My Truck, My Choice, Out of Denver, Colorado

I'm flying to Omaha tomorrow to pick up my truck Friday morning. The guy I was working with at Lone Mountain had my truck pulled into the shop so it would be thawed out and ready to roll Friday morning. I appreciated that gesture. Anyway, I'm trying to squeeze as much stuff into my carry on bag and laptop bag as I can to avoid checking a bag. My carry on has all my new gauges, block heater, SatRadio stuff, GPS, map lights, ect. TSA is either going to dump my bag, or ignore it because they don't want to deal with it. I'm going to forget something, I just hope it's either cheap and I can replace it on the road, I won't need it until I get to the house again, or not important.

 

I'm in Green Bay at the Settle Inn. What a trip I had getting up here.

I left Denver Thursday afternoon about 6 hours after I was scheduled to because United canceled my original flight. I finally got to Omaha around 6pm and grabbed a cab to the Super 8 near the airport. At first the cab driver didn't want to take me because the Super 8 was so close the meter wouldn't pay much. He told me there was a shuttle van that could take me. I looked around and didn't see a van, so I told him I would give him $20 to take me 2 miles. He thought about it and told me to get in. Whatever. He didn't even drop the flag on the meter, he just floored it and we were out of the airport and to the hotel in less than 4 minutes. I gave him the cash which he pocketed and I was where I needed to be, quickly. I really didn't want to screw with calling a van and waiting. I do enough of that waiting thing as a driver, not going to do it if I can avoid it on my off time. There was nothing to eat anywhere near the hotel and I didn't want to order pizza and end up spending $25. I looked at Google maps and found a gas station about 1/2 mile away that had a Subway. I know, Subway is so prevalent on the road that the sight of one usually makes drivers dry heave, but I've been off the road for three weeks and it sounded much better than a greasy pizza. I hiked to the Subway and got dinner and then hiked back to the hotel. It was a 40 minute round trip walk and The temps were in the 30's, so not bad.

The place I was picking up my truck was about a mile away and I was prepared to hike it if I needed to, but in the morning when I went down to the lobby of the hotel, the airport shuttle van was there. I the lady driver in my nicest sweetest way if she would be willing to drop me off at my truck. She said she only went to the airport, but if I didn't mind riding to the airport, she would drop me on the way back. No problem! So I went for a ride to the airport and then she took me to my truck. Very nice! I gave her some cash for her help and went on my way.

Lone Mountain had my truck in their shop so it was easy to start and didn't take long to warm up. I threw my stuff in the truck and hit I80 East through IA. I noticed a bit of smoke behind me as I was rolling down the road, but didn't think too much of it but after a while I decided to pull over on an off ramp and see what was up. I didn't see any smoke so I checked and smelled the brakes. Nothing. I though maybe the brakes were out of adjustment and rubbing a bit. No, not that. I drove on and continued to see a haze of smoke behind me and I could see it coming from my stack in my mirror. The engine was running smoothly, but still quite a bit of smoke behind me.

I stopped in Des Moines at the Bosselmans/Flying J to fill up. I put $500 worth in and it was around 174 gallons. So my truck probably has a 200 gallon capacity. Usually it says at the fuel cap what the tank capacity is, but not on my International. I parked and spent a few hours setting up my satellite radio so I wouldn't be bored out of my mind, my ScanGauge so I could see what the truck was doing, and my DashCam because I never roll without one. The ScanGauge showed two stored codes that at the time I didn't think much of because they weren't active. I cleared them and headed on down the road.

All was sweet through Cedar Rapids, then the real trouble started. I got the DPF yellow steady light. No problem, driving at highway speeds of a parked regen fixes that problem. I kept driving and noticed a ton of smoke behind me now. Getting nervous now. I drove on for another 30 minutes or so and found a place to pull off and do a parked regen. I also had an upside down yellow triangle on my dash steadily burning now. I hit the regen switch and checked the codes on my ScanGauge. Two codes active now. Both connected to the DPF. Getting worried.

As I sat on the side of the road doing the regen, I noticed so much smoke around me I thought the truck was on FIRE! What the heck?!? I have had trucks with a DPF before and done parked regens and never saw any smoke anywhere except coming from the stack. I quickly shut the truck down and jumped out to see what the problem was. I looked around the truck and there was no smoke when it was shut down, so no fire. That was about the only good thing I would experience in the coming hours. I started the truck back up and started the parked regen that it was asking for again. No smoke, but after about 15 minutes, the smoke started again. I got lout and looked to see where it was coming from. The DPF was engulfed in smoke. There was smoke coming out of the stack, but also a lot of smoke just seeping from all around the DPF. ####tles!

