New diesels and emissions. A bad thing?

[mikehaugen]

I am not a pollution engineer but I seem to remember that with diesels the particulate (soot) and NOx were the big offenders on these trucks. I don't know if the particulate filters and exhaust fluid will be the long-term answer. I wonder if we will have to have those on our small tractors? I have seen a lot of stuff written but I have never actually heard of a 50-HP or less tractor having the extra DPF/DEF.

My understanding that new (2013 I believe) tractors 25hp or higher now fall into tier IV requirements, which I believe is the same as is for the pickups. Not sure how they have achieved this though.

[mikehaugen]

The cure can't outweigh the cost of doing nothing. To evaluate if an idea is worthy everything must be included into the mix. That includes the added cost to the end user, for a person struggling to put food on their table needs to be factored in. How much extra energy is needed. For example how much does it cost to manufacture and transport additives. Then there's the longevity of the engine. If an engine will not last as long then it could lead to vehicles getting taken off the road sooner, that of course means an increase in energy used to recycle and transport them. Finally what must be balanced is how much of an increase of one type of gas should we allow with trying to remove other types. For example to get as much SOx and NOx out of the emissions we are now emitting more CO2. Finally there's the economy, when times are good people can afford to pay more but when times are tough asking more of them never goes over well.

We currently have the technology to make a zero emission diesel engine. It wouldn't be hard to connect a pump to the exhaust to fill gas cylinders. Once full you would just swap them out for empty ones. In the real world we know that the costs and performance hit far outweigh the advantage. It seams to me that we are at the point where the cost is just too much. That's why delete kits are so popular.

I agree with this, and while I am not real familiar with the timelines in which this has taken place, I would think that a slower progression towards lowered pollution may have been appropriate. It seems to me that this stuff was just kind of thrown at the manufacturers and they were given relatively short timelines to comply, resulting in poorly engineered attempts to make it happen

[cockeyedMFer]

The cure can't outweigh the cost of doing nothing. To evaluate if an idea is worthy everything must be included into the mix. That includes the added cost to the end user, for a person struggling to put food on their table needs to be factored in.

If a family struggling to put food on the table buys a 50k powerstroke truck, I'm not too worried about them...

We currently have the technology to make a zero emission diesel engine. It wouldn't be hard to connect a pump to the exhaust to fill gas cylinders. Once full you would just swap them out for empty ones. In the real world we know that the costs and performance hit far outweigh the advantage. It seams to me that we are at the point where the cost is just too much. That's why delete kits are so popular.

That's not zero emissions, its just shifting the burden. You still have to dispose of the gas and the cylinders But I get your point. Frankly the cost of newer diesels have put me well out of the market. Manufacturers will continue to pass the costs onto end users, as long as they keep buying. Then the secondary market makes a fortune with tuners and delete kits...its a self-perpetuating cycle.

[TheGoose]

I keep seeing this also, but I still haven't seen or heard of a tractor with DPF/DEF.

[lutt]

All our new ag tractors have to have the additive,we have it set up at the fuel barrels,Mix of new CNH and Deeres,these are 250 to 500 horse. Dont know when its coming for the small ones,but I am sure soon.LUTT

[300UGUY]

I say it also at that time wasn't nearly as hard for the average Joe to buy a brand new car and/or fix it himself. So yes, cars have gotten better at the expense of complexity, meaning higher cost and sophisticated troubleshooting. Double edged sword I guess.

As a disclaimer, I was not alive back then to know the truth about affordability, I am merely going off of conversations had with may parents and old timers. Of course their perspective could have changed over the years and possibly their memory isn't 100% accurate.



The sad thing is, we cannot control what other countries do. That puts us in the "do gooder" category, but costs us a lot... more than just with automobiles, but also manufacturing. We simply can't compete with the low manufacturing cost in other countries that don't have to abide by these regulations.

I think all the talk about regulation is overblown. The regs are a very small % of cost, and the rest of the world is catching up anyway. The big factor in manufacturing is labor. As long as folks in other coutries will work for a small fraction of what we do, we will lose jobs. The only option is to automate the processes as much as possible. Which eliminates much of the labor.....

[Renze]

I keep seeing this also, but I still haven't seen or heard of a tractor with DPF/DEF.

then vistit the nearest Ag dealership and check their latest offering in the +100hp market.

[bdeboer]

One thing that sticks in my mind is that when there were issues with the first Urea trucks and Urea level I read that any changes/improvements had to be submitted to the EPA for an approval process.

I can't understand why they can't just sample exhaust and say pass or fail vs. telling the manufacturers what technology they are allowed to use.

[wny770]

If a family struggling to put food on the table buys a 50k powerstroke truck, I'm not too worried about them...


That's not zero emissions, its just shifting the burden. You still have to dispose of the gas and the cylinders But I get your point. Frankly the cost of newer diesels have put me well out of the market. Manufacturers will continue to pass the costs onto end users, as long as they keep buying. Then the secondary market makes a fortune with tuners and delete kits...its a self-perpetuating cycle.

Boy, that's it in a nutshell. The difference in price between a diesel and gasser sure buys a lot of gasoline........

[westcliffe01]

I happen to work in this field. I don't agree with the way things the EPA does, it is just another power hungry lawyered up government agency. However, a little frustration at the lack of innovation is to be understood when one considers that soot filters were only implemented 8 years after they became standard equipment on European passenger cars. And only because the emissions reductions were mandated. Nothing would have been done voluntarily. Of course the first systems like what I have on my 2008 F250 are terrible. There are probably gong to be class action lawsuits against the OE's over costly failures to these systems and the engines themselves because they are so crude.

Yet you can see what happened. Ford produced their own engine for I believe it was the 2009 model on that has a better engine. It is quieter, more refined and gets somewhat better mileage than my model, even though it has even more crap attached to it in the way of the SCR system. It is a bitter pill for companies like Ford to have to spend so much money on the costly emissions systems, and they will invest more money in better engines that need less of it. The extra devices will not go away, but they may become smaller and more reliable and the consumption of the DEF lower.

Basically, if one was to summarize this process, it was an exercise in how to clean up diesel emissions from the tailpipe forward and we are just arriving at the source, which is the engine.

To the quoted poster: What makes you think the technology is dictated ? The technology is just a recommendation, in other words is something that is known to work. There are FTP cycles that replicate various driving modes and in the last 10-15 years so called "Not to Exceed" standards, which arose out of the manufacturers tuning their control systems to only pass the defined tests but to pollute like all heck any other time.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that when there were issues with the first Urea trucks and Urea level I read that any changes/improvements had to be submitted to the EPA for an approval process.

I can't understand why they can't just sample exhaust and say pass or fail vs. telling the manufacturers what technology they are allowed to use.