If you HAD TO buy an emissions, pre-2013 truck, what would it be?

Now, to answer your question, the fleet I work for has run Detroit Series 60 with DPF's, absolute garbage (because of the DPF). Then they went to 2011 DD13's, also garbage. Now they are running mostly 2013 DD13's. These are a lot better but still need to go in the shop on average every 20k miles for emissions related problems. I'd suggest leaving CA. I know that may not be practical but everyday I drive one of these emissions trucks I'm grateful that I don't own it.

 

We run 80k, OTR, regional, and local with the DD13. This is a tank operation where max payload is important. They're set-up with 10 speeds, and I believe 3:58 rears. It's not what I would buy but the newer ones like I said before are better than the older ones.

 

There's so many rules with CARB I can't keep up nor do I need to. It probably doesn't state anything about DPF because DPF, DEF, EGR are now the norm in new trucks. You can't buy a new truck without them (except a glider) because this is what the federal government requires to be up to snuff with their emissions standards. The difference between CA and the rest of the U.S. is that older trucks can be run in the rest of the country as long as the engine is up to snuff with the emissions standards of the year it was manufactured. In Cali, that doesn't matter and you have to be new truck compliant no matter what year the engine was manufactured.

 

You can retrofit an older truck with a dpf and be legal in Cali til 2024. A friend just did it it to his 1999 N14 & is happy so far. The technology on the retrofit filters has improved greatlty.

After much due diligence I bought a 2009 Freightliner with a DD15. DPF, no DEF, which I decided was the best current option. Nine months in, it had been trouble free, decent power & mileage. Monday a turban wearing double bottom dumper decided to make a hard left turn into the my passengers door going through Sacramento on I-5. I suspect it's a total, if so I'm buying an older pre-emissions truck and doing a retrofit.

FWIW & IMHO I dont see any enforcement out there and I see scads of trucks that are not compliant. The guy that hit me was in a 1992 FLD. It did not have a filter. Of course it didn't have a license plate, or a legible name on the door, or a CA number, or any proof of registration or insurance in the cab. My current plan is to not even do the retrfit til I get caught.

 

What Carb told me is that your first citation is ~$1-2000 & they assess $5,000/month fines per truck for as long as it remains operating in CA. They have some leeway to reduce fines if you show an effort to be compliant