2022 Dodge Charger

The 3RDTRY is the charm, right?

That is my hope with my 2022 Dodge Charger Scat Pack, a car that, despite me having a lot of love for, has tested my patience ever since I sold my 2018 Scat Pack in August of 2021.

Speaking of my 2018, let's start this story there. In August of 2021, I was the proud owner of my 2018 Scat Pack, named Onyx, after the pitch-black stone. I had nothing against my car, with 65,000 or so miles on it, it had treated me well for close to a year with no major issues. The car market was deep into COVID-fueled supply issues, and I kept hearing these crazy stories of folks getting insane trade-in values for their cars. The thought of moving up to something with some options was keeping me up at night, so I floated the idea with my good friends at Pine Belt Chrysler in Hattiesburg, MS, an offer was made, and it was one that I could not turn down.

August 14th, 2021, I parted ways with my 2018 Scat Pack and ordered a brand-spankin'-new 2021 with just shy of all the options. All was well, or so I thought at the time... Cars take time to be built, that's fair. At first, I was pretty patient. August turned into September, September into October, and soon enough we were almost to December, and I still had not received my car. Talking with the dealership and the shipping company, we were fairly confident that the car had been damaged or stolen during shipping, but I didn't want to move forward with anything until I heard that from Stellantis.

In early December, that news came while I was at work. My car that I had ordered was stolen, along with a dozen or so other SRTs, off the Norfolk-Southern railyard in Birmingham, Alabama. I had been preparing for the possibility of this outcome for a week or two and had decided that if my car was indeed stolen, I didn't want to order a new one, I wanted to find an in-stock unit somewhere in the country and just go get it. I found my car, 1,100 miles away in Minnesota, and had been talking with the dealership there about picking it up. When the news came, I immediately jumped on the car in Minnesota. I am probably the only person to negotiate, sign all the documents, and put a deposit down on a car while under the dash of a Mississippi Department of Transportation bucket truck, but after a few phone calls and legally binding documents signed with Snapchat's drawing tool, I was tentatively the owner of a brand-new 2021 Scat Pack. Not the car I had ordered, but a car, nonetheless.

A buddy and I of mine set out around 7PM that same evening on the 1,100-mile drive north to Minnesota. After driving all night, we arrived, took delivery of the car, grabbed a bite to eat at a local Denny's, then began the drive back home. All was well, except the car being filthy with road salt, melted snow, and other grime associated with a cross-country drive, and I was happy. Somewhere just outside of Memphis, TN on I-55, I lost my brand-new windshield with only 800 miles of driving on it to a semi-truck driver. Let's just say the remaining 300-mile drive was not a pleasant one. We carried on, however, and I got the car home and immediately went and got the windshield replaced. After that, and a much-needed bath, the car was presentable, and I couldn't have been prouder of my purchase.

That evening, I took a few friends out for rides and all was well. I was on my way back home, and the car started yelling at me exclaiming that it was overheating. Thankfully, it decided to wait until I was in my parking lot of my apartment to do this, so I simply just parked, turned it off, and let it sit overnight. The next morning, I discovered that the coolant tank was bone-dry. My first thought was simply maybe it didn't get filled or bled properly at the factory, so I bought two gallons of coolant, topped it off, bled the system, and went about my way. 200 miles later, the same issue again. This repeatedly happened for the first 2,500 miles of ownership. I couldn't find any visible leak, the car wasn't smoking or doing anything to suggest a head gasket failure; I was stumped.

Finally, I gave in and took the car in to the dealer. I just refused to believe that my brand-new car was having cooling issues. The verdict came back in about a week, my Hemi was indeed dead. A small crack in the cylinder wall on cylinder 6 was the culprit for my coolant loss. Dodge promptly ordered a complete crate engine with accessories and approved for everything from the firewall to the bumper to be replaced. This satisfied me, until one afternoon when the dealership called me and told me that my engineless car was backed into, pushed about 40 feet from where it was sitting, and now needed extensive body work. They, of course, offered to cover all of that, but at this point I was prepared to wash my hands of the car and move on to something else.

Remember how the car I had ordered was stolen? Well, unbeknownst to me, Dodge had actually gone on ahead and reordered that car as a 2022 model year, and that car, conveniently enough, was built and in the shipping process on the way to my dealer. The sales team, of course, wanted me to buy it, and man was I happy to at least see if I could.

Much to my surprise, the sales team found a bank that understood my severe pain and agreed to let me trade out of my problem-ridden 2021 and into this car, my 2022. March 14th, I took delivery in probably the happiest delivery service one could imagine, and since that day, this wild story has been smooth sailing.

I love my car and the story I can tell surrounding it. It has made me several new friends in the Mopar world, and wows just about everyone that hears it, and now it is available here on the web forever.

So, to answer the question I raised at the beginning of this writing, the 3RDTRY does seem to be the charm.

• Oil Catch Can by Billet Technologies
• Hellcat Airbox w/Cold Air Feed by Mopar
• Aluminum Coolant Expansion Tank by Mishimoto

• Detailed/Ceramic Coated by South Mississippi Detail
• US/MS Flag Decals by Apex Auto Styling
• Taillight Tint by Luxe Auto Concepts
• LED Sidemarkers by Diode Dynamics
• Window Tint (15%) by AXXStech
• "Super Bee" Badges by American Brothers Designs
• Floormats w/ "SRT" logo by Mopar
• Duckbill Spoiler by Charged Motorworks