Thats where i differ with alot of people at. While am rebuilding my engine i might as well do the other things which are also worn out, like oil pump or injectors. There is a reason why your truck needs an overhaul. Just like that new head gasket you're gonna put on even though it didnt go out on you, why not the water pump too as it has a life span as well. If you're gonna do an overhaul then do it right so you know all of your parts are new. It will save you ,,mucho dinero'' on the long run.

If that engine has 1M miles on, oil pump has it too and will go out.
Complete overhaul with all new parts is over 16K but what is a $16K investment when you know you're riding good for the next half a mill..?

I never did understand that.

 

I am glad the weak link is out of the equation as it will increase the market share for those who are willing to invest time and money to do the right thing for our business and stay at it. Instead of people blasting Detroit and all others for their ,,failed'' technologies, they should give them props, as these people are at least putting an effort in innovation and building the new best thing which CAT refused to do.

I cannot make you or anyone else buy something you dont want to. More power to ya if you think youre making the right choice. I made mine long time ago.


Good Luck.

 

That's hilarious CAT trying to justify their exit as them taking the high road. They simply failed. Their 08 DPF engines were the worst in the industry, fleets had dozens of them parked against the fence. Their market share plummeted from over 40% to around 12% in less than 4 years. That's not due to EPA mandates, that's simply pure failure in the business.

Back in 03 they were the only engine maker to be kicking and screaming about the new emissions, even though they had ~5 years to figure it out. They even sued the EPA. Everyone laughed. Then they didn't meet the deadline and we're putting out "illegal" engines with high fines. Everyone laughed again.

Their marketing was absolutely terrible. Right from 03. "We'll meet 2010 without EGR". 2008 comes around and what do they put in? EGR! Everyone had another laugh at their expense. Any half decent marketing expert would say to never make forward looking projections like that. Kind of like what Navistar is doing now.

ACERT's are well known to be terrible on fuel. Entire fleets were handing them in, going with Cummins.

There was also a truck show a few months before they announced they were pulling out. Their slogan? "We're in it for the long haul". A few months later they announced they were pulling out at the end of 2009. Then shortly after that they moved it up a year. Their market share was shrinking faster than home values. I pointed this out well before they announced the pullout. At this point Volvo was selling more motors.

They were simply stubborn. Made too many forward looking statements, and didn't want to change their platform. Stuck to it too much. Then their platform dive bombed after 08. They had the most problems with DPF. Instead of proper marketing and engineering, they simply pulled the plug.

So to blame the EPA is a joke, because everyone has to meet those emissions. Yes the new engines are less reliable, but the other makers are constantly working on solutions. Cummins put the EGR valve on the cold side, and went with a more refined turbo. Volvo did the same thing. Detroit came out with a completely new engine that is designed from the ground up to meet 2010, and has turbocompounding and the simplest turbo in the industry(unlike their series 60 EGR turbo).

And if they say that Cummins and Detroit put out unreliable engines, and they'd never go with their style engines, what does that say about ACERT when their market share was a quarter of what it once was? Even before they announced the pullout.

THEY FAILED!

 

We Americans blame everyone but ourselves for our own failures.
CaTS example goes hand in hand with that of a GM and Chrysler where they lost market share to Japanese because they built better cars and had better technologies.
If we wont built that new better engine, someone else will.
Europeans have much stricter environmental laws and they are doing fine. We are refusing to change and that's why we will be left behind.

Country that put the man on moon and built the F-22, the best fighter JET in the world cannot build an engine which pollutes less?






Yeah...right?

 

I disagree to some extent that it wasn't the fault of the EPA. They did put the mandates on these manufacturers. However, it was CAT who failed to comply even though other manufacturers were able to successfully meet the requirements. I have heard some negatives about the ascert engines. I don't think that I would want one of those myself. I do like the older CAT's. That is the reason that I will likely keep the ones that I currently own and rebuild as necessary. CAT apparently made some strategic mistakes in their engineering and probably miscalculated the result of the court decision to force EPA to back off their requirement. I still question how forcing manufacturers to make an engine that is supposed to have fewer pollutants but use more fuel is efficient. We put fewer pollutants into the atmosphere but use more of the fuel that causes the pollutants? I am still not sure of their science. I think it might be equivalent to the global warming science. In any case, CAT seems to be out of the class 8 road engine business, at least in the U.S. Now, we will have billions of dollars that will go elsewhere to buy engines in other countries rather than providing jobs in the U.S.

