Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Light & Medium Truck | Navistar Says SCR Systems Can Be Defeated

Navistar Says SCR Systems Can Be Defeated

Navistar Inc. recently attacked competitors’ 2010 selective catalytic control engines on two fronts, telling environmental regulators that pollution controls on the engines could be easily defeated, and telling fleet managers that every gallon of diesel fuel an SCR engine saves will come at the cost of at least that much diesel exhaust fluid consumed.

At a joint state-federal workshop in California this month, truck and engine maker Navistar presented a 15-minute video that purported to show drivers of SCR-equipped trucks flouting 2010 emissions regulations by operating heavy- and medium-duty SCR trucks for thousands of miles using water instead of diesel exhaust fluid.

Engines with SCR are intended to “de-rate,” or lose power, if their tanks holding the urea-water solution known as DEF are empty. Navistar said that substituting plain water for DEF tricked the tank’s sensors.

“Truck owners are paying a substantial price to comply with 2010 NOx requirements. They and the public deserve to know that the new equipment they are purchasing actually works as promised,” said Jack Allen, president of Navistar’s North American truck group.

Volvo Group and Cummins Inc., both of which sell SCR engines, participated in the July 20 workshop and said their trucks and engines, which have passed 2010 federal and California emission certification, function properly.

In response to the video, Daimler Trucks North America stated its “emissions systems operate as designed, meeting federal and state air-quality standards that reduce particulate matter and nitrogen oxides to near-zero levels without the use of credits.












Light & Medium Truck | Navistar Says SCR Systems Can Be Defeated


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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Distracted Driving at a whole new level

pulled from Toronto Sun
July 21,2010

A Kitchener truck driver is facing a careless driving charge but on the bright side, his tooth doesn’t hurt anymore.

Lambton County OPP say they stopped a big rig driver doing some driving dentistry along Hwy. 402 on Wednesday.

Const. John Reurink told the Sun Saturday it’s the first time he’s ever heard of a driver being pulled over performing dental surgery.

“I’ve never heard of this sort of thing occurring before,” Reurink said, adding he has stopped drivers doing their make-up, reading a map or talking on a cellphone. “Somebody doing an amateur tooth pulling? That’s a first.”

Reurink said it all started June 30 when an officer was on Hwy. 402 in Warwick Township, near Sarnia, and a passing driver pointed him to a tractor trailer being driven “all over the road.”

The officer found the eastbound rig and pulled it over.

Cops determined the 58-year-old driver was driving so poorly because he was trying to pull out a tooth while he was driving.

“The driver was very forthright with the officer,” Reurink said.

The amateur dentist of a driver had rigged a string around his hurting tooth and then tied the other end to the roof of the cab, police said.

“One good bump and the tooth should come out,” police explained.

Turns out the “one good bump” likely did come along at some point.

“The evidence of his efforts were nearby,” Reurink said.

When the driver was stopped the officer found a bloody tooth and a string lying next to him.

Strangely, police say the road down that way isn’t that bumpy and was recently resurfaced.

“He may have been better off on a sideroad,” Reurink said.

Police won’t be releasing the driver’s name because he’s charged under the Highway Traffic Act, not the Criminal Code, and they figure he’d be “continuously bombarded” by media trying to talk to him about his stunt - which would likely be more of a headache than a toothache.
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- msaks@ectts.com
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