DEF Head Failure

[Joe Hogan]

Apparently the Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports are backlogged a fair amount with a record number of freighters anchored out. The LA port did a record number of containers in May.
Most all of the China stuff goes through LA or Long Beach. There are many reasons for these problems and makes an interesting study of logistical issues.

As an aside, I am curious why a US manufacturer or start up hasn't pickup on this and started to offer a better product. Clearly for a farmer or OTR trucker, this is a BIG deal.

LA Port breaks 1 million mark in May cargo numbers, a Western Hemisphere record

The port moved 1.12 million twenty-foot equivalent units — or TEUs, the industry’s standard measurement — last month.

www.dailynews.com

 

[jagpot]

How is it that some of you know which codes are at issue? Having only ever experienced, "check engine" and " Low DEF" I have never seen anything else. They cleared the Check engine light and stated it was for aftertreatment. ?
NIRVC did say they ran something and came up with a OBD2 which is the ABS system. They said not to worry because that code is "not active".
Aside from taking it in how do you know what code? Do they come up on a screen or do you all have a tool that you purchased to give you this info?

 

[ARD]

How is it that some of you know which codes are at issue? Having only ever experienced, "check engine" and " Low DEF" I have never seen anything else. They cleared the Check engine light and stated it was for aftertreatment. ?
NIRVC did say they ran something and came up with a OBD2 which is the ABS system. They said not to worry because that code is "not active".
Aside from taking it in how do you know what code? Do they come up on a screen or do you all have a tool that you purchased to give you this info?

I'm not sure what your driving panel looks like. I have 3 buttons on top. To check diagnostic code, I depress the left button and then hit back arrow. You can click on active or stored codes. Say you have an active code, I press the center button to poll the faults and it will tell you a SPN and FMI code. There may be one, two, three pages of codes. I'm not sure how yours is. Have you checked Newgle or called Newmar? They should be able to easily tell you how to access your active and stored codes. Or call Spartan.

 

[jagpot]

I'm not sure what your driving panel looks like. I have 3 buttons on top. To check diagnostic code, I depress the left button and then hit back arrow. You can click on active or stored codes. Say you have an active code, I press the center button to poll the faults and it will tell you a SPN and FMI code. There may be one, two, three pages of codes. I'm not sure how yours is. Have you checked Newgle or called Newmar? They should be able to easily tell you how to access your active and stored codes. Or call Spartan.

Thanks for replying. I will call Newmar. Being a 2014 not sure where they are.

 

[Old-RV'er]

Ok, I am not sure if all are aware of this. Back in November of last year was the chip fire in Japan. See 1st link below. This chip fire made chips for all kinds of things related to electronics, and those same electronics are in most likely the DEF Head Units. Additionally the 2nd link below is an additional chip factory in Japan which also caught fire. They supposedly resumed production in April. The PDM recall on certain Newmar Coaches/Freightliner chassis was cancelled because the replacement parts kept failing a a higher rate than the original parts that needed replacement. This recall has not been rescheduled and will not be until the replacement parts meet more rigorous testing criteria. So if you Rear PDM fails, there may not be any parts to fix that either. Lots of things which today break, may not be repairable for quite some time.

And ladies and gentlemen, this is the primary reason, our manufacture's should keep critical parts made in USA. It does not help that governors of states where the bulk of imports arrive and are inspected by customs, shut down their port for months due to covid, where science has shown shutting down did not make a hill of beans and did not save/protect mitigate the virus one iota. So we, to a lesser degree, but think OTA truck drivers, by the possibly of thousands are in the same boat, bad DEF head units and no parts. I think it was Sweden which kept everything open, with the same across the population of infections and their economy did not suffer.

FWIW-I ordered a Ham Radio Power Supply and SWR meter back in Late January, they both arrived last week. I have a extra power cable and PC cable from Kenwood on Order, and has been on order since March, with no idea of when it will be received by the vendor, nor when they will ship to me. Many, many business up till COVID used the 30 day stocking/replacement window for keeping parts/supplies on hand. Because of facts above, that " stocking model flew out the window" and all of them are rethinking stock/inventory levels in the new environment.

The last report I read on RV deliveries for this year was that thousands of almost finished RV's are sitting at lots near Point of origin, awaiting the parts to finish them and ship to dealers. One report herein said all Newmar 2021 models' are spoken for, and another article said THOR 2021 units are also sold out. I think the new model year begins in August for the 2022's, this assumes parts to start, build and complete units are available. Since I am anal, and saw the handwriting on the wall in late 2019 as we were traveling home from Yuma, AZ, we stocked up on critical items needed around the house and did not want for those items hard to find this past winter/spring. Critical shortages of other things are yet to be determined but read another report, chicken is going to go way up because more and more restaurants are using it, and the roosters are not working 24/7. The severe extreme heat in mid and western parts of USA is not going to help alleviate these problems, especially if CA/OR/WA is facing severe water shortage and the bulk of materials arrive at seaports in those states. Electrical brown outs are already being reported and that will not help. If you have not seen pictures of Lake Shasta or Lake Mead, do an internet search, they are at historical low levels with no rain in sight.