 

I think part of the problem with these auto manufacturers is their arrogance. They assumed that Americans would buy their cars no matter what. They came out with more fuel efficient vehicles in the late 70's and early 80's that looked like boxes. They were poorly built and ugly. It provided an excellent opportunity for Japanese auto manufacturers to take advantage of the market with their sleeker, more efficient vehicles.

Chrysler has been one of the most innovative auto manufacturer in the world. During the late 50's and early to mid 60's they came out with a number of innovations. They lost their focus somewhere along the way. GM has been so heavy laden with bureaucracy that they were more like our government than a business. The 50's, 60's and early to mid 70's were a time of great innovation in this country. We were focused on being the best.

I think with proper leadership and a strong will we can once again become the leader in industry and innovation.

 

I will attempt to explain this the best I can. The primary gas coming out of our diesel engines after combustion is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is directly related to how much fuel you burn. It is the only gas or emission that does this.

Nitrogen oxides (NOx, which is NO or NO2 etc..) are an air quality pollutant. NOx contributes heavily to smog. On gas engines NOx can be very easily regulated with a quality catalytic converter. This can reduce NOx production down to nothing due to "stoich" air fuel ratios. Unfortunately diesels cannot use this due to extremely lean ratios. NOx is formed during high combustion pressure/temperatures. Diesels have much higher temperature and pressures than gasoline engines. Therefore our diesel engines produce a LOT more NOx than gasoline engines, and are harder to reduce. The most effective way to reduce NOx is to reduce peak flame temperature. This hurts MPG.

Particulate matter as we all know is the black crap coming out of our stacks. The problem is PM and NOx are directly related, increase the flame temperature and PM reduces, but NOx goes up. The engineers have had to really tweak this. DPF's help with particulate matter greatly.

Those are essentially the three major components of diesel exhaust(there are others such as water and carbon monoxide). What the EPA has mandated is a reduction in NOx and PM. Unfortunately this has hurt our fuel mileage greatly, resulting in an increase of carbon dioxide.

SCR (selective catalytic reduction) that uses a urea-based solution is the other way of reducing NOx. Using this scheme, we can actually increase our flame temperatures, reducing PM and increasing fuel mileage. This results in higher NOx, but we simply take care of the NOx "after" the engine. I am a huge fan of this, and this technology has a lot more potential.

So what is it? Do you want reduced MPG, more carbon dioxide, but cleaner air? Or do we want better MPG, less carbon dioxide, but dirtier air? SCR is an attempt to bridge both problems. I think by 2015 we may be back to where we were in the 2000's MPG wise with much cleaner engines. Until then I'll be driving my trusty 99 Volvo as long as I can.

One thing the EPA and CARB has talked about, is limiting how much carbon dioxide our engines can make, in other words minimum thermal efficiency levels. This would be very welcome, and would be the first time we would be helped by new laws. The problem is NOx, PM, and CO2 output are all a balancing act, and you simply cannot reduce all three at the same time, it is not possible at the current time. But new technology could make it possible. Imagine an extremely clean engine that got 8 mpg? It's possible, just not right now.

 

Thanks for the information, Allan. I will hang on to what I have as well. I can wait until they work the bugs out of these new engines and get the fuel mileage up.

 

So far i got a bit over 500,000 miles and averaging just a bit over 7mpg for all miles, running with a dry box Midwest to North East. Is it "terrible" in your opinion? I could do a bit better if i have to.....

 

You're the exception and you know it! There are some that seem to do OK with the ACERT, but overall they get far worse than most comparable engines. That is taking into account differences in aerodynamics.