International Dealer Offers Sessions on EGR for Potential Customers

By Frederick Kiel, Staff Reporter

This Editorial appears in the June 29 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — International Truck dealer Diamond Companies Inc. here has embarked on a two-pronged program to educate potential customers about the engine technology Navistar Inc. will offer next year. Diamond plans “lunch and learn” seminars at its dealerships and to take clients to Navistar’s new engine plant in Alabama.

Navistar is the only original equipment manufacturer that decided to meet the 2010 federal mandate for drastically lower nitrogen oxide emissions by using only exhaust gas recirculation — updating a technology in use since 2004.

All other truck makers will introduce selective catalytic reduction, a system used in Europe and Japan that uses a catalytic converter in the exhaust system to cut NOx.

Diamond’s customer program for 2010 engines is similar in concept to those employed by dealers of trucks using SCR.

“We plan to have normally 12 to 15 customers at our ‘lunch and learn’ seminars to keep it relatively small and intimate,” Jim Kersch-baum, Diamond’s new truck sales manager, told Transport Topics. “We want to focus strictly on the emissions agenda.”

Kerschbaum said Diamond decided to arrange tours of Navistar’s engine plant in Huntsville, Ala., because it was relatively close and because they would be trying to convince customers to buy a completely new engine.

Navistar opened the Alabama factory late last year to produce its first-ever heavy-duty engines, 11- and 13-liter models based on a design from European truck maker MAN SE, formerly MAN AG. Navistar also has said it will produce a 15-liter engine starting next year at the same plant but based on Caterpillar Inc.’s 15-liter model, using only its block.

“On plant tours, we’ll usually try to take six to eight customers per visit,” Kerschbaum said. “We’ve done one so far and will do more throughout the year.”

Recognizing the sharp competition between Navistar’s EGR system and other manufacturers’ SCR approach, Kerschbaum said neither Diamond nor Navistar representatives “try and throw SCR under the bus, because we know it works and functions, but instead, we explain EGR and why it works. We try to inform customers why it’s better.”

Kerschbaum said one common question on the plant visit was what would happen to fleets that buy International trucks next year, “and then you guys decide to switch to SCR.”

“We explain to them that EGR is not a stopgap but it’s the answer, and we have no intention of switching to SCR,” Kerschbaum said.
He said another common question was whether advanced EGR would result in higher heat.

“The answer is yes, but we tell them that as the designer of our cooling capacity, we can continue to keep the engine running at the right temperature, so that the engine temperature doesn’t rise too high,” Kerschbaum said.

Ronald Lancaster, president of MidSouth Transport Inc., Memphis, visited the Huntsville plant with Diamond.

“I didn’t know a company was going to offer a system like we have now until I went to the plant,” Lancaster told TT. “Personally, I was really impressed with the plant — it was very clean, orderly and well-run — and very impressed that the plant manager monitors every failure himself. Those are the things that impressed me.”

Two other fleet executives who visited the plant said the engine seemed to function well, but they did not feel technically qualified to judge between EGR and SCR. They declined to be identified.

“Navistar’s EGR does make sense to me in some ways,” Lancaster said. “First, with SCR, one is injecting a fluid, so you need an extra tank. Your driver has to keep on fueling not only the diesel tanks but also the urea tank, and there is also extra weight and extra cost. Urea doesn’t equal the consistency of diesel fuel. If these people decide to go with one way or another, you’re left with a tractor that you may not be able to move [without DEF].”

Lancaster saw downsides to EGR as well.

“Navistar says they’re going to make the engine that by itself will produce emissions acceptable to the government,” Lancaster said. “They’re going to burn it until it meets the standards. What will it do it to the engine? Maybe making it run hotter means it won’t have a long life. Pumping carbon back in can also be a premature life factor. Also, if you put more things in the cylinder, it decreases fuel efficiency. That is the dilemma.”

He said if Navistar could “put the right numbers before me, and back it with a warranty, I’ll buy their engines. They have worked with me on the past, so that I know they won’t leave me standing in the cold.”

However, because Navistar’s engine is new, not a “tried and true engine . . . I may buy 15. I’m not going to buy 120.”

To date, Diamond has held only one “lunch and learn” session at its Kansas City, Mo., branch, with 18 people from eight different fleets.

“There were questions why Navistar is doing EGR and no one else is,” David Spinner, general manager of the Kansas City dealership, told TT. “We explained the various patents that Navistar applied for and received to allow them to calibrate the engines to meet the mandate.”