Trucking in North America vs around the world

Depends.
You can tune to "optimise" performance..............legal.(emission systems remain fully operational)
Tune to erase or bypass emission system ........illegal and very high cost if they catch you.
And there are more caught then you think.

 

So 8 headlights across the roof line.......useless

 

Brake adjustment this afternoon......

 

your truck market seems to be very unstable, 5% is too low, unless it is very well known customer, who already bought several trucks before. in case customer cant take truck with 5% you are in problems and need to get rid of it very soon (as you need to pay for it, also count for cost of capital), probably lowering price for this 5%. i notice that new trucks on your market vary in prices a lot. also prices for trucks are lower than here. in my opinion being dealer in terms of selling trucks in poland dont make any profit. wholesales dont have risk and at least get some margin. many trucks sold in poland are sold with deep minus in calculation

 

I don't see a point of doing this, but I could easily lease a truck with 3% downpayment.
I know sounds crazy, but that's the reallity.

btw. our Daf dealer is claiming about 900e profit on single truck

 

it should be more, but not even close to what people think. you need to consider that running sales business cost, you need office space in building, you need salarys (for salesman and backoffice), you need company cars, you need training, certification and much more. that is why i say their earn almost dont exist when cover all this expenses.

 

They make plenty on parts and service depts......

 

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding on this subject. Both ways are illegal.

There is a big difference between something being legal, or not being detected/getting caught.
If I exceed the speed limit and don't get caught, it does not mean it is legal.
If I kill a person, and I don't get caught, everything seems fine. But not getting caught does not make it legal....

When the tuners do the optimising tune, the typically add some fuel (some like to add lots of fuel at low rpm's), and advance timing.
The changes in fuelling and timing will result in higher engine-out NOx emissions. Depending on the engine and aftertreatment system, the aftertreatment may compensate by injecting more DEF, the late EURO-VI trucks will do this, early EURO-VI and EURO-V not.

So even with the full aftertreatment fully operational, in most all cases, it will result (in the long term) to either too high NOx-emissions and/or faultcodes and possible derates, because the measured NOx does not match the expected NOx-values for the speed and load conditions.
The result may also be increased DEF consumption (if the aftertreatment compensates).

None of these things are what you want, so the next things the tuners do is to switch off the diagnostics on the NOx-emissionss. The aftertreatment still works, but if NOx values do not match the "expected" values, it will not lead to faultcodes or derates.
NOx-emissions will in most cased be higher than the legal/homologated limits, but not massively high,
probably 2-3 times the normal level, in my estimate.

This kind of tune is difficult, to detect during roadside checks (stationary or mobile) or even during the annual technical inspection. During technical inspection NOx is not checked, only a snap-test to measure opacity of exhaust gasses.

Still not legal, because the engine was never homologated with these ECU settings, and at this performance level, but difficult to detect, and much more likely that you wil get away with it.


The other kind of tune is to completely disable the aftertreatment. No DEF injection at all.
NOx-levels will be very high (10's to 100's times the legal limits, depending on EURO-classification)
Either a tune in the ECU, or simply disconnect the aftertreatment and install an emulator on the CAN-bus.


What is becoming more and more "popular" in Europe are the stationary or mobile NOx checks. A stationary or mobile device is used to sniff the exhaust gasses of the passing trucks.
The sniffer is either stationary at a location where lots of trucks pass, complete with cameras to make pictures of the license plate of the suspect trucks.
Another way is to install the equipment in a van or minibus and simply drive on the highway past trucks and sniff the air near the trucks.

This way it is relatively easy to detect the trucks that have the aftertreatment completely disabled.
The difference between 50ppm NOx or 1500 or even 3000ppm is clearly noticable, even after the exhaust gasses or diluted with the ambient air.
With the "optimised" tune this detection is much harder.


Anyway, both ways of tuning are illegal. The only legal "tunes" are the truck/engine manufacturer released and homologated software/calibration combinations.

In theory it is possible for a tuner to do things legally, but that involves doing all the official emission tests, OBD tests and demonstrations, durability tests to show robustness of the emission controls when the engine reaches end of life, etc, etc.
In reality the cost and time and effort involved is simply too much, and nobody will do it.

 

Might need a Wheel alignment Too..........

 

Software is funny, I buy something and can’t make any changes to it.... do I own it or not ?

Engine manufacturers think they know best ........ the only thing they care about is their stock price and how many options they are going to get.