Postcard from New Mexico- 2

16-19 October 2012

Santa Fe, NM

It was a white knuckle flight all the way from Tucumcari, but the truck made it with flying colors. As a precaution before leaving Tucumcari, I called Spear's Auto Center (Crestview, NM) to see if I was doing the wrong thing by towing the rig to Santa Fe. The folks at Spear's are the ones that got our Banks tuner, etc. working for us last May. The mechanic who answered the phone said he understood the circumstance and that we should do the least damage by keeping the exhaust gas temps (EGT) below 1,200°.

So that's what I tried to do: I limited our speed to 50 mph initially, then later to 45 mph with the emergency flashers going. But there's a 3,200 foot grade change from Tucumcari to Santa Fe and speed had little effect on the EGT. It was still better than it would have been otherwise had I not made the adjustments I did. It'll be a long time before we know for sure.

Setting up repairs

I rented a car right away so we could do errands without having to drive the truck.

Then on Wednesday I called Spears Auto Center and talked to Scott. I explained everything again and asked what he thought we should consider doing. His suggestion was to install a DPF-delete kit which will  eliminate regeneration altogether and just side-step the problem. To help me make a decision I asked Scott to give me an estimate to replace the DPF (which is now apparently leaking exhaust gases) and another to install the DPF-delete kit. It was about $3,700 to replace the DPF (DPF, sensors, clip (?), labor) vs. $2,000 for the DPF-delete kit (pipes, S and C tuning kit, labor). So it looks like we're going to go with the DPF-delete kit and hope for the best. Not only is it cheaper initially, it will provide another boost in fuel economy and will avoid future engine shut-downs from a bad sensor (I'm told they are a frequent failure, though this was our first occurrence in over 30,000 miles).

The work isn't scheduled yet, but hopefully we'll get it started next week. Scott just needs to receive the parts.