[CheddarWedge]

I have been reading lately a few threads from some individuals that are very upset with their 6.7's. Multi CEL's, for this or that in a very short period of time after purchase. Granted I have had no issues to date; purchased in February and only have just over 5k miles on her. I am bone stock and have no plans on changing anytime soon. I hear the common excuse given by the dealer "do you idle excessively"? I am just wondering if there is some sort of connection between these few trucks that seem to suffer from the CEL flu? Are these guys running any kind of modifications? Getting bad diesel? Do they live in the same general area? What kind of driving habits do these drivers have? Are they younger folks or older people? Do they speed or putt around town? Are they able to get out on the highway and let the cruise hold a steady speed for an hour or so? Some of the questions might seem odd or a bit dumb, but I know I drive different now than I did when I was younger. I also work my truck, pulling trailers loaded and hauling feed on my weekends. I also putt around a bit, 3 miles to and from dropping off and picking up the kids from school, and 10 blocks picking them up from the sitter 5 days a week. My engine barley has time to get warm some days before I shut down. I am just wondering if there is anything that links these rigs that have issues? I had an Uncle that swore never to buy a truck that was built on a Monday or Friday, I don't know how he knew and he was a bit of a pot head, but I am just kind of wondering why some have so many issues and then some are able to run 150k to this point with never having a hick up. I did read in a thread that these trucks are made to work, not run around town and pick up kids and groceries. With that being said I find it funny how many modified 3/4 tons I see sitting in the college parking lot with student tags. Lots of rich mommies and daddies blowing lots of money on these graduation gifts. Do that many people buy a truck or vehicle for that matter, they don't intend to use? I have a funny feeling some parents are having heart issues when they see the CC bill from Little Johnny or Suzie for the fuel they are burning. Sorry for the long post, just thought I would see if anyone else is wondering about the few individuals having the CEL flu. :lol3:

 

[Jeepstang]

It sounds like you use yours the way I use mine
I have had mine for about a year now and only one time did the cel come on for soot in the turbo actuator and that was after a long drive from MA-MD. I drop my kid off about 1 mile from here each day and am stuck in traffic for most of my driving time. At times the truck sits for over an hour parked idling on hot days with the AC on for my wife who has Ashma.
so who ever tells you that idling alot is bad for the truck may be correct but it has not caused my cel to come on. I was told that a star support tech said that the actuator in the turbo moves after the truck has been on for about 2 minutes. That explains why driving like we do "short trips" seems to keep it clean. Also driving with the exhaust brake on will move the actuator to help clean the soot out of it as well.
the Chrysler tech training dept has told our local tech's that most of the issues they were having about a year ago was from bad or incorrect fuel. Beileve it or not I live about 12 miles from Washington DC and it is still hard to find ULSD in my area
most of the few stations that even sell Diesel fuel still have the old LSD fuel
i have to ve very careful where I get my fuel from and read the pumps in detail

 

[moody6.7]

My truck has the CEL Flu. My truck currently has around 8300 miles. Around 40% of the miles on my truck are towing my travel trailer 7500 lbs loaded. I live in a rural area and a few of the miles are short trips dropping kid at school or going to the store but the vast majority of miles would be considered highway miles. My dealer has never told me it idled to much. When I first purchased the truck I had to really check the pumps for the type of diesel when I was traveling but now almost every station has ULSD in SE Louisiana. I have never let the truck idle. I do not let it idle to warm up. I do not abuse truck but do not drive it gingerly either.

I think Chrysler has been making up excuses and does not have a clue to why some trucks have multiple problems and others seemingly no problems. I do not see how working the trucks should help the problem. Working the truck is burning more fuel. More fuel burned equals more soot. Highway miles should allow the DPF to be cleaned through regeneration.

 

[ZDiesel]

I'm 32 so I don't know what young or old is to you. This is my first diesel that I am paying for. I've had 5 CELs with under 5000mi on my truck. No engine mods. I do mostly city driving, 15min from home to work. I don't tow anything, right now. At first I was pi$$ed to get a CEL with 1800mi on my $45k truck. Made me wish I had got an 07 5.9 but, I realized that the emissions equip are here to stay so I stuck the 08. I get my fuel at Murphy's USA because it says it is ULSD and it is generally less expensive around here. If the Chrysler designed these trucks to be worked and not putt around town then why did they put these engines in passenger vehicles and not give us this information before we purchased. I have realized that this is my first diesel and that I have to learn a lot, I'm willing to change and learn, some are not. I was expecting to get better fuel mileage though. I get about 11mpg. I was hoping for at least 15mpg's in town, prolly would if I didn't have oversized tires but, that was my decision and I knew the consequences.
I've wanted a Cummins for a while so I bought a tried and TRUE diesel. There doesn't seem to be many issues with the engine itself just the emissions. I thought about getting a gasser but, wanted my engine to still be running strong 10yrs later. I don't tow anything right now but there is the possibility in the future if/when I move back to Texas to actually work this truck. So for now it is way more that I need but, I've always been of the opinion, that it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. so for now I'm just enjoying the torque and all the heads turning. My fav is to see a guy look at my truck and then look at the ground. There are only two negatives so far, 1. I shoulda got a Mega, 2. my buddies are always ragging me about the CELs...all i have to say is lets go race or lets hook up a tow strap and see who pulls who around the lot even with my CELs

I didn't mean to offend anyone if I did. I'm just voicing my opinion.

 

[Guest]

I'm 32 so I don't know what young or old is to you. This is my first diesel that I am paying for. I've had 5 CELs with under 5000mi on my truck. No engine mods. I do mostly city driving, 15min from home to work. I don't tow anything, right now. At first I was pi$$ed to get a CEL with 1800mi on my $45k truck. Made me wish I had got an 07 5.9 but, I realized that the emissions equip are here to stay so I stuck the 08. I get my fuel at Murphy's USA because it says it is ULSD and it is generally less expensive around here. If the Chrysler designed these trucks to be worked and not putt around town then why did they put these engines in passenger vehicles and not give us this information before we purchased. I have realized that this is my first diesel and that I have to learn a lot, I'm willing to change and learn, some are not. I was expecting to get better fuel mileage though. I get about 11mpg. I was hoping for at least 15mpg's in town, prolly would if I didn't have oversized tires but, that was my decision and I knew the consequences.
I've wanted a Cummins for a while so I bought a tried and TRUE diesel. There doesn't seem to be many issues with the engine itself just the emissions. I thought about getting a gasser but, wanted my engine to still be running strong 10yrs later. I don't tow anything right now but there is the possibility in the future if/when I move back to Texas to actually work this truck. So for now it is way more that I need but, I've always been of the opinion, that it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. so for now I'm just enjoying the torque and all the heads turning. My fav is to see a guy look at my truck and then look at the ground. There are only two negatives so far, 1. I shoulda got a Mega, 2. my buddies are always ragging me about the CELs...all i have to say is lets go race or lets hook up a tow strap and see who pulls who around the lot even with my CELs

I didn't mean to offend anyone if I did. I'm just voicing my opinion.

I couldn't agree more, and I don't care if I offend anyone. All you wanna be truck drivers that can't afford a real peterbuilt are wrong about having to work this new beast. I only need it to work pulling my camper. If I need to take it to the grocery store for a gallon of milk, it damn well better get me there and back without any cels.
I have absolutly now problems with my truck by the way, and love it. But I get sick and tired of people saying you need to hook onto 15000 pounds everyday. That is not what everyone own's one for.

 

[Dale_K]

I'm one of the complainers, with many CEL's, including the 2262 right now (taking it in tomorrow morning). Before that most were P2000 but I've also had P0128 and P0513. None of these seem to affect motor operation - the truck drives OK. I've never had the overhead console display any of the catalyst full messages.

I don't tow and don't drive with loads in the bed. I bought the truck with the idea that I would keep it for the rest of my life and no matter how my life might change, such as owning a boat, RV or other trailer, I'd have a vehicle that could handle it.

Most of my driving is 40-60 mph on local 2 lane roads. Hardly any stop & go traffic. Maybe twice a month I go 60 miles on the interstate. I run the exhaust brake all the time and never idle, except for rare occasions when the windshield is covered in frost - and then only long enough for the frost to start melting.

