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Another towing report

bill-e

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I did a 200 mi round trip in my 2 week old EcoD on Aug 23 towing my 7k+ camper loaded for dry camping and 7 long guns, 6 revolvers and a ton of ