Three little letters explain most of our supply chain issues.

originally posted by: bastion
a reply to: TheRedneck

Thanks for the info - I know nothing about trucks but I'm really confused about the logic of the DEF regen

That's the whole problem, there is no logic. This was instituted by people who were completely uneducated about the industry they're intentionally trying to destroy. Worse, they don't want to be educated. These sort of climate nazis actually value their ignorance.

This is part of a larger problem with the progressive agenda. Progressives aren't all bad, and not all their ideas are bad, but the ones that are cause HUGE problems. So do conservatives. The difference is when conservatives cause problems, they get blamed for it and eventually have to react to it.

When progressives royally # something up like this, any problems that arise from their failed policies will just be blamed on Republicans and/or "the rich." And the media will back them up 100% and that's all most voters will hear.

So they aren't held to account by the media, they aren't held to account by voters, they aren't held to account by the law. Under such conditions, what incentive do progressives have to get educated about these issues and enact realistic, logic-driven policies that actually work?

None.

I honestly expected FJB.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Thats interesting. I have a dually diesel truck that uses DEF. I haven't run into those problems nor do I have to burn the residue as you described. It typically automatically handles itself while at speed.

Is this mostly and issue with the bigger Semi trucks ?

It's such a shame what they did to the diesel engine.

Your are taking engines that do over 1 million miles.

American names like Cummins, Caterpillar, Detroit, mack.

They are all crap now...

Over regulated and boring....

Hi Redneck, thank you for sharing this incredible detail with us to help us understand the complexity of the matter. The fact that some environmentalists have created this and their solution is worse than the “problem”.

originally posted by: DAVID64
If you look at what has been going on for several years now, you have to wonder is this governmental stupidity reaching it's peak or is this planned.

Fuel prices.
Food shortages.
Inflation.
Fertilizer shortages so farmers can't grow crops.
Parts shortages, so even if there is food, it can't be delivered. Same goes for many other things, they don't get delivered and even if they do, the cost is out of reach of the average person.

Some see one thing and think, "Meh, it'll get better just give it time" but if you step back and look at the big picture, it honestly looks intentional.

Of course it's planned.

All of it!

a reply to: TheRedneck

I never actually drove it, but I heard from several different drivers about one infamous US route in Arizona. When you exit the Interstate, there's a sign: next fuel 200 miles. 100 miles farther up is another sign: next fuel 200 miles. Another 100 miles and you see a sign: next fuel: 100 miles. In reality, it is well over 300 miles from the Interstate to the first fuel station. 

Guy probably erected the signs himself.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

If it's planned then Putin is in on it as well. Which would we assume makes even the average Russian suspicious. It is all a bit too coincidental.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: bastion

The filters are pretty well integrated inside the exhaust system. It takes a lot to remove them, which is why replacing a DEF filter can run upwards of $1500. It's closer to a catalytic converter than a simple filter, even though it's called a "filter."

Compare that to the early days of catalytic converters, before low-sulfur fuels were a thing: those older catalytic converters would get clogged up after a few years with sulfur from the fuel. When they did, they would start trapping heat and the sulfur would slowly burn off, giving that "rotten egg" smell (sulfur dioxide). Incidentally, that was the cause of acid rain: the sulfur dioxide breaks down in the atmosphere to form sulfuric acid, which is a very strong acid (battery acid) that caused all the forest die-offs. Now we do the same thing in the ocean, where until very recently there was little to no regulation of sulfur content in ships in International waters.

In a truck, those particulates are mostly carbon and nitrogen oxides; not much sulfur anymore. Carbon doesn't burn quickly or easily; think about how slowly charcoal burns; same thing. The nitrogen oxides are pretty stable as well, but the DEF fluid tends to break them up. High heat will cause carbon to combust and essentially clean the filter while it's still in the truck. The result of that filtering/cleaning is carbon dioxide, which is a harmless gas.

The carbon actually comes from the fact that diesel fuel is a heavy blend of hydrocarbons. The heavier the blend, the more carbon atoms are contained as compared to hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen burns very quickly once the hydrocarbon bonds are broken, turning into water. Carbon cannot burn as fast, so a lot of carbon gets exhausted. That's the black in the black smoke... it's not really a pollutant; we are made of primarily carbon. It just takes a short time to filter out of the air. With a DEF system, the carbon is all trapped so the smoke, if it is even visible, is steam... white steam.

Also, the filter fills up pretty quickly. A truck can require a regen cycle a few times a week, and the regen cycle is much, much, much faster than having a shop change out filters. Most drivers do it when parked overnight, since it is pretty much automatic. That's no down time compared to a lot of down time for changing filters so often.

