I live in South Florida. No registration fee, smog check (going to DEF / EGR delete at 100,001 miles) luxury tax, state income tax!! and a bunch of other perks... I had friends move to LA and holly molly are they wondering "WTH was I thinking."
The morning of last Nov. 8th I was the only one smiling at work, still am!

 

ssunit1 - I live in So. Florida for 45+ years. It was easy to move to AK with even less taxes and fees, but I'd have a hard time moving to KKKalifornia or a "common wealth" where taxes are really high.

boaterguy - that's crazy high for diesel. It's around $3.00 a gal here and we usually have fairly pricey fuel.

I am about half way through the document - makes for interesting reading. I hope we can get and read Ford's response.

 

If you filled up at the local Chevron, then the price of fuel is of no concern to you. But Jerry's hand is in at the Arco and local discount stations as well....

 

Lot of legal fluff in there. Only thing it proves to me is that their understanding of diesel aftertreatment is questionable. Right on the front page tells me everything i need to know.... "demand jury".... because judges have seen their games before and know better. The EPA is putting the hammer down on the oems right now, and IF Ford cheated they will find out. And without that these suits have no merit.
Dak, I don't think it matters much honestly. The SCR & DPFs are two different systems addressing two different problem emmissions that don't need the other to do thier job (a lot of people here seem to think the SCR is only needed during regen, which is not the case. It is active at all times) . The SCR looks at the NOX sensor readings and squirts the needed amount of exhaust fluid in to keep NOX in check. The DPF is a glorified filter to catch soot, when the pressure sensor detects it's full, the engine computer starts a regen to burn it out. Clear as mud?

 

The two minute summary of the complaint:

Ford advertised the truck as clean and powerful. In on-the-road testing the plaintiffs claim that the trucks exceed the normal EPA driving cycle NOx emissions requirements by 2 or 3 times, and when actually using the power Ford advertised (up grades or pulling heavy trailers) by as much as 50 times (those conditions are not tested by the EPA driving cycle).

They do not seem to allege that Ford has a defeat device like VW, wherein an EPA test cycle was detected and different calibration used during it. Rather that when operated outside of the EPA test cycle conditions, it pollutes more than allowed.

There is copious ink spread on guilt by association: the ECU is from Bosch, Bosch has been known to cheat for VW, MB, Audi, etc., even the GM Duramax is mentioned as having identical issues.

The damages alleged are that the plaintiffs were lied to, sold an illegal truck, and will have to pay more for fuel and have lower resale value when it is fixed. Of course those last two are a direct consequence of the action itself.

It seems plausible that the emissions, measured in grams/mile would be far higher when the engine is producing 400 hp towing up a grade, than a very lightly loaded EPA driving cycle averaging something like 20 mph. They allege that this is illegal and the responsibility of the manufacturer to test, regardless of passing the EPA driving cycle itself.

It is curious though that with their test methodology - which they claim duplicates the EPA dyno test in an over-the-road test - they got 2 or 3 times the allowable emissions. That suggests either the truck would not pass the EPA dyno test, or there is something wrong with their methods. There are some other things in the data they present which do not make much sense. It will be interesting to see how far they get.

 

I understand what each component does - It's that the DPF needs heat to turn the soot to ash, so to me, it seemed that you would want the DPF as close to the engine as possible. On some European diesel cars the DPF is actually part of the manifold, maybe this is true on your MB diesels too? Only because heat is coming from the engine to begin with. But now I understand that the SCR closer to the engine is good for NOX. The document said there was a trade-off to which one was positioned first in the technical part.

I look at it this way, a whole lot of people, who know a whole lot more about diesel engine design and engineering worked on this - so they should know better than I do.

What is really fluff in the lawsuit is the the MPG claims, since our trucks are exempt from EPA mileage estimates, to me that is something that probably won't get very far. Even though I'd like to see an EPA estimate, I understand why they are exempt. But it would be interesting to see what they would get on the EPA test cycle.

At the end, what they want for "us" is what they sorta got for VW owners. Money for loss of value or a buy back...

Supposedly the law firm did the same tests that outed VW and the same results happened - but until a neutral third party does it and/or the EPA does it and says it.

My guess is a lot will be riding on the EPA testing and you are very correct in that they will find out and that ruling will be crucial to the case.

 

The answer to this question is that the automotive industry is an easy get rich quick target, could you imagine the amount of legal BS someone would have to do to go after oil burner manufacturers and local heating oil suppliers vs. 3 or 4 mega corporations.


When I read this the other day I thought it was BS. I live in CT where we have diesel emissions testing. When I went, this was actual testing, it wasn't attach their emissions computer to your PCM port and take a bunch of readings. The truck needs to be "at operating temperature". They stick a probe in your tailpipe and measure what comes out. I believe my NOx was 0. The quote above may explain that. If that truly is the case and they tested these things under heavy load is that even an EPA requirement / something Ford "must do"?