I hardly ever run more than 1/3 on the "gas" pedal. With 350hp a few seconds of full throttle has me going 85mph. I try to give it the gas once in a while up the longer hills. I buy my fuel at the same place the dealer does, the Walmart. Always the same place and the tank is marked ULSD. It's a high volume location with new facilities. The mechanic said no water in the fuel filter after 6 months.

So far the dealer hasn't blamed me for the problems although the service manager asked about idling time. He seemed to believe me when I said I didn't. I would be REALLY pissed off if they said the issues were my fault because I don't run the truck hard enough. Nothing in the sales literature or the owner's manual says you have to run it hard (exception is the catalyst full message and my driving seems to allow successful regeneration).

I'm afraid Cummins went down the wrong track when they decided to employ high volume EGR instead of urea injection to achieve 2010 emission compliance. The vehicles with the urea injection generate less soot. I actually like the fact that my Cummins has a clean tailpipe and doesn't stink but they released this vehicle without enough real world testing.

 

[seanth468]

12 cel p2000

I'm 30,male,first diesel,buy diesel at shell only. I use my truck like most of you. Pull a couple times a month and pull my car to the dragstrip about 10 times in the winter months. My friend at the dealer says that mine is one of the very few that are still having this problem and the Cummins tech is coming in May and they are looking for a truck like mine to study. Cummins knows there is a problem and it is a legite one.I love my truck and would not drive anything else!!!!!!!!:woot:

 

[1 CTPAX]

i'm 42. I drive my truck almost like I stole it. What's a CEL. Never saw one yet. Bought it in October, towed something heavy 3 times. Mostly use it to pick up my kids from school and run them around to after school activities.
I think that the problem trucks are early models from each year, as mine is dated 06/07 and I have no problems with mine, however my friend's truck was dated 03/07 and it's in the shop monthly.
By the way I idle my truck with turbo timer every time I turn it off.

 

[MtnTrucker]

IMO I think you can break this down into several phases:

Phase 1-When the 6.7's first came out Dodge clearly had a defective SW program in the ECM. There was still a fair amount of LSD fuel available, people were running fuel additives (some even putting used oil in their fuel), and there was a gross lack of knowledge and training by the dealers on how to service this new engine and emissions systems. There were some legitimate turbo HW failures but I think most of the turbos replaced during this time were done in error in an attempt to fix CEL codes that were really a SW defect.

Phase 2-During this time Dodge released numerous SW flashes, each one a little better than the last, based on feedback collected from their engineers in the field (my truck was one of those they used). More ULSD is available and folks learned not to use additives and to run the right CJ-4 type oil. Some of the dealers began to improve but not much.

Phase 3 (today)-Fuel, additive and oil related problems are rare today, the current flashes seem to address most of the problems. In my opinion, today, the majority of the ongoing issues some of our members are having is due to dealerships and diesel techs that still don't really know what they are doing.

All of this is just my very unscientific view based on reading every thread on this forum daily for the past year and my own experience with my truck.

In my case, my dealer delayed delivering my truck to me for 2 weeks last June because they knew there were ECM flash issues and they only gave it to me once it was updated. In spite of that, I had my 1 and only CEL 1 month later. It turned out to be a false EGR related code that the next flash fixed. But during that time 3 Cummins engineers came to the dealership and kept my truck for 2 days. They had the entire backseat filled with instrumentation and cables running out the window and under the hood. I got the truck back 2 days later with 100 more miles on it, a full tank of fuel and a gift certificate for $100 more of fuel. Within a month the next flash came out and I have never had another problem since. I do take my truck in every time a new flash is announced and the dealer puts it in while I wait without question.

There are some folks that have true lemons but statistically they are a very small percentage of all of these trucks sold. From what I can see, other than the poor fuel economy, they appear to be getting most of the bugs out of these trucks.

The crap about not idling and you must drive them on the hwy, etc is left overs from the past when they were grasping at straws until they could figure out how to fix these things. I know many folks with these trucks who use them only for grocery getting and taking kids to school and they don't have problems anymore.

Look at the recent news letters that Cummins issued, they state right there that idling shouldn't be an issue with the 6.7 unless its for hours and hours. The newest flashes adjust the parameters for how often regens occur to avoid dpf plugging and the ECM will automatically kick the engine to a higher idle speed if required to keep the dpf cleaner.