Is anything being done to protect trucks from the potential 32bit crisis that's meant to occur on 19th Jan 2038?

Not that I know of. I strongly suspect the reports of that are mostly hype. A 32-bit machine may run out of digits, but there is nothing preventing it from handling 64 bits internally, using 32 at a time. It's just a software change, and modern software (including the software in the ECUs) is designed to be updated now. In 2000, we still had a lot of software that was from the days before Internet and couldn't be easily updated.

TheRedneck

couldn't a good hacker help out with an override?

i don't know,
my experience around big rigs was 50 years ago. BC. before chips. .
things were different than now.

what a nightmare.
i talked to a friend who deals with the DOT for his company's trucks and he said
it is a PITA with them.

i feel for you guys.

originally posted by: face23785

originally posted by: bastion
a reply to: TheRedneck

Thanks for the info - I know nothing about trucks but I'm really confused about the logic of the DEF regen

That's the whole problem, there is no logic. This was instituted by people who were completely uneducated about the industry they're intentionally trying to destroy. Worse, they don't want to be educated. These sort of climate nazis actually value their ignorance.

This is part of a larger problem with the progressive agenda. Progressives aren't all bad, and not all their ideas are bad, but the ones that are cause HUGE problems. So do conservatives. The difference is when conservatives cause problems, they get blamed for it and eventually have to react to it.

When progressives royally # something up like this, any problems that arise from their failed policies will just be blamed on Republicans and/or "the rich." And the media will back them up 100% and that's all most voters will hear.

So they aren't held to account by the media, they aren't held to account by voters, they aren't held to account by the law. Under such conditions, what incentive do progressives have to get educated about these issues and enact realistic, logic-driven policies that actually work?

None.

SPOT ON.

Second line.

a reply to: face23785

I'd agree with all that and think it's part of a more general major problem surrounding design.

To come up with a good design you need a team of people from a lot of different backgrounds, experiences and opinions brainstorming ideas and it's gradually a process of ruthlessly tearing the idea or design apart and rebuilding it to solve flaws, make design as simple and reliable as possible, optimise it or decide to start again from scratch.

With the whole cancel culture thing there's a big risk that it's creating mono-think (for want of a better word) instead of people who can very strongly and passionately dissagree with people but still respect them.

In this case it seems the climate zealots have implemented it without ever conversing with truckers or companies to see if it's a practical solution or considered how it impacts on them. The result seems to be a product with no benefit that creates a lot of headaches.

I'm all for strategies that create a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions but this seems several decades off achieving that and introduces a lot of additional points of failure in the meantime.

a reply to: sarahvital

couldn't a good hacker help out with an override?

That's what deleting the DEF entails. The DEF header and sensors are still there, as well as the particulate filter. But the software is re-programed to ignore it. Problem is, that invalidates all warranties and every time someone does an upgrade on the software, it puts the DEF system back.

The people who have the equipment to reprogram and the knowledge of how to reprogram the ECUs are of course charging a lot of money for the service. Last I heard from my friend it was $4000 to delete the DEF system. That's $4000 every time the software is upgraded. Even if one tells the shops where PMs (Preventive Maintenance, required by law) are performed to not do an upgrade, sometimes they do anyway; it's a part of the service. Once the upgrade is in, one cannot reverse the process; the DEF system must be deleted again.

In states where they have to environmentally certify vehicles annually, the vehicle will not pass certification without the DEF system functioning properly. In California, anyone caught driving without a properly-functioning DEF system is OOS (out of service; truck cannot be driven at all for any reason) until it is repaired. If not repaired in a certain time, the truck is impounded and sent to a junkyard. And those road repairs or tows are damned expensive in California! Many times the driver simply cannot pay so they lose their truck. I've heard of drivers simply choosing to hang it up over that and abandoning a nearly-new truck (minimum $60K, usually closer to $100K).

TheRedneck

a reply to: bastion

To come up with a good design you need a team of people from a lot of different backgrounds, experiences and opinions brainstorming ideas and it's gradually a process of ruthlessly tearing the idea or design apart and rebuilding it to solve flaws, make design as simple and reliable as possible, optimise it or decide to start again from scratch.

That is exactly right. Especially when it comes to programming, the average programmer is very good at making the computer (and that's what an ECU is, a specialized computer) do whatever it needs to do. The problem comes when the programmer doesn't realize what the computer needs to do! To develop software that actually performs efficiently and effectively, the team doing the software design must understand what the realities of day-to-day usage are. The average programmer has no earthly idea about that part; they spend their entire lives learning how, not why or what.

