My Hellcat Experience

So I traded my 13 5.0 in when I bought a 2016 Hellcat Charger. I liked the 5.0 and had lots of $$$ in it, but was tired of the manual trans and didn't want to drop more $$ to do a auto conversion. And, I also wanted some extra space so the Charger fit the bill for a fun car with more space

I bought the HC new with 11 miles and have put on just under 29,000. It was a DD while living in FL, but I was WFH so it wasn't a regular commuter.

~5,000 Miles - Supercharger had the infamous bearing noise. Dealer replaced.
~10,000 Miles - Clunking noise front rear under slow turn. Dealer has TSB to change gear oil weight.
~20,000 Miles - Same as last SC issue, dealer replaced.
~23,000 Miles - Rearend was leaking fluid and growling noticeable, dealer replaced unit.
~23,500 Miles - Fuel evaporator issues, emissions.
~27,500 Miles - P062a code (fuel system). Dealer replaced sending unit.
~28,200 Miles - P062a, this time, bad fuel rail. Again, replaced.
~28,800 Miles - P062a, this time, fuel pump not holding pressure. Replaced
~28,850 Miles - Car went limp on highway, no power to accelerate. Stalled on side of road. Dealer reports fuel pump failure.
~28,900 Miles - Go to start car in garage, hear a pop when key to run position. Car cranks but will not start. Same symptoms of the last fuel pump failure.

The rearend is currently growling again, transmission is having downshift issues from 2-1 upon coming to a stop; noticeable delay. The interior has more rattles than my old foxbody. A key note, I am 100% stock. No performance mods at all.

I have thought low of Dodge all the way back to an 2008 Ram and swore I would never touch another. I really wish I had at this point. I think all I can do is fight the dealer to fix this long enough to trade in somewhere at a loss. I have lost all confidence this thing can even get me down the street.

Does that qualify for a lemon law claim? Horrible luck man!

I'm not sure honestly but am trying to understand the law. I no longer live in FL so not sure how this could go. In my current state it needs to be within 2 years, 24,000 miles.

you should have bought a gen2 Viper lol....****ing bullet proof

I've owned two Hellcats previously and will buy a third at some point. There are bad cars from every make. My first Hellcat was a 16 A8 Challenger and it had the supercharger whine. I got rid of it and picked up a 15 manual which was super solid. I've actually been casually looking for a Charger and think I'll pick up a 19 at some point. A lot of the 15s and 16s I've looked at had bad superchargers and the dealers selling them had no clue.

I have a 2016 Challenger Hellcat and I am part of a regional Hellcat owners group. I can say, while purely anecdotal, your car sounds like an anomaly, not the norm.

The 16's are known to have bad/loud bearings in the IHI supercharger, which kinda sucks. The rear growling/whirling and the transmission having hard downshifts on the 2-1 are completely normal. And it gets more noticible in Sport and Track modes.

I have owned the following of the current platform and not experienced any issues beyond the IHI bearing issue...
2007 Charger SRT8
2008 Challenger SRT8
2014 Charger RT Black Top
2014 Challenger SXT Plus Super Track Pack
2014 Challenger SRT8
2015 Charger RT Plus
2015 Challenger SRT 392
2016 Charger SXT Plus AWD
2016 Challenger SRT Hellcat

MarcSpaz said:

your car sounds like an anomaly, not the norm.

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I agree as I am not saying all are bad. Just giving my experience of having one that is borderline a lemon.

MarcSpaz said:

The rear growling/whirling and the transmission having hard downshifts on the 2-1 are completely normal. And it gets more noticible in Sport and Track modes.

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For my transmission 2-1, I didn’t say it is hard down shifting. I do get that and know it’s normal. Mine is delaying going into 1st from second; sometimes 3-4 seconds delay.

I do not fully agree on the rear. For it to go thousands of miles with little to no noise and begin to get louder and louder is not normal in my experience. My Ram did the same thing and had 3 pinion bearing failures with the same symptoms.

