and live with it?

I've tried doing the gear limit thing to temporarily disable it. My fuel efficiency drops but its predictable and dont have the 'thunk' of MDS engaging and disengaging. The process works fine, but it's dumb and I really dont care to do it each and every drive. So, are we doing 3k oil changes....or using additives...or what? Obviously Durge designed an entire engine platform around it...so they felt it was something to buy into....I just want to know what the average joe can do to make sure the motor is in a reliable state while using the designed MDS system.
RAM didn't "Buy" into anything. The Federal Gummint forced this CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) onto ALL Auto manufacturers who produce or sell vehicles in this country.
The 2.7L turbo engine in the new full sized Silverado certainly isn't what we think of as a power plant for a truck of that size/class, but it IS the new reality. Ford's no better. At least FCA offers the big engine, albeit with headaches.
 

JCE

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RAM didn't "Buy" into anything. The Federal Gummint forced this CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) onto ALL Auto manufacturers who produce or sell vehicles in this country.
The 2.7L turbo engine in the new full sized Silverado certainly isn't what we think of as a power plant for a truck of that size/class, but it IS the new reality. Ford's no better. At least FCA offers the big engine, albeit with headaches.
I'd much rather have that big engine with "headaches" than anything tiny with turbos. LOL
 

Kootbiker

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The only way I can tell my MDS is functioning is the light on the dash comes on. Push the tow button and it never comes on. I live in a rural mountain area and the only time I see the MDS light is going downhil.
 

Docwagon1776

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I don't notice MDS engaging or disengaging in either truck, 5.7/6sp or 6.4/8sp. If you're talking about the possibility of cam issues, that seems unrelated to MDS and per many threads here occurs in non-MDS engines as well. If you have an aftermarket exhaust or something that makes it noticeable you can tune in out with a custom tune if manually selecting gears is too burdensome. Or just leave it be.
 

JerryETX

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Hi all, I've been thinking about, testing, and playing around with MDS on my new-to-me 2500. I guess my question is simply this: what is the best way to manage MDS and live with it?

I've tried doing the gear limit thing to temporarily disable it. My fuel efficiency drops but its predictable and dont have the 'thunk' of MDS engaging and disengaging. The process works fine, but it's dumb and I really dont care to do it each and every drive. So, are we doing 3k oil changes....or using additives...or what? Obviously Durge designed an entire engine platform around it...so they felt it was something to buy into....I just want to know what the average joe can do to make sure the motor is in a reliable state while using the designed MDS system.
I hear you the MDS was an issue for me when I first got my 2016 6.4 about a year ago. Give it a little time and I think you'll find it's not worth getting worked up over. Consider getting used to either using the gear shift to manually shift into gear OR push the tow haul button after each start up. Once you get used to it it's really not that big of a deal.
 

mikeru

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Alright, thanks for the info ya'll, sounds like a non-issue. I am coming from a GM 6.0 with no AFM or anything, so I was figuring the hype was bigger than the issue truly is.
GM's AFM was much more noticeable to me than Ram's MDS. Even so I still disable MDS every time I drive the truck. No reason other than I don't like how it sounds with the Carven muffler I installed a couple years ago. The wife doesn't disable it when she drives it because the sound doesn't bother her.
 

ClawSS

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If I notice it (usually due to the Borla), I disable it....sometimes I forget due to other things on my mind and it just blends into the background of my phone conversations, radio volume, and normal bumps in the road.
 

Bad Tiki

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Aftermarket exhaust really make the MDS noticeable . It’s not too bad in the Ram but I had a Camaro and when it came on sounded like a motor boat!
For the Ram it just became part of the start up/ drive “check list”, after start -drive-gear select -cruse -go.
 

blackbetty14

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I've been manually disabling MDS in my ram since I got it new in 2018. WHen I forget to (less than 10 times in 4 years) you can def notice it. Normally I forget after I've already started driving and have put it in manual mode 8 and then put it in park or reverse and back to drive (the trans resets back to MDS) but any light throttle transition to more you get a feeling like its got no power and then you hear the empty gurgle through the exhaust and then it shifts out of MDS and truck takes off. I find it very annoying but you can have MDS permanently deleted in a tune or you can do a ADD on ECM brick like the Pulsar which has a MDS delete mode and requires only 5 min to swap it on the PCM. I've thought about getting one quite a few times! They are expensive like $500 but do some with canned tunes and have some of the features of a pedal commander.
 

DA Smith

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Probably an exaggerated word... Just the nudge of it activating and deactivating. It's clearly evident but it doesn't really seem problematic.
I've had at least 9 Rams with mds and have never felt a kicking in or out
Probably an exaggerated word... Just the nudge of it activating and deactivating. It's clearly evident but it doesn't really seem problematic.
I've had 9 Rams with mds and have never felt them kicking in and out of mds. The only way you would know if it was going in and out of mds is if you install an aftermarket exhaust with loud mufflers then you will definitely hear the sound difference!
 

JB Weld

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I feel exactly what you do with my '19 1500 Classic when coming back into 8 cylinder. Feel like I really have to push the pedal further to get it past the lag. I shut off every time I shift. In mine, tow/haul only delays MDS instead of disabling it.
 

mikeru

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I've had at least 9 Rams with mds and have never felt a kicking in or out

I've had 9 Rams with mds and have never felt them kicking in and out of mds. The only way you would know if it was going in and out of mds is if you install an aftermarket exhaust with loud mufflers then you will definitely hear the sound difference!
It could be that you're just not as in touch with what you're driving as others are. I come from a farming background, where being aware of the equipment you're operating is critical. Noticing small sounds or vibrations can mean the difference between replacing a $10 bearing or spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars to tear into a machine to replace a major component that failed after the bearing seized. Some people are more sensitive to those things than others are.
 

Docwagon1776

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I've had at least 9 Rams with mds and have never felt a kicking in or out

I've had 9 Rams with mds and have never felt them kicking in and out of mds. The only way you would know if it was going in and out of mds is if you install an aftermarket exhaust with loud mufflers then you will definitely hear the sound difference!

Per Chrysler, it deactivates in less than .04 seconds. For comparison, a human blink is somewhere in the neighborhood of .10 to .40 seconds. So, depending on your blink speed if you blink at the same time you press the gas, you're driving blind for up to 10 times longer than you're driving on 4 cylinders. Butt dynos and machine whisperers aside, that's not a significant amount of time in human perception.
 

mikeru

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Per Chrysler, it deactivates in less than .04 seconds. For comparison, a human blink is somewhere in the neighborhood of .10 to .40 seconds. So, depending on your blink speed if you blink at the same time you press the gas, you're driving blind for up to 10 times longer than you're driving on 4 cylinders. Butt dynos and machine whisperers aside, that's not a significant amount of time in human perception.
LOL at "machine whisperers". :D

It's not a matter of how fast it deactivates, it's the difference in how it sounds and feels both while activated and when it changes from activated/deactivated.
 

DaveSharp

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When I get into mine, start the engine and hit the accelerator nothing will remove that smile short of the engine stalling. If you are tired of it, ship it to me I'll live with it. :)
 
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