DEF light flashing

I've driven my fair share of KW's. I do like the Kenworth but its just today's emission standards i would suppose.

 

The cascadia I'm in now started getting problems... Went to fill the tank and found the magnet missing, went into the Loves fuel desk and they had magnets in there and clicked the new one into place, looked like someone lifted the original one out of there while I was at home. Got down the road and the low SEF warning came on, truck went into derate. A few miles later the gauge went back to full and it went back to full power. Pulled into a parking area and saw a message on the QC from dispatch to check the DEF level. Kind of at the point were I'd love to find the morons at EPA and CARB that came up with this garbage and throttle them(pun very intended).

 

Navistar's decision to go with an EGR heavy approach to low NOX levels came back to bite them in the ###. EGR makes more soot which plugs the DPF which results in more regeneration cycles. That caused a lot of maintenance issues.

 

What magnet? I know the wire harness is corroding on these and causes problems with the gauges. Mine has 38k miles and every time I ran in the wet weather everything went haywire.

 

The magnet inside the filler neck that opens the valve inside the DEF nozzle. The one that always messes up and can make filling the tank a chore.

 

Yep, wound up having to take the truck into a shop, the had to pull the tank, and then remove the sending unit so they could get the magnets out. Turned out the first one wasn't removed be fell in, my company had a few of them do that. My delivery had to be rescheduled and lost my weekend load. All because of these stupid magnets. I guess I can spend my off-time fantasizing about hunting down and torturing the EPA and CARB goons who designed all this garbage.

 

International switched to a Cummins aftertreatment system for the newer trucks (2015-2016, maybe 2014 as well) with the Maxxforce motor which has helped. Doesn't change that the motors are still a complete nightmare. Latest is International taking them 1 by 1 for complete overhauls due to them burning holes in the pistons. These engines have less than 200k on them.

The Detroits are seemingly really hit or miss with aftertreatment issues. Some of our trucks have been flawless, and others such as mine are nothing but problems. Freightliner does an awful job of routing and protecting crucial wiring which is a big chunk of the problem.

I believe this was discussed in another thread but I strongly feel Volvo is the tip of the sword when it comes to this emissions equipment. I don't know if the D-series motors are still prone to injector cup failure as they were a few years prior though.

 

Mine was the result of the def "misfill prevention" magnet falling into the tank, and I used a replacement one that love's sells over the counter. That one shook free of its mounting tabs and fell in, and it screwed up the sending unit.

 

My last truck with this company was a 2011 Volvo with a D13 and it had a few issues with the emissions systems but it was a first year SCR system and I figure it was growing pains because our later Volvo trucks haven't had as many problems. It did get a new set of injectors and cups though but the boss decided to replace them all as a precaution when one died

 

my 2011 KW with paccar had mulitude of DEF problems
the 2 new Cascadias since then with DD15 have had none
they tell me idling is the biggest problem to emissions on any new engine