I sat there on the side of the road doing the regen for 90 minutes when finally the truck came back down to a regular idle. The DPF light was off, but the yellow warning light was still on. The code says that the temp the sensors are expecting in the DPF is lower than it should be. I don't know, but I didn't want to be stuck in farm country in IA, so I got to driving again and in about 5 minutes the DPF light came on again. No way was I going to sit for another hour and a half, I just kept driving. The light wasn't flashing, so the computer still thought the filter was ok, just not perfect.

I stopped just inside WI and parked at a weigh station that was closed. I figured I would finish the drive in the morning. I tried to do the parked regen thing again, but just a ton of smoke and diesel dripping all over the DPF. I called Master Fleet in Green Bay, the place where I was told to drop off my truck for the inspection and Qualcomm install for Schneider and they told me they were backed up through Monday. I told them the problems and they said that they would look at it when I got there. OK, so I tried to sleep, but couldn't because I was really worried about the truck just shutting down and needing to get towed. So I decided that I would just drive the rest of the way last night. If the truck was going to break down, it would do it no matter when I drove the last 220 miles, so I decided that instead of laying awake worrying about it I would just drive and get it over with.

With the DPF light and the goofy upside down yellow triangle on, I hit the road across WI on US151 in the dead of night. I left a nice smoke trail for about a mile behind me as the DPF desperately tried to clean itself. I kept the rpm's up to put as much load on the engine as I could so it would generate the heat needed to do the regen thing and not just clog up the filter even more. When I made it to US41, 3 hours driving later, the DPF light went out, but the other warning light was still on. I drove the last 40 miles or so to Master Fleet, which is actually right across the street from Schneider's training facility. I got to Master Fleet around 130am this morning and after parking I ran inside to get my truck in line for service. I talked to the same service adviser that I had talked to on the phone from the weigh station. He was surprised to see me then and not the next morning. I explained that I just wanted to get the truck to Green Bay. He took my info and I went back to my truck and finally got to sleep sometime around 3am.

This morning I got up at around 9am and was surprised to see about 4 inches of snow piling up on the ground. I looked at the weather and this week is supposed to be really cold. Highs in the single digits and some days highs of -5. That's BRISK BABY! I dropped my key off at the service desk and the guy there this morning told me that my truck was on the list from Schneider to get the inspection and Qualcomm install for Monday, so my truck might be in the shop by Sunday evening. That's good. The sooner it gets diagnosed, the sooner repairs can start. I want to be rolling out of here by Thursday.

Just a side note, Lone Mountain TOLD me that they pull all the DPFs and clean and inspect them on the trucks they sell. I saw the word "BAD" written on the back side of the DPF canister on my truck when I crawled under it yesterday. I understand emissions aren't covered by my warranty, but telling me twice from two different people, that the DPFs are checked, and then finding one that is marked "BAD" on my truck, makes me think either Lone Mountain is really inept, or they are really shady. I hope they are just inept, but either way, if they won't work with me on what could be a $4k - $5k dollar repair, (I'm really hoping for a $3500 repair, but expecting the worst.), that's fine, I bought a truck "as is" and I accept that, but I will do my best to tell anyone who will listen about my experience. That could be a good experience if Lone Mountain steps up and covers even just 25% of my costs, or a bad one. I will honestly convey what happens but the fact that I was told by two different people that the DPFs are checked and cleaned really makes me wonder. No matter, I have the means to fix the truck, but that doesn't mean I'm not kicking myself for not paying to have the DPF pulled myself before I bought the truck. Whatever happens, I will have a DPF system that will be ready for another 400k miles when this is all done.

A guy from Master Fleet gave me a ride over here to the hotel and I got my single room for five days. No room mates for me. I paid for it out of pocket, but so worth it. I'm social, but I need my alone time. That's why I enjoy OTR driving so much. Schneider will put you in a room a no charge with a room mate, but worth it to me to have my space. I have until tomorrow evening to relax a bit. Maybe I'll watch some football, read a book, whatever. Just relieved to be here and glad White Lightning made it as well. She just needs some love now and I'm sure everything will be fine.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I'll see what they say after they look at it. I will tell them to just replace the doser if they offer a cleaning. Clean it now, then clean it later, then clean it again, OR get a new one and clean it much later.

 

The coolent is way over filled. I am getting that fixed as well. If the DOSR was streaming and not misting and the diesel was burning off on the hot exhaust components, that would explain the smoke.