DPF with DEF or no DEF, reliability

There are thousands of trucks that enter and leave California every week without a DPF on it and CARB doesn't have the manpower to enforce it

I retrofitted my truck with a DPF so I'm good.

In reality, it's doubtful all the States are going to mandate it as they would have done it by now.

 

I suspect it will phase in the same way carb did. They can't just announce your equipment is no longer usable next week. They can close the glider loophole and disallow any brand new pre emissions engines to be built. There must be a long timeline for phase in.

 

From my experience and what I hear others say, pre DEF trucks can give a lot of problems if you idle much. The engine runs at a richer mixture to eliminate NOx from the exhaust which results in soot and carbon build up in the egr system. DEF trucks idle more efficiently because the fluid is removing the NOx. I had an ISX with Def for about a year. When idling it threw up quite a few codes, but they would start clearing when you started driving again. Never had issues with drivability or reliability.