2025 muffler location change?

[ejouie]

AWD has a different rear suspension and different exhaust routing.

The underbody cavity cover fills a gap on the driver's side where road debris can shoot up and hit the back of the taillight. I got a second bed cubby on that side to fill the cavity. Works great. Just like the passenger side.

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[Waterick]

So is the "underbody cavity shield" Mabett is advertising needed or not and why? Thanks again.

I think it depends on your particular case: if you're in the rust belt and drive in all kinds of slop, that area will collect and hold crud from the roads. If you have already corrected "the hole" in the fender liner much of the stuff won't collect, but stuff that's airborne like salt spray will still get up in that cavity by the taillight and possibly create problems. At the very least, it's unsightly as it drips from around the taillight. If your truck never or rarely sees bad weather and unpaved roads then, maybe it's not worth the worry. It's always your call. I am retired, live in the South and decided to have total coverage. It just bothered me to know that area was there. My truck rarely even sees wet roads. The Mabett kit weighs about 4 pounds.

 

[LibDan]

So is the "underbody cavity shield" Mabett is advertising needed or not and why? Thanks again.

If you get under the truck on the rear driver's side, you can see the underbody behind the left rear wheel is very open up into the inside of the bed. Spray coming off the left rear wheel will get thrown up into the inside of the bed and onto the back of the left rear taillight. That presents a not insignificant risk of rust and or corrosion both on the bed and also the electrical leads to the taillight. If you look at the same place behind the right rear tire, you can see that it does not have this void (because the storage bin I think). Maybe Ford left it open so people DIYing something with the electrical leads can get at them better, I don't know, but pretty much everyone agrees that if you plan to own the vehicle for the long haul and/or if drive where there is a lot of snow and salt on the roads, that opening creates a problem.

In any case, the whole point of the underbody cavity shield is to block off that opening so that road crap doesn't get hurled up inside the bed and on the back of the taillight assembly. The other thing people do to try and mitigate this issue is to install mud flaps. again, to prevent the tire from throwing crap up inside the bed wall. If you opt for flaps for this reason, you have to make sure you get ones that cover the "gap" that many flaps leave between the underbody of the vehicle and the top/inside edge of the flap (there are many pictures of it in various threads).

Because I plan to own this truck for at least a decade, I am doing several things to try and increase its chances of making it that long, including both Mabett's underbody cavity shield and good mud flaps (RokBlokz). (I'm also doing things like three oil changes within the first 11K miles as the engine breaks in, etc.) If you are leasing or plan to be out of the truck within five years, you can probably skip all this and let the next owner(s) deal with any issues that develop.

 

[LibDan]

AWD has a different rear suspension and different exhaust routing.

The underbody cavity cover fills a gap on the driver's side where road debris can shoot up and hit the back of the taillight. I got a second bed cubby on that side to fill the cavity. Works great. Just like the passenger side.

Evan,

I'm curious about that, because I briefly toyed with trying to add a cubby to fill the void. If I remember correctly, I scrapped the idea because there is a 400W inverter and a light opposite the storage cubby in my truck. Did you have to remove that electrical stuff to add the second cubby or did the XLT not come with it sans the Lux package?

 

[Waterick]

Evan,

I'm curious about that, because I briefly toyed with trying to add a cubby to fill the void. If I remember correctly, I scrapped the idea because there is a 400W inverter and a light opposite the storage cubby in my truck. Did you have to remove that electrical stuff to add the second cubby or did the XLT not come with it sans the Lux package?

I don't believe the cubby really eliminates this concern: spray can still get up there (maybe not as noticable around the tail light) and potentially cause corrosion or other problems.

 

[BlueSpec1]

Did you have to remove that electrical stuff to add the second cubby or did the XLT not come with it sans the Lux package?

XLT w/o Lux didn't have electrical behind the blank cover.
LH Cubby Blanking Panel Removed:

Below LH w/o a cubby storage box.

With a LH cubby storage box from below:

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