What’s everyone seeing out there?
Sensing Online- Get ready for the catastrophic DEF shortage
Unless the nation’s truckers can refill with Diesel Exhaust Fluid, the trucks will stop. Literally. DEF production and imports are about to crater and the country’s largest truck-fueling company, Flying J, has been directed by Union Pacific railroad to decrease its DEF-receiving shipments by 50 percent or be 100 percent embargoed. Unless resolved, this demand may cause countless thousands of 18-wheelers to be force-parked very soon, perhaps starting this month. That would be a very, very terrible event, because according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the trucking industry transports almost three-quarter of all goods shipped in the country.
There is no wand to be waved to make the DEF shortage simply disappear. But doing nothing is both reprehensible and indefensible.
Instapundit- UPDATE: A Knoxville friend writes:
“Ha, Rural King literally had pallets of 2.5 gallon DEF containers in their stores. $6.99, then $9.99. Now none. Same at Walmart. Tractor Supply etc. All of the newer ag equipment, tractor’s, combines etc require DEF. Talk about food shortages!”
We just need a hack so it’ll run without it. But EPA will probably block this. I liked it better when Atlas Shrugged was just a novel.
It’s too bad nobody warned us about this potential problem.
Can I substitute with Cat Pee ?
Asking for a furry friend.
Guess I’ll have to get the 1963 B414 rolling again!
The route of globalization and political interference really has devastated the K.I.S.S. model that I was trying to achieve but computerized systems ran rampant over the decades. KEEP….IT….SIMPLE….STUPID.
One tiny part failure and all those other parts fail spectacularly to make the vehicle a useless hunk of three dimensional art that can’t be moved without great effort and expense.
Well it’s about to get much quieter on highways.
Last year, when I started driving my truck to and from northern B. C., the “Check Engine” warning light kept going off. Eventually, it was traced to a dodgy NO sensor. At the same time, I had problems with the DEF gauge, which didn’t seem to be reading properly.
I took it to the dealer and the technician suggested that the emission control system be deleted since the warranty on the truck had long expired. After that was done, I returned to settle the bill. The attendant told me that it wasn’t just Dodges that had wonky ECSs. He used to work for a GM shop and those trucks had similar problems.
I suspect that a lot of older vehicles are going to be having similar modifications. Emission control systems are, on the whole, useless.
Emissions control systems are not about emissions control. Emissions are a stalking horse for eliminating IC engines.
Biden has set the CAFE standard at 49 mpg for 2026. Won’t happen without a huge chunk of production becoming electric vehicles.
EV’s are the “carbon credits” of the auto industry. Righteous indulgences purchased as demanded by the high Priests of the great climate con
Get an older diesel pre-DEF.
Any diesel mechanic will tell you, the pre DEF trucks are better.
2005 F350….no DEF.
I had heard that H2O can be substituted for the DEF crap. Best to Googly for substitutes
Now that the ECS has been taken out of my truck, I don’t worry about it any more. One benefit from having done so was that I used less fuel. Go figure.
If you are anywhere that requires vehicles to meet emissions standards, if you substitute water for the DEF, make sure you use distilled (and, preferably deionized) water. Any minerals left in the water will screw up the catalyst bed, and if you go back to DEF for the emissions test, it will probably fail.
PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS DIESEL EMISSIONS REDUCTION ACT INTO LAW
Do you know what DEF fluid is? It’s Diesel Exhaust Fluid. Every Diesel truck that has been made since 2010 is required to use it. It’s a product made of 67% Urea fertilizer and 33% distilled water. Every diesel truck you see driving down the road today has to have this product to drive. The engines won’t start without it. There are regulators inside the engine that mix DEF with the Diesel to reduce Diesel emissions. That’s the purpose of DEF.
https://www.dieselforum.org/news/president-obama-signs-diesel-emissions-reduction-act-into-law1
So……piss in a bucket and dilute it with some water. Problem solved.
It’s my understanding that DEF binds with the diesel exhaust emissions to prevent gasses rising into the atmosphere. That’s what I was told when this system was first introduced in the early teens.
Also it stinks.
Don’t leave the jugs in the box of your truck during the winter in Ab. Ask me how I know.
“The engines won’t start without it.”