My advice is, learn to camp in your driveway if, your rig is broken, as I am not sure (comments above reflect this) when this situation will get better. Spartan/Freightliner/Cummins parts systems are all showing backorder, etc. Although, I would still call around to various places and see if they got "one" sitting in back, not allocated for anyone. Computers make mistakes all the time. Since I believe Cummins makes all the power plants in our coaches, just different models of engines, you might luck out calling a shop in a smaller area to see if they got one.

Its my guess, things are going to be hard to get for various end assemblies until end of year possibly longer. One article said the chips needed for automobiles and their backlog will not be realized before December 2021 or end of 1st Quarter 2022.

And how this relates to DEF is, why those parts are not available. I also believe it proves my point to NOT use the DEF supplied at Truck Stops, due to (not proven) possible contamination of the product, and, although DEF can be tested, it's hard to do it standing at the island with five big rigs trying to get fuel/def with you. For a while, Walmart did not have either of their brand nor the BlueDEF in any size at our local store. That has now been alleviated. And finding quarts of Delo 400 15W-40 Engine oil has been impossible since January 2020. Not sure they even make that size, but I cannot find them anyplace. Amazon wants over 70 a case if the person selling actually has them. To rich for my blood. It's for my small engine diesel Kubota's and the genset in our RV, hard to pour gallon of oil into those small places, even using funnel.

I am trying to see light at end of tunnel to help you, but it seems you are doing everything I would be doing to find parts. Oh, you might check with repair places run by other than the big boys, some smaller private shops keep some stock on hand, but that would mean you might have to pay for the part and then try for reimbursement.

1. - Fire Destroys AKM Audio Chip Factory: Can 2020 Get Any Worse?
2. Fire takes out Japanese chip plant, owner Renesas warns of more silicon shortages.

 

[Old-RV'er]

TMI-Got to thinking again, and if you are stuck alongside of road for any reason, but this one might do it, which "towing in" option are you going to allow? Ok, last MH, had an electric screw drive which extended the generator and allowed access to the fuel fill. However, the company who made the system was OOB (out of business) and no parts could be had and if your coach was towed, lots of companies want to jack up the front end, and haul you in using the front wheels on a tow dolly sort of thing. But, by doing the last MH that way, it broke the screw drive assembly, and then no way to keep genset in, going down road, so the one time we had to be towed, we insisted on a low boy, insurance company balked but I got my way.

But, I have serious concerns on that method, because the frame rails are not designed to have those kind of weights and forces with half of the RV in the air and the other half on the road. SO, if it was me, I would insist on a low boy type of tow. But, another consideration, is, your MH height, and then it sitting on the low boy rig. So when contracting for the tow, and getting the low boy, please ask driver, to go around all overpasses because your rig height, plus being even higher off the ground, could allow the rig to strike the overpass, and tear the whole top out of it. Trust me, you do not want to get into the ramifications of "whose at fault" in a situation such as that. Be aware of your rigs height, and then how tall you are going to be on the tow truck system.

 

[turbopilot]

I have been lurking on all these DEF head failure threads showing up on multiple forums. Is it true most of these events are happening primarily on the Spartan chassis? The last time I dove into the details of the DEF systems I was surprised to find out that Cummins really was not part of the DEF system integration. Instead Cummins set out the necessary parameters and it was the responsibility of the chassis manufacturers to specify and integrate the after treatment systems for the chassis. If true does anyone know how the Spartan DEF system differs from the FreightLiner DEF system?

As an aside I had a Ford 550 based RV before and after the 2011 DEF requirement for Diesel engines. All sorts of growing pains back in those days as DEF was introduced. One thing most of us learned back then was that you had to keep that DEF tank full all the time to avoid DEF sensor spurious errors. A low DEF tank allows that DEF to precipitate out all over the sensors creating problems. As long as those sensors are below the fluid level they work much better. I don't think that has changed.

 

[Neal]

I don't think that has changed.

I can't make an assumption on this and someone should verify with their chassis manufacturer. I don't see them designing a tank that cannot function properly at full capacity, i.e. all usable DEF. Why carry a 13 gal DEF tank if I can only use 1 gal of it?

 

[flyboy013]

Instead Cummins set out the necessary parameters and it was the responsibility of the chassis manufacturers to specify and integrate the after treatment systems for the chassis. If true does anyone know how the Spartan DEF system differs from the FreightLiner DEF system?

Spartan uses a DEF tank/head from Shaw Development. Freightliner uses a different DEF system and there hasn't been much information made available about it. I had read that it was a DEF system made available from their parent company (Daimler). It does appear accurate that Spartan has had many more failures than Freightliner.

There are various work around being discussed / developed, none to my knowledge by Spartan or Shaw.

 

[turbopilot]

I can't make an assumption on this and someone should verify with their chassis manufacturer. I don't see them designing a tank that cannot function properly at full capacity, i.e. all usable DEF. Why carry a 13 gal DEF tank if I can only use 1 gal of it?

I think the issue is the amount of time running with low DEF levels, not running down the DEF level on long trips then immediately filling up. In my old F550 I could actually see the sensors. With low DEF levels over time the DEF continues to slosh and splash over the sensors above the fluid level and progressively loading up with crystalized urea. Once the tank was filled it would often take several days of sloshing before those crystals went back into solution. During that time the F550 would report erroneous DEF levels.