I had the opposite experience, I put close to 30K miles on my Hellcat and had No issues. The supercharger made some noise, but it caused no issues with performance.

John Ryder said:

...For my transmission 2-1, I didn’t say it is hard down shifting. I do get that and know it’s normal. Mine is delaying going into 1st from second; sometimes 3-4 seconds delay.

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Yep. All of my a8's have done that. Its really irritating because you either have to manually paddle int down before you stop or you have to wait for 1st to engage before you drive again.

John Ryder said:

I do not fully agree on the rear. For it to go thousands of miles with little to no noise and begin to get louder and louder is not normal in my experience. My Ram did the same thing and had 3 pinion bearing failures with the same symptoms.

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I didn't realize yours varied. All of my LSD cars, including the Hellcat, have very tight clutch packs and make a noise at low speed turns... but the only time there was/is a variation on any of mine was when the rear is hot, its louder.

I wish you luck. I would square it up as best you can and dump it before the value drops to much.

It would be nice if FCA would do a buy-back, but they will kill your wallet on miles. I think they can charge you 55 cents a mile. If that is still the case, you may be looking at $16k+ in mileage charges, which makes it a bad deal if you floated a loan and have negative equity.

I’d still get one.

Any S197 GT500 owner with 3.73s knows all about gear whine....

lexustech48 said:

Any S197 GT500 owner with 3.73s knows all about gear whine....

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Mostly after doing after market UCA and LCA

MarcSpaz said:

Yep. All of my a8's have done that. Its really irritating because you either have to manually paddle int down before you stop or you have to wait for 1st to engage before you drive again.



I didn't realize yours varied. All of my LSD cars, including the Hellcat, have very tight clutch packs and make a noise at low speed turns... but the only time there was/is a variation on any of mine was when the rear is hot, its louder.

I wish you luck. I would square it up as best you can and dump it before the value drops to much.

It would be nice if FCA would do a buy-back, but they will kill your wallet on miles. I think they can charge you 55 cents a mile. If that is still the case, you may be looking at $16k+ in mileage charges, which makes it a bad deal if you floated a loan and have negative equity.

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Not sure on FL lemon law. But in Ca in order to file under the lemon law it has to have basically the same issue after each repair. It doesnt sound like the op situation is the same issue. Its multiple issues.

The joy of car ownership.

Could get a bulletproof car or a pos

If you bought it in FL would the FL lemon law apply even if you’re not in FL?


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me32 said:

Mostly after doing after market UCA and LCA

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Unless you bought the Maximum Motorsports brand.

MarcSpaz said:

It would be nice if FCA would do a buy-back, but they will kill your wallet on miles. I think they can charge you 55 cents a mile. If that is still the case, you may be looking at $16k+ in mileage charges, which makes it a bad deal if you floated a loan and have negative equity.

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I have heard about the mileage charge. I thought it would be the mileage since the first issue related to the lemon claim, not from starting of ownership. Either way, if I got to this point, I do not think it would go well as I am sure there is so much legal BS to make it pointless to try.

HEMIHUNTER said:

If you bought it in FL would the FL lemon law apply even if you’re not in FL?

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I wonder the same. I would hope so since it is not unreasonable to move yet keep a car. I will do digging to see.

me32 said:

Not sure on FL lemon law. But in Ca in order to file under the lemon law it has to have basically the same issue after each repair. It doesnt sound like the op situation is the same issue. Its multiple issues.

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Well it is a repeat issue for the fuel pump. This is likely the 3rd pump failure. It's possible it's the opposite side pump this time around

lexustech48 said:

Any S197 GT500 owner with 3.73s knows all about gear whine....

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Lol, definitely... no ****ing shit, they whine like a liberal...

me32 said:

Mostly after doing after market UCA and LCA

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it’s like a tuning fork once you do that...I have UCA, LCA, panhard and holyshit! The panhard with spherical rod ends was too much, went back to the stock one...

03Sssnake said:

Lol, definitely... no ****ing shit, they whine like a liberal...

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So does my IRS 01 with 3.73s...