Hi All,

I'm new to diesels and wondering if there is a distance or run time for the 6.7 PSD that is too short. My current commute is about 20 minutes and I frequently make trips to the store up the street, under 5 minutes away. I live in Florida so cold weather really isn't really an issue. Might be in the 30's in the morning for 1 week a year, worst case.

Thanks,
Tim

 

Do you only ever do short trips like that?
If so, you bought the wrong vehicle.

Anyway, the truck is smart enough to know when to do regens etc.
Eventually, the DPF will never get cleaned out and it will get plugged, with constant short trips.

Best thing for these trucks you can do, hook up to 15,000lbs and put the coals to it.
Diesels like to be worked and get hot.
Not go get groceries.

 

You will be fine. Enjoy your truck. I love the constant if you don't pull 15000 multiple times a day your truck will die comments. DPF, EGR etc have been in use across all the "big 3" for almost a decade. Just like any other technology, yes it can fail. And like most modern vehicles, most of the time it is problem free. And if it's not, you have a pretty good warranty covering emissions. Please point to the page in the owners manual that says you have to adjust your daily driving habits. Or that you can't drive the trucks "short trips only".

 

I don't use mine even that much.

It will affect your oil change interval, but shouldn't be any real harm for the drivetrain. Every now and then, I take mine out for an interstate run to get the engine fully up to temperature. Being in a warm weather climate makes a difference since your engine and oil will reach full temperature a lot easier than a frigid climate. There are contaminants in gas and diesel engines that do build up in the oil that won't get to a vapor state until the oil comes up to temp. Your oil life monitor accounts for this. Your owner's manual is a good guide for how to classify your vehicle use and how your maintenance intervals adjust.

You'll mostly get opinion on the issue. Some will opine that you have to work a diesel hard and unless you're pulling max weight for hours at a time up hill you're going to damage the engine. I've never seen anyone with that opinion provide evidence and a technical explanation to support that. I think that is just a false connection to when diesels were only in over-the-road trucks and agricultural equipment and the normal use was running the engine hard all the time. Not that they had to be run hard, just that they were. Ahead of my purchase, I spent many hours searching for facts on the issue of light use. I never found anything other than opinion. Diesels are used in every type of vehicle turning a tire on the road...-well, okay, not motorcycles. They have the same emissions controls and operating architecture as a 6.7. They get used as light service vehicles and don't seem to suffer any ill affects from it.

So, now I've given my opinion on the issue. Nothing factual from me either other than the absence of evidence to support the contrary.

 

I will get back to you on the page number.
The manual does say that you can get a message that says "drive until regen complete", or something to that effect.
The only reason you would get that message is if the DPF is full and is never ran long enough to clean it out. I.E. too many short trips.

And I never said you will die, I said the motor likes to get hot and be worked.
If you are going to argue that anything mechanical doesn't like to be used, or it is good to sit for extended periods of time, then...........

 

Yes, drive until complete is nice and guess what, it will figure out if it needs to start again, or you might have more instances of this message. But you can stop driving and turn the truck off and walk away and *it will be fine* which was my point.

 

Ok!!!!

 

For short trips only have to agree this is not the best choice of engines. Mine this week with temps starting at 45-50 takes about 15 miles of highway driving to get the oil temp to between 175 and 198 where it runs when the temps are 40-50 on this particular stretch of highway I drive on 7 days a week.

 

For reference, just sold my 12 with 150k miles of mostly less than 15 miles trips around town in weather from 10-90 degrees. I let even let it idle on remote start for 15 minutes in the morning, which some warn of. Not saying it's right but never had an issue related to DPF or emissions equipment. Never kept driving to complete regen now that it was brought up.

 

I think the latest DPF software is pretty good and elimanates a lot of the early problems. I just had my 2018 start regen on a shout drive. It started at 90%, was st 85% when I shut down, and then at 70% when I started it th eff next day.
so far it looks like the cleaning cycle will still do some good after it shuts down.

 

In other words, he drove his truck, turned it off, went about his life and it did what it should...

Ultimately yes we'd love to not have to deal with these things but reality is, it's not going away and we aren't dealing with first generation technology (DPF/EGR). Drive the truck as you would and let it do what it is designed to do.

 

how can you say a inanimate object has feelings? Engines neither like nor dislike those are human emotions

 

I drive my 250 to and from work and then when we camp (12 or so trips a year). I live 1.2 miles from work. I drive that everyday and am fine.

 

 

When I detect a regen has started (DPF% starts to drop & so does MPG), I can get a full regen completed during my 10-mile commute in city traffic. The regens complete much faster in town versus on the highway / interstate because the exhaust system can get and stay hotter. Today I saw something new. I realized a regen had started late in my commute home yesterday and only got down to 80%. When I fired it up today, and it got up to operating temperature, the regen resumed. Usually it would have to climb from 80% back to 99% before starting the next regen. Never have seen the "drive-to-complete" message, and I agree that short trips don't upset the system. If it does in the long run, I won't see it because I'll have moved on to my next truck.