This is the first I've seen where the epa was going directly after a company for driving trucks that were deleted. Several local to me diesel shops have been hit by the epa with six figure fines for deleting dpf/ egr etc., but I hadn't seen the epa go after the companies driving the vehicles, until this one. 2 Ozarks business owners plead guilty to illegally tampering with emissions controls The owner of a Kirbyville, Mo., towing company, and the owner of a Springfield, Mo., business have pleaded guilty in federal court to their roles in a conspiracy to illegally tamper with the emissions controls of the company’s diesel towing vehicles. www.ky3.com
Well people think it's a joke until they get caught. I just noted that the JD dealer had a CTL brought in by owner, was not allowed to unload it, that was last fall. A independent shop locally won't touch any diesel pickup that's been altered. Doesn't want the grief. The dumb side of this is when DOT sees a fairly new truck emitting some black smoke that it's normal-NO. Even if it's fine tuned and barely emits if there is soot at the tip of stack they know it's been altered. Not fooling anyone, easy to find and prove.
There have been a couple cases in Michigan where they came after end users, I don't remember the details. I have been hearing that they are starting to get more aggressive with end users as well as the shops. I guess staying out of jail is one benefit of running all this old iron I have . . .
Anybody with an ear can hear it . . .
Unless the EPA laws have changed, which likely have, for even stricter, but I recall the law always went after the vehicle owner (end user) with an X dollar fine for each deleted item on their vehicle, and the fine is substantial. Delete DPF, EGR, and modify the computer, that's 3 infractions at X dollars each. For the shops, the persons who perform the delete (which include the mechanics) the fine is double, XX dollars per infraction. So technically, the law have always gone after the end user as well.
You mean this case.? Posted today coincidentally. Beware the emissions police https://cdllife.com/2023/eleven-men-and-three-companies-face-federal-charges-for-deleting-emissions-controls-from-hundreds-of-semi-trucks/ So, we've had this discussion over and over. Guys outside the US bragging how they don't have to comply. Some guys in the US actually bragging how they... HeavyEquipmentForums
Actually no, those cases are just happening, apparently. There were other, smaller cases I think last year.
Some not all at least with Class eight. Diamond Eye manufacturing in Athena Or. Just down the road from me has a quiet system I'm told. DOT mainly at port of entry scales look up a lot.
Place I haul their tractors for just had their one ton Chevy deleted a couple of weeks ago. Very noticeable exhaust tone change. I've not pulled with the truck since, but drove it the 40 or so miles back from the diesel shop. I didn't notice any difference in performance, but it's not throwing DPF, or DEF codes any longer. Can't answer for emissions as they don't test that truck.
Let us all not forget, that if the government would set realistic targets instead of forcing the whole country to use trucks designed for the LA basin, and if the manufacturers would build something that could stay running more than a year, and if the dealers would spend time training their employees how to fix the junk they were peddling, and if high school kids could not get Daddy's money to roll coal on people standing on the street corner, we would not be in this predicament.
If you go back before 2002 the manufacturers made some good stuff; C15, E7, N14, DT466, 7.3, 5.9, Series 60 . . .
is it that bad in brand new trucks all my transports are older but I have a decent amount of equipment that uses def and yes we have to be smart but its relatively trouble free. Up to this point I have not been down for emission systems but once on one machine and that's a combined 13 or 14 thousand hours. All my new stuff is deere but the cat stuff I have rented is a different story but it seems to me that people not taking care of it has a major effect
And there are different quality's of DEF out there. From what I've noticed on farm equipment is the, (and I don't mean to pick on anybody) lower priced DEF supplied at the box stores have a noticeable DPF plugging problem over something that operates with only AGCO, or CNH branded DEF. Those two are really the only two brands I see, but farmers purchasing their DEF from the box stores have more problems than those that purchase the same fluid from the dealership. Those are just observations and could be erroneous but I talk to a lot of farmers with emissions problems and most of them drill down to this as a major contributor.
One of the shops doing deletes they went to the owner’s house with the EPA SWAT team to serve the warrants. When you send a team of armed men with lethal force to enforce your will on something like this you have lost your mind.
While your absolutely correct they would do the same with the IRS for tax evasion it's a very old tactic
They will need to build several new prisons . This is like most problems why dont they go to the cause if the DEF system wasnt so junky and causing problem to start with . If you could answer the ???? why they go after one thing and not another you could change every thing but this cant be done. How screwed up is this country????
John Smith gos and buys a new Truck to make a living with and its brakes down be cause of the DEF or any other emissions problem . Now he has to make payments on something that will not make a cent. Who is the criminal ??? Were i worked they bought a new truck it had alot of Def problems if that was my truck i would have returned it drove it right back and parked it inside there building i wouldnt have needed a door.
Some of the early DEF systems were designed to fail. On a CIH combine the primary filter for the DEF system was about 1/8" in diameter and 1 1/2" long. It would plug with regularity, even with a strong effort to keep things clean. I use DEF from a tote, but have a 10 micron household water filter after the pump.
