Re: Perkins, Cummins electronic diesel engines

Posted by Wayne on September 30, 2003 at 20:54:19 from (64.12.96.236):

In Reply to: Perkins, Cummins electronic diesel engines posted by Dave on September 30, 2003 at 04:04:18:

I drive a '94 FL106 Freightliner with a Series 50 Detroit with the DDEC3 controls. In the reliability department, the truck has almost 350,000 miles on it without any major problems. I did have a sensor go bad awhile back and it shut the engine down on a busy road 100 miles from home. Fortunately I'm a field service mechanic and it was my work truck so I had my Prolink and the right cartridge with me and it was something I was able to override and get the truck back on the road til I could get home and get a new one. To me though this is the main thing wrong with the electronic engines, you have to have the proper computer equipment/testers/scanners/ or whatever you want to call them to be able to work on them. What's even worse these tools are expensive and often times just having the scanner isn't enough, you have to have a cartrige specific to whatever brand of engine your working on. Personally I can buy alot of basic hand tools for $2500 and do the troubleshooting with my brain and 5 senses as good as that computer can do. Then when you do find the problem, even the smallest sensor is probably gonna be specific to that OEM and is gonna cost you... I guess what I'm saying is electronic controls have their place, and their good points, but let a cheap ($150) dollar sensor fail and shut down your $150,000 machine and see how you feel. Then ad on top the other $2000 your gonna have to give a dealership find and replace that "cheap" sensor because you don't have all the diagnostic equipment to find it yourself, and then see how you feel about electronics. I know they claim fuel savings, lower emissions, etc etc etc, but in the end all it takes is one seemingly minor problem and the cost out of your pocket far outweighs the money your supposed to be saving on everything else because of the electronics. Then in the same line of thinking I had a guy at a dealership tell me once that the older engines were cheap enough and simple enough to have worked on and repaired that people seemed to be more likely to either tune them up themselves or bring them in for a tune up thereby keeping emissions down more so with them than the electronic ones that were so expensive to work on that they let them run til they dropped because they couldn't afford "routine" maintenance. Basically the electronics take vehicle maintenance out of the hands of the average consumer and put that consumers money back into the hand of the OEM, nothing more......
Just my .02...........Wayne

Follow Ups:

• Re: Re: Perkins, Cummins electronic diesel engines G-MAN 07:49:28 10/01/03 (2)
  • Re: Re: Re: Perkins, Cummins electronic diesel eng Ben in KY 12:23:44 10/01/03 (1)
    • Re: Re: Re: Re: Perkins, Cummins electronic diesel G-MAN 16:08:29 10/02/03 (0)

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