Anti-pollution $hit; it’s supposed to reduce particulates in diesel exhaust. When DEF fluid became a ‘thing’, particulates was the main ‘extra’ in diesel pollution that the EPA was trying to outlaw, and DEF fluid was their chosen solution.
But all the modern gasoline engines, with fuel injection straight into the cylinders? – they have even worse particulate problems than diesels. So I expect the EPA will be cracking-down on them as well, and DEF-shortage bedamned, in 3… 2… 1…
So if it doesn’t rise up, it’s goes into the ground………………… water?
DEF is easy to make from ammonia or urea. Canada makes hundreds of thousands of tonnes of this stuff a year. It’s just a matter of redirecting supply. Hundreds of rail cars per day are being made right now.
Yes Ammonia is expensive and supply chains will need to be moved a bit but this is easily solved and is a NOTHING BURGER. Another fear inducing headline.
Do you think the EPA in the USA will allow that?
Urea and ammonia are already approved raw materials and already used to make DEF. It’s only a matter of approving new vendors.
Where does the Canadian product go to now?
If used in Canada, why should we bail out the Biden administration, from a problem they created.
The US makes even more ammonia and urea than Canada does. Just a matter of approving new vendors.
It’s a non story.
And where does the ‘new vendor’ ammonia and urea go now?
If new vendors are approved (by whom), which existing supply chains get disrupted?
Are you saying diesel railway engines are effected too?
To keep the catalyst bed healthy, you’d better be using ultra-pure urea and distilled-deionized water. Failure of the catalyst bed because of contamination by bad DEF won’t be covered by warranty. If you have to pass an annual emissions test, you’d better be careful about how you get around the DEF issue.
The real question is why are railroads demanding that shipments be reduced? First Diesel, then fertilizer and now DEF. The curtailments seem to be targeted. Who is controlling this?
Who owns the railroads? Buffett, Gates and Soros…
Yes, and it’s still unanswered, although the article is written with this salient fact as its pivot point. Why would the railroads embargo shipments of something that is mission-critical to intermodal transportation, when there is a shortage? And what do diesel electric locomotives run on, anyway (/sarc)? Don’t they use DEF too?
There is currently an embargo for shipping via CP intermodal into Montreal. It will likely last a month. The issue? They can’t get enough trucks to service the intermodal yard in Montreal. I’ve been working with this stuff for 25 years, never ran into it this bad.
J in Joplin didn’t have a drop. Didn’t think much of it. I can’t see the EPA allowing system mods – better we should all starve than an esteemed government department have to stoop to compromise.
^that.
Looks like building back better is working. The whole point of all green regulation ultimately is to end industrial society; there is just insufficient food and combustion for the little people. A few million will be kept as servants and scribes for the Warmistas, the rest are excess to planetary need.
I only write this in half-jest; there are people who really do think there are too many people on the planet.
Too many liberals for sure.. Should they be tollerated?..lol
I am currently reading about the Chinese “cultural revolution” which today’s politics has many similarities with. This followed Mao’s disasterous “Great Leap Forward”.
What Trudeau, Gilbeau, Gore, Suzuki et al are trying to implement is a “Green Leap Forward” which, if implemented would be just as ruinous and murderous. They must be resisted at every level, including in the Conservative parties of the Western world, which seem to think that they can score costless political points by “being green”.
It’s not just transport trucks. I work in public transit and it has been getting harder to get DEF for the buses.
That horse and buck wagon sure look tempting now.
A mate of mine has trucks down here in clown world’s largest prison island. He tells me that they still run, only the ECU derates the engine. So (made up figures) say you normally have 450hp with DEF, you get 300hp without.
Might be different in the great frozen North.
We recently bought a 1000 litre (265 US gal) tote of the stuff to run a newer tractor, price double from last year to over 1000.00 not including deposit on the tote.
GM is having trouble supplying O2 sensors for their diesel trucks. In April we waited 3 weeks for them to find a sensor for our 2017 Chev.
I work for a (name withheld) automotive service. People are telling me it’s already difficult finding DEF.
I know someone who makes an outrageously good living reprogramming big diesels. I foresee them getting much wealthier.
“good living reprogramming big diesels”
Some have been forced to employ your friend because they couldn’t get the parts to fix the emission system on a machine that needs to be working in order to stay in business. The entire emission system is deleted rather than wait for parts that aren’t available.
Globalism has had a bad couple of years.