DEF Head issues

[DHudson]

I had lunch with my buddy yesterday that is over North America service operations for Ryder Truck.
They have thousands of trucks down nation wide because of the DEF Head issue. The issue is a bad sensor that reads the DEF temp.
The sensor manufacture, located in China, seems to be in no hurry to step up production of the sensors.
He said that he got Cummins attention when he said Ryder was going to start billing Cummins for each unit down per day, which would be millions of dollars per day.
He said he finally got them to get EPA permission to reprogram computers to bypass the sensor, since it just read the DEF temp.

He said this happen last week. So, if you have a DEF head problem and your coach is sidelined because of it, "IF" it is a code for a bad DEF sensor with no other DEF codes/concerns, there may be hope in a software reprogram that ignores the faulty sensor and gets you back on the road until parts become available. I would think that it would be available to everyone and not just Ryder Truck.
It's worth asking about id your coach is affected.

 

[flyboy013]

Here’s a link to an article on the Cummins software patch.

Cummins comes through: A DEF sensor software patch now available

By Russ and Tiña De Maris While the shortage of microchips has turned auto manufacturing upside down, RVers, too have been hit. If you’ve been following our

www.rvtravel.com

 

[Rich W.]

“The patch” has limited promise, but so far I’ve read of no cases where it benefited someone. Doesnt mean it hasnt, but I havent seen any stories of it emerge in the RV forums.

It also doesn't help the motorist stranded by a derate on the side of the road. The idea is to avoid the tow and keep the rig operational. The patch doesn't do this - you have to have the problem and get it to a Cummins shop in that condition. A least preferred solution at best.