If these systems were any good, you could use any DEF you wanted, if the DEF had sat around too long it would just inject more of it to compensate for weakness, and parts would be easy for any Joe to replace, cheap, and not require a dealer laptop for any part of it.
IIRC this whole dog and pony show with emissions is supposed to slow down 'global warming'. Is that correct? Without getting political, is there any evidence that it is actually working?
No
No, the target is reducing Nox and particulate emissions.
No, these things are supposed to clean up the air in the local city or whatever. The clean air people apparently do not talk to the global warming people because these are tossing diesel down the tailpipe to burn out the filter which increases the carbon consumption.
“We’re gonna kick in your door, shoot your dogs, fire pyro into your windows to burn your house down and drag you and your family outside in cuffs not because you’re a dangerous fugitive but because you went against government regulations and removed some parts from some trucks.”
China, India, and the third world pump more toxins into the environment in a day than we do in decades. But to suggest that maybe we went too far into stupid land with the regulations is always met with the accusation that you advocate wanton and reckless pollution.
On any system the early DEF pump and filter had issues, after 2019 most if not all have been redesigned with way less issues. The first series of Freightliner/PacCar systems were problematic. Same with DPF, harness and sensors. Since 2019 the idea of a regular service of system has sunk in. Cleaning the DPF plus changing def filter before a dash light comes on will stop some of this, not all. But the biggest enemy to the system is idling, at least that's what I saw with the company. Every truck that the driver idled was a constant issue, trucks drivers shut off about 80% less problems. All stored in the ECM's percentage of idle time.
Idling is the root of all sorts of problems.
Side note-you would think at the price of fuel people who own these things would shut them off. I was at a machine shop just yesterday, a guy stopped in and left his pickup running for at least 15 plus minutes. I just made a trip a week ago traffic thick as mud---obviously the price of gas/fuel hasn't detoured anyone's travels.
I wish they would make a distinction between the tuning outfits and end users who want to wind the pickups way up to roll all kinds of black smoke and make 600hp and the guys who are just trying to make a living and keep the truck running.
They wouldn’t even give an exception for the fire/ems either. I don’t know if the manufacturers of those rigs have any kind of overrides but if they don’t then conceivably your fire truck could derate while pumping water.
I thought the big rigs that needed to idle were running APUs these days?
All sorts of rigs get idled too much.
Some do, but the added weight plus the added expense of just buying the APU it's turned many off to making the leap. With emission equipment stowed under right side of cab that took away from installing right side fuel tank in that location. So wheel bases have to get real long if running a drop axle, APU, chain hangers, steps, and or any other gear. Trucks are just getting heavier cutting back on net. Can just get by in some cases with a 275" wheel base depending on if it has a set back steer axle. Plus many are starting to install Auto Chains, more weight. Average OTR with drop weighs in the neighborhood of 19,000 to 20,000 these days. Both of these below are 20,000 and some change.
I’m already pushing obesity without any amenities or even a sleeper in my rig.
Yeah funny stuff. And the real criminals have nothing to worry about. Dare have something burning good ole mother earth mineral oil products. All is cool if you fly in a super polluter private jet plane, no worries about nothin from them. Not one has a DPF nor SCR, EGR they wouldn't get off the ground. The latest bird strikes, lets talk VOC, when an airliner jettisons fuel, where does that go? Yes tons of VOC's emitted, how many cold starting old cummins engines would produce that much fog?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/c...36-in-landmark-air-pollution-rule/ar-AA1aut5p The EPA even approved it too.
Of course they did. Because the people that make the rules are never the people affected by the rules. They give zero thought to the fact that everyday life costs will be driven up by this for the ordinary people because the elites will always have plenty of money to pay the higher costs. Welcome to clownworld.
We all know it's screwy BS but lets not get the thread locked or worse
Yeah, it was all over the news today because I live here, but 100% sure it is going to get walked back, the infrastructure just does not exist and they refuse to build new power lines. Besides that, the crazy has built to a point that I feel like the pendulum may start to swing the other way and these bureaucrats' bosses change. We'll see. Snapped this at a stop light the other day, first and only one I have ever seen and I believe one of only a dozen running in the state.
If only thy could put the bulk of the hauling on some lower friction devices, like metal wheels on rails or something. They could send electricity to those vehicles with overhead wires! No need for heavy batteries. I wonder how much you could move with a system like that?
Engines that have emissions systems do have overrides, at least in the fire service. Not sure when they started it, but first time I saw it was in 2018 on a new truck with a Cummins. Our newest brush truck, a 2018 Dodge with a 6.7 doesn't have any sort of override, but after 5 years it only has 2300 miles on it. I don't believe we've ever added DEF to it yet.
To add to that buzz, Milwaukee Road.
Trains are diesel over electric already, so if you got a big enough cord going to it you could haul the same
Trains in many countries are overhead electric anyway and some used to be in this country also, but it was removed because it was not competitive with diesel.
Catenary-Milwaukee Road.
you can use lower tech on the train batteries because weight does not rule the day there. Electrify the hard pulls and then cruise the flats with a hybrid system, putting juice strips in as you figure out the best places.