That's why older folks have a harder time with computers. They're busy fighting the machine because the machine is trying to do things the wrong way because the programmer told it to.

With the whole cancel culture thing there's a big risk that it's creating mono-think (for want of a better word) instead of people who can very strongly and passionately dissagree with people but still respect them.

Now we're getting into education.

You're right; there is mono-think all through the education process. Everyone today gets a healthy dose of indoctrination into theoretically-possible but reality-unworkable ideology. Then we get into college, where the first two years are spent reinforcing that ideology. Then, after those first two years, people start learning the ins and outs of programming. They spend those years so immersed in a virtual world where their already-indoctrinated ideology is still reinforced continually, they graduate being experts, as I said, at making the computer do whatever they think it needs to do... and completely clueless, or worse, woefully misinformed about what it really needs to do.

The 5 mph de-rate is a good example. That's below tractor speed... most farm tractors have a high gear that will manage 15 mph or so. A farm tractor might have to travel 10 miles on the highway to get to a field; rarely do they need to go farther than that, and even at 15 mph for less than an hour at a time they're still a traffic hazard. A semi might need to travel 200 miles to get to a shop that can service a DEF issue... at 5 mph, that puts them on the road for 40 hours! That's about as illegal as one can get, for good reason: it creates a major traffic snarl, especially when the truck is putt-pitting down an Interstate. All major truck shops are on major highways, because that's where their customers are, and semis are not allowed on the smaller roads where tractors do most of their driving, because they're simply too big and too heavy!

The programmer doesn't consider this. To his/her mind, the DEF system is a critical piece of equipment and it must be repaired immediately. So they don't consider what happens if a part isn't available or the truck is a long way from a repair shop... the truck must be shut down as much as humanly possible to stop the pollution! A trucker would look at that idea and nip it right in the bud, because while they may know nothing about programming, they do know what they need on the road.

At my Alma Mater, Electrical and Computer Engineering were "sister majors"; both in the same department. We used to laugh at the software engineers because they could do nothing except code, and didn't understand why they were coding in the first place. That's bad, but not as bad as when one realizes that the people making fun of software engineers were electrical engineers, who also had very little knowledge of the outside world! For them, it was still so intuitive that one needed to know what to do and why it needed done before one implemented the how to do it.

In this case it seems the climate zealots have implemented it without ever conversing with truckers or companies to see if it's a practical solution or considered how it impacts on them. The result seems to be a product with no benefit that creates a lot of headaches.

Exactly right again. But what does one expect? Look at who is doing this:

Pete Buttigieg, US Secretary of Transportation. He oversees the USDOT. What are his qualifications? Well, let's see:

• politician... absolutely nothing to do with transportation, but in a position to be exposed to every whacko-crazy environmental idiot that comes down the pike.
  
  
• military intelligence officer... nope, nothing to do with transportation there. He ran computers... or more likely, told others to run computers.
  
  
• He worked as a consultant.

  
  [I]n 2007 Buttigieg became a consultant at the Chicago office of McKinsey & Company, where he worked on energy, retail, economic development, and logistics for three years. His clients at McKinsey included the health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, electronics retailer Best Buy, Canadian supermarket chain Loblaws, two nonprofit environmentalist groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Energy Foundation, and several U.S. government agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Energy Department, Defense Department, and Postal Service.

  Source.
  
  OK, logistics... for the EPA, the other US agency that is crying for regulations on drivers. That's anti-trucking.
  
  
• He interned as an investigative reporter for the media while attending Ivy League schools to study philosophy, politics, and economics. Nothing to do with truck driving.

That's it. Just like the programmers I mentioned above, Buttigieg has been indoctrinated his entire life into the Global Warming hoax. He has likely never seen the inside of a truck, a train, been on board a ship, or had any exposure behind the scenes in air travel. But he's the guy in charge of the USDOT, based on his one extensive qualification that I can find: he's gay.

I don't give a rat's derriere if someone is gay. But being gay is NOT a qualification for office. We needed someone who knew what was needed in the industry... more flexibility for drivers to avoid rush hours, more ability to increase their profits, more parking in those more progressive areas of the country... not someone who thinks their ignorance of reality gives them all the answers.

The truck manufacturers did not come up with the idea of a DEF system. The EPA came up with the concept, the USDOT developed the requirements, and the truck manufacturers designed the systems as best they could to try and not be regulated out of business. Now we have a driver shortage, supply chain devastation, and people being forced into poverty.

Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, is living the good life. The rest of us are the ones suffering from his arrogant ignorance. And he is just one example of hundreds. Start putting truck drivers, train engineers, ship's captains, and airline pilots in the key positions and see how much better things get.

TheRedneck