Opinion: Earlier DEF Warning Would Save Time, Money

This Opinion piece appears in the Jan. 4 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

By Patrick McCabe

CEO

EverGreen Industries Inc.

Leading a company that buys new trucks loaded with all of the diesel emissions fluid systems and particulate filters on them, I am keenly aware of the many problems associated with them, as is everyone else who runs them.

I also drive as a personal vehicle, a Ford F-250 diesel pickup. I was recently driving it after work one day, when I got a message on the dash that said that the DEF system was malfunctioning and I had 50 miles until the engine shut down. And then the message changed, and it started counting down the miles until shutdown: 50, 49, 48, 47, etc. My destination was only another 25 miles, so I knew I was OK to get there.

Patrick McCabe

But it got me to thinking, if Ford can give me a message and then give me a countdown of the miles before the engine derated, why in the world can’t the original equipment manufacturers do the same thing with commercial trucks?

The Ford is my personal vehicle, and a 50-mile warning would be sufficient most of the time. But a commercial vehicle obviously needs a warning of more miles — such as 1,000 miles — before it shuts down. If our trucks would give us 1,000 miles, in most cases, that would get our truck and driver home so that we didn’t have our truck in a shop and have to deal with our driver in a hotel — and we aren’t paying the driver to sit in a hotel.

However, adding a 1,000-mile warning to our DEF system still will cost us money in production with the unit — but at least we won’t have all the other expenses associated with a truck going down on the road with a soon-to-be critical DEF problem.

I believe most companies are trying to “do the right thing” by buying new trucks and doing their part of cleaning up the air. However, there are companies out there that have tried DEF trucks but in frustration began buying glider kit trucks that don’t have all of the pollution controls on them and as a result actually run without them. They don’t have all of the problems with DEF-instigated breakdowns, mad drivers, mad customers, stressed maintenance people and all of the other expenses that go along with a truck needing this maintenance.

Do I blame them for buying glider kit trucks? No! Having dealt with all of these problems, I wouldn’t blame anyone for buying glider kit trucks. I personally have chosen not to buy them, so far, but that’s my decision.

So here is the injustice as I see it: Why are the companies that are buying DEF trucks being “punished” for doing the right thing? Why can we not have trucks that tell us there is a problem and we have 1,000 miles to get the truck in a shop before it derates, and give us a countdown so that the driver and the company know exactly how far they can go before the truck goes down?

We can deal with known facts much better than we can deal with unknowns. I would think that, because the OEMs and glider kit companies are actually ramping up production of glider kit trucks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would want to work with the companies that are trying to do the right thing and try to help them get the truck home without the worry of derating and all of the cost that goes along with that.

This EPA assistance would save the industry untold millions of dollars in less down time, fewer hotel bills, fewer tow truck bills, shop pay to drivers and loss revenue. I would think that EPA would want more modern trucks that don’t pollute the air running on the highways and not glider kit trucks that have 1990s pollution technology and blowing black smoke out of the exhaust. But right now, it doesn’t appear that way to me — the companies trying to do the right thing are being penalized.

This is a fixable problem. If Ford can do it, commercial truck and engine makers can do it as well. All it would take is for the right people to sit down with EPA, discuss it and make it happen.

I hope that American Trucking Associations and all of the state associations would work with the OEMs and EPA to make this happen — and as a result, take at least some of the heavy burden off of the industry resulting from the emission systems on our trucks.

To me, it is a no-brainer for EPA to work with the carriers that are trying to do the right thing. We just need the right people working together to get it changed.

EverGreen is a legal and oversize flatbed carrier based in Liberty, Mississippi.