New truck... but what truck?

Ok. Most of the EPA engines have some form of EGR on them. That is feeding the exhaust and soot back into the engine, pure and simple. I often looked at it this way.... go out one of these evenings and enjoy a really nice meal. Come home and take a dump. Now, grab a handful and eat it. Then see if the next dump is cleaner than the first one. Basically, one is making their engine eat it's own feces with EGR. There can be nothing good about that. The increased soot loading, it doesn't take a tribologist to show you that soot loading the oil is not a good thing.

The downstream stuff like SCR and DPF, it can be argued that it is not that detrimental to the engine or effectiveness. All depends on the design. Seems to add more to cost, weight, and hassle more than an actual realistic benefit.

And no, just because something is a good thing, the OEM's will not do it. They are under various constraints. One being the nanny state that finds it necessary to micro manage how engines are built and operate. And costs. OEM's will trim costs wherever necessary, so they will not always use the best option. Even a $20 difference in cost, multiplied over hundreds of thousands of trucks, can be a hefty dent in the profit margin. Mufflers are one of the clearest examples we have had for decades. They mostly opted for cheap, baffled mufflers instead of quality high flow mufflers. We are only talking a few bucks difference, yet the OEM's would side with the cheap stuff. The end user can either deal with it or put on something better at their own cost. And the OEM's do not make all their own stuff. Most of the stuff is outsource manufactured. Whoever can make the part or component at the lowest cost while meeting the MINIMUM standard, wins the contract.

 

Nice wind pusher

 

Get the bulk way cheaper. Sherwood Park Flying J has it at the pumps.

 

Unless my figures are wrong, that's about 105 mpg on the DEF. That's a bit higher than I've heard in some other applications, but they were only running 80k or less gross.

 

Your lack of experience is showing bud, as well as your lack of truck ownership.
Unfortunately, engine manufacturers HAVE to add a load of JUNK to their motors to pass emission standards.
Removal of said JUNK makes the motor run, last and perform better. S60's, ISX's, Cat's, and so on, all ran pretty much fine before the manufacturers HAD to add a load of emission junk to them. Thankfully though, there are ways to remove it if the owner wishes to do so.
Before you started driving, pretty much all motors were totally reliable, and picking one was normally out of choice than anything else. These days though, with Cat motors out of the game due to those emission rules and major reliability issues, the choice of motors is coming down to which one will give you least headaches.

Martin

 

I can't remember the source, but I recall hearing a report that on what I think was newer, maybe >2011 models, the egr is taken after the exhaust treatment. Virtually eliminating the soot problem. Older models feed right off the exhaust manifold.

My initial thought was why didn't they think of doing that before? Like in '08 with the first dpf systems. Or maybe it was the def systems that enabled that?