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Rawze

The man interviewed me a while back for one of his magazine articles. He said he was researching deleted trucks and problems with emissions systems in newer trucks, and why owner-ops would resort to illegal measures via doing egr deletes. I talked to him for more than an hour on a professional level that would have seriously impressed anyone who heard it.

I spoke about the real problems drivers face when buying used, just like you mentioned. About fleets slacking on maintenance to save money and pushing the excess wear onto the next owner,.. How the OEM repair facilities and stealerships have a well known complete lack of proper training but instead, a lot of training no how to sell you the most expensive solutions to your problems.

it seems that they are instead trained specifically to sell you expensive parts instead of cleaning out pipes and sensors. They rely on software that is only about 30% correct on its best day, etc. I also mentioned that I have heard from OEM mechanics in the past that much of the time, they aren't even allowed to troubleshoot or do things on their own. This is because it will effect/cancel the warranty claim if they actually do not follow specific guidelines that are telling them to replacing the most expensive things first. Doing tune-up work and solving problems by cleaning pipes out and replacing mis-reading sensors has no real profit in it.

I mentioned that many of the problems with emissions systems actually do have straight forward solutions, like taking steps to simply keep EGR/emissions components and pipes free of soot and carbon buildup. That the systems were not nearly as expensive to keep running properly if maintained regularly BEFORE all the check engine lights set in.

I also spoke of why in many foreign countries that only use high sulfur diesel actually require those emissions systems be removed because it creates more pollution, not less, combined with higher, unnecessary fuel consumption.

I am pretty sure I spoke of of the reasons WHY owner-ops resort to deleting their trucks illegally. Reasons like not being able to keep a truck on the roads long enough to make a profit, and that profit all going to the OEM repair facilities due to constant unsolved emissions issues. I spoke of how most of the truck owners I have met become so desperate and broke over this, that they will do it as a last resort to simply going out of business. -- I also noted that the bulk why owner-ops that resort to illegal engine deletes was to me, the indirect result of the lack of solid solutions BY THE OEM/CERT repair facilities!.

Actually, unlike pickup-truck owners, of the perhaps thousands of truck owners I have actually met, none of them simply would just "want" to break the law. It takes a truck owner some serious desperation do go to such lengths. If the systems worked reliably, the people who do deletes on big-rig trucks would go out of business. Last I checked, if you saw someone starving to death, desperate with no money, standing in the market at the fruit vendor,.. What do you think they are going to do when the vendor looks the other way? --- HE IS GOING TO GRAB SOMETHING OUT OF SHEER DESPERATION, LEGAL OR NOT!

It was estimated not too long ago that emissions system repairs cost the average truck owner an additional $0.17/mile or more of unrecoverable revenue.

I personally think that The engine/truck makers created this problem, PARTIALLY through through poor design,.. but MAINLY by under-training the OEM facilities, then USING its poor design to milk it for all the money its worth!. It is this sheer purposeful under-training and mis-guiding of their own OEM certified technicians and engineers that create the bulk of this problem. It is ultimately based on PURE GREED if you ask me. No truck owner just WANTS to give away $0.17/mile to the people who sold them, or made the truck. Hell, most O/O's can hardly afford fuel in these cut-rate mega-fleet days, nonetheless giving money away to incompetent repair shops just to get a few more miles down the road. All they end up with is in another shop in short order any more. -- I DON'T BLAME ANYONE WHATSOEVER for taking measures to ensure they do not go bankrupt playing the OEM suck-your-wallet-dry emissions greed game.

AT THE VERY LEAST!--- If the Engine/truck makers KNOW it is such a big issue,.. They could at least provide BETTER WAYS, TOOLS, and BETTER EDUCATION to BOTH the truck owners AND the OEM shops. -- I.E> AT THE VERY LEAST, basic troubleshooting software, manuals, etc. SHOULD BE FREE! to help offset these extra operating costs. Instead,... Through SHEER GREED, they charge exorbitant amounts of money for these same things KNOWING DAMN WELL it costs the truck owner EVEN MORE unnecessarily.

PROFIT through someone else's misery is called EXPLOITATION!.

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The conversation was lengthy, and he seemed impressed on how much I conveyed to him, as if he cared, and he genuinely sounded interested, as he seemed to not know about a lot of what I as saying.

I waited in anticipation an entire month and a half for the article to come out. Perhaps there would be a few words and some enlightenment for others in the article.... I was even considering promoting the article, etc...

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The article was nothing but a serious disappointment, fraught with nothing but the same typical brainwashing crap, and quotes from mega-fleet owners and brainwashed mechanics. -- it had ZERO- NADA- ZIP-NOTHING WHATSOEVER!!! -- In it that was based on anything that I spoke of, or was even anything close to reality. -- INSTEAD, The article was nothing but an indirect "toot the horn" for some mega fleets by bragging about their top mechanics opinions, etc. (pushing used truck sales towards them) and promotions for getting your DPF cleaned by the OEM's and how incredibly BAD it would be for you to try to sell a deleted truck, and how much it could cost you if you had to undo-it/traded it in to a dealer.

I thought to myself after being pissed and have read it --- F##K HIM! -- AND their magazine that is about as in touch with reality as the s##t you see on the TV set.

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Maybe he is a nice guy overall,.. but his interest seems to be clearly on pleasing his employer/magazine mostly. I tend to have a serious problem with people who seem to hide truths, then go about bending the thinking of others to promote profit above cost-effective measures to make their living. It puts in mind, that certain XMradio talk show host that is also very good at this. For listeners of XM, it is sad, because too many truckers take that guys words of bent, wallet-draining opinions way too seriously too.

I was later invited to a show that Mr. P was doing for a week as a fill-in for someone on the trucker channel on XM radio. I though about it long and hard,.. and for a couple days, I thought, well, I could be on the XM radio and maybe make an actual difference out there to some truck owners/ drivers listening to that XM,... I almost took him up on the offer,.. but was on the fence.

- Later that day/night, I spoke with a couple people about it, and it was actually my wife that put it in proper perspective for me...

* There would be NO WAY they would let me openly tell people about all the videos I had made on youtube to help truck owners fix their own DPF issues, etc. That would be considered advertising, and to an outsider, it would simply sound like someone promoting a youtube channel instead of it sounding like it was helpful. Same thing for this forum. -- I am not looking for fame or professional promotion. That leads to bent opinions, driven by money, and I won't have that!.

* My opinions are VERY strong against the plethora of crap pushed by their sponsors, and I would likely have gotten kicked off in 10 seconds or less for voicing any of it. Not only that, I would have been ZERO help to the guy and the topic he wanted to promote and talk about. It was not a topic that had anything much to do with what goes on here on my forum.

I saw him test driving some new X15 Volvo truck once on a video and could tell he is very uninformed about these newer trucks, their problems, etc. --- His interview with me seemed to be nothing but a waste of time it seems. The resulting article made it seem his only goal was to get ammo to please their sponsors opinions and nothing further.

- My opinion of their magazine in general is that it is mostly nothing more than bloat-ware, rookie-driver fodder advertisements to be used at the truck stop when you run out of toilet paper. But then again,.. that is what I think about just about ALL magazines, so nothing new.

<-- how far do you think that statement would go on that XM radio eh? --
I am not XM radio material by an means. i am too opinionated for that, and oh,.. by the way -- FULL Of S##T!.