Kevin, no one disagreed with the sentiment of your post...that these systems are trouble...what was called into question was your technical reasoning. I am a fully certified tech and while doing expedite I still work with some fleets on their maintenance issues.
DEF has nothing to do with carbon...or soot or any kind of "solid" emission from an engine. It is there solely to work as a reactant to reduce NOx gasses. Yes the system is trouble sometimes but it is purely an AFTERtreatment system... 100% post engine.
The DPF is also an AFTERtreatment system designed to clean up the "solids" in the exhaust once they LEAVE the engine. A malfunctioning DPF system, especially if it causes a high restriction (plugs up more than it should) can sometimes result in a slight increase in soot in the engine, but usually results in performance (power) complaints or check engine lights/limp mode long before the excessive restriction would start to back up any soot.
The EGR system can and does cause most of what you posted. It introduces cooled exhaust gasses back into the intake to control NOx during the actual combustion event in the cylinders. Malfunctioning EGR systems cause all sorts of grief because it can also highly affect the other 2 systems by making them work way harder BECAUSE it affects in engine combustion.
Some agricultural engines use no EGR but use DEF only to control NOx...they use a lot more DEF but a very very reliable and mostly trouble free.
In all your talking to techs in your millions of miles please keep this in mind, it's an unfortunate fact that sometimes a tech or service writer may not exactly tell you the full story either because they may not know it...or they just want to tell you something so the conversation will be brief so they can get on with thier work. I hate to admit it but I've done it...countless times...when I shouldn't have.
All sounds great, you obviously read a few online articles and looked at a few diagrams. Tell me this, what happens when the efficiency of the def heating process is reduced. What happens to the excess carbon in the exhaust that can’t escape the system?
Well...I thought I was being nice....anyways...here goes.
The only "
DEF heating process" is the small heater in the DEF tank that thaws frozen fluid...that's it.
The "excess carbon"...I'm assuming you mean particulates or soot...that normally builds up in the
DPF is burned off in the regeneration process...either "passive" just from the heat of the exhaust alone or "active" which is when the engine injects extra fuel into the exhaust stream to make the required heat for regeneration to occur.
If the
DPF cannot clean itself with regeneration, exhaust backpressure goes up and will trigger at least one or more fault codes...likely immediately as backpressure is one of the things measured by the ECM to determine when to start and end a regeneration event. So driving around with one that contains "excess carbon" is operator error...not system failure.
DPF restrictions (even after a regen) can also be caused by other operator errors. The wrong or excessive amounts of motor oil, goofy home brew fuel additives, using something other than ULSD for fuel etc. Again...the system will likely trigger a fault code not to be ignored.
I didn't go "look up a diagram" etc...I tried to educate you on your errors in your post. I know how these systems work...perhaps you should look at a diagram and look at what order these systems are in. Then you will see that the
DEF part of the system is
after the DPF part of the system so its "heating process" (whatever that is) doesn't affect it. In all your discussions and research...tell me how the
DEF part of the system affects the
DPF soot loads?
And.....based on the attitude in your responses here...You are exactly the type of customer/driver I would say whatever I needed to just to make you go away.
I'm done...I have trucks to fix.