My other thought is that since this thing hasn't been plastered all over the media there probably isn't much to it. The media likes nothing more than to go off on large corporations, look what they did with the VW story and more recently with GEs woes. At this point I'm going to "wait & see" what happens. I may invest in a tuner where I can take my existing factory tune and save it. I'll also ask the dealer I take my truck to if they are going to flash the thing. These folks have always been straight forward with me and seem to be "on my side"

 

In the complaint they quote the letter of the law which suggests that yes, Ford must do that. It must comply with the 200 mg/mi standard in "normally occurring" operating conditions. The definition of that will be the crux of the suit. They saw the extreme increases in NOx only at 80% and above torque levels. In my truck at least, on flat ground, I can't use 80% torque for any period of time and keep legal speeds. But it is pretty easy to get that up a grade, or towing up a grade. Is that a "normally occurring" condition? The complaint says, yeah, that's all Ford's brochures talk about.

A problem I have with their data is they have lots of charts showing it operating within legal limits at torque levels below 80%, at various rpm. But on their simulated driving cycle test it was way above that. Those two facts are not reconcilable. The EPA driving cycle is a gramma goes to town drive. 80% torque at low speeds on a 6.7L is a wheel spinning drive.

 

The other thing that is mentioned is that the EGR duty cycle and timing are changed once you hit that 70%-80% mark...

@Chuck-B VWs NoX levels at idle were well within limits too, the cheat device knows it's being sniffer tested. If you read the complaint, the cheat device could even tell the vehicle was being driven on a dyno, because the wheels were moving and the steering wheel or in a FWD/RWD case the other axle's tires were not moving. Note - I didn't see anything in the test results that indicated Ford was doing this though.

 

In the complaint, they are not alleging the same cheat as VW, in spite of the fact that about half of the pages are an attempt to associate Ford with VW. What they are alleging is that outside of the EPA test cycle conditions, Ford/Bosch took liberties with controls to gain power, as this never gets tested by the EPA. And they further allege that this is illegal.

That isn't nearly the smoking gun that caught VW, but if the jury agrees, you could see a re-flash ordered that significantly reduced peak power.

I thought that the chassis cab trucks had the DPF and SCR order reversed - anybody have an explanation for that? I'd assume something to do with an increased duty cycle at high loads.

In the event of a re-flash, scoff laws will probably still be able to use tuners, turned off for checks. A more disastrous scenario is that the torpedo has to be replaced with something else, which requires a flash in order to make the truck run. Now backing up for periods between checks becomes impractical.

 

I'm not worried at all about this. No matter how it shakes out, I'll be fine. Whatever can be done can be undone and as far as a new processing plant, they'd have to get it and put it and reflash it. I certainly won't be the first one in line for that.

 

I agree with your "lawyers fishing for a payday" -- 99.99999% of them are pond scum, but having looked at depth (I have a German made (Vector Infomatics) "reverse engineering tool") into the 6.7L's EEC / PCM I find a whole host of interesting (questionable) values suggesting these class action folks have done their homework.

The good news (if you own a 6.7L) is you will very likely get a nice hefty check from Ford --- not good news (along with Takata air bags) if you hold F (Ford) shares however.

 

I'm not smart enough to understand what I'd be seeing even if I had a reverse engineering tool, but I will disagree about receiving a hefty check if there is some fault..

My guess is the lawyers get most of the money and the rest of us get peanuts. When I was in Kalifornia and would fly back to Texas on a semi regular basis to visit family, there was apparently some sort of price fixing by the airlines that supposedly screwed me out of hundreds of dollars (a few decades ago so you'd have to count for inflation). I signed up for the class action suit. Why not? Hundreds of dollars was 2 weeks pay back then.

When we won the lawsuit, I got two dollars and change as my share of the hundreds because the lawyers took the rest to cover their charges. I haven't joined a class action since. I'd rather the company keep the money than give it to the lawyers.

 

Time to become a lawyer

The thing is that lawyers judges and generally jurors have very limited knowledge of anything mechanical. Their profession is on paper. Understanding that an engine under full load is going to produce greater amounts of NOx, etc is mostly beyond their scope.

I sell used construction equipment and yes, I have had upset customers take me to court with detailed issues on their used loader. Putting mechanical terms out in a way that they understand is nearly impossible. They like to believe a test can be done on an engine which says a head gasket won't blow for 6 months...

 

That's why the insistence on a jury trial. Then it's the poor customers against the Big Corporation. You try to pick the dumbest jurors you can.

Judges aren't always great, but I've been surprised more than a few times how well they grasped some very technical detail in patent infringement cases.