Oh its well thought out. Thats the agenda.
That's what Milwaukee RR did. For instance the grade from Beverly to the top of Boylston Mt. and down the other side to Kittitas, had transformer/storage houses at the bottom on both sides. Engines went into rejuvenation once over the top putting power back into storage houses. The next train headed either direction then used that power to climb the grade, then reverted rejuvenation once again. The Milwaukee Road went under because of bad management, imagine that.
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Bookmark that outfit and wait for the show. Not really sure what their game plan is . . .
they operate out of Canada ( BC). That does complicate things.
What are Canada's emissions laws?
Should be caught on it's way through customs. I would guess, that's if anyone is looking.
I shipped some exhaust parts (perfectly legal) across the border and nobody asked any questions.
Not really. The EPA might not be able to go after them but they can mine the customer lists and go after them. Everything with a credit card purchase is extremely easily tracked for the CC companies and banks are married to the feds in the name of fighting drugs and terrorism I’ve been heavily involved in the firearms world most of my life we know every trick in the book the feds do to come after you once they decide to make you their target even if what you did was perfectly legal and under their approval.
Supreme court is going to review the Chevron doctrine where the government agency interprets the statutes when they vague. If struck down, there is a good chance, lots of rules will have to go congress to made not vague, such as the clean air act. Hopefully we get somewhere with this.
Wasnt the clean air act passed by congress
With vague wording, just says air has to be clean, the epa has been saying how clean. Epa is unelected so this puts it back to voter control. Would be nice.
As I understand it, the clean air act specifically prohibits economic analysis of the cost of regulation.
Cities and govt's. are spending millions on LRT (light rail transit) systems. Couldn't they do something similar for freight? Still by rail but smaller loads and all electric powered. Just use trucks for initial loading and final destination. I knew a guy that used to drive back and forth hauling freight between 2 major cities about 3 hours apart every day. Seems like a rail system would be much more efficient. They have been lobbying the gov't. for years to build a rail line to Ft. Mac to deliver large loads for the oilsands. The highway up there has got parts of it twinned but it is still one of the most dangerous in the province. Some of the reason it's so dangerous is people drive stupid. Workers in a hurry to get home on their time off period or speeding up there so they aren't late. No respect for semi drivers at all. Winter conditions can be extremely treacherous too, icy conditions, poor visibility and -40 temps.
Just a update. The guy that was originally charged in this case, is now in jail. They were in court, asking to put off the court date, and evidently he admitted he was still using the trucks, which revoked the conditions of his release, so they locked him up. Affordable Towing owner arrested last week for violating conditions of release The owner of Springfield’s Affordable Towing was arrested in Greene County last week. www.ky3.com
How I'm I supposed to tell the guys to idle the crane truck less or the truck with the hydraulic tool circuit? They absolutely need to idle the truck to perform their work. I just spent $$$$$$ replacing the DPF system.
that's not idling. That is working. Idling is letting it run for no other reason than the heat or the AC or laziness. Idling is starting a truck and letting it run a half hour, when you can just get the fluids going and stabilized and warm it up on the run. Unless you have to jump on the freeway you can warm up an engine on the roll.
Sure, but it has the same effect on the Dpf system
Can't stop same effect but it can be lessened in many cases.
Back when I worked at the dealer it would never fail after a snowstorm we’d get dispatched to municipalities with front end loaders in severe derate. They’d leave them idling all night and the plow truck drivers would jump in them to load sand in the truck and then leave. By early morning it would be asking for a regen but the drivers would decline it because they had places to go and the coolant would never reach the necessary 157 degrees. We’d plug into them and perform a service regen and be on our way. Unfortunately that was not covered under warranty. Made for some very unhappy customers.
Learning can be painful. hopefully they started listening to the equipment better.
If you plan on idling more than 5 minutes, put it on a high idle, huge gains in oil pressure, water flow, and extremely less hard on emissions and def equipment.
Doubtful. Asking truck drivers to be operators and then expecting them to be mindful of the equipment is a tall order.
Most loaders don’t have a manual idle control. Volvo does but it’s an option most customers don’t buy.
If other drivers will be using the loader within a couple hours it shouldn't cool off enough that it won't start unless it's -35 or colder.
Check the ground for a stick
Its all BS IMO. If the leaf lickers really wanted to help the environment they'd be pushing this tech on countries that don't already have emission regulations. We're at the point of diminishing returns when it comes to emissions reduction. There'd be a greater impact globally if other countries were held to the standards we were even 15-20 years ago.
HA nothing to do with emissions and everything to do with raising the cost of business, gotta squeeze out the middle class from the pie.
100%. Big business doesn't like it when the small guy can forge a living without them.
There are alot of those towing crooks that should go out of business.
Running a deleted truck makes the guy a "towing crook"?
No, not a deleted truck, charging $470. ish for a 1 mile tow for a car, makes them a crook. He said it would be less if we called em, but when the cops call em that is the rate. Now we know why our taxes, and car insurance are out of sight. And yeah through the years I dealt with them, yes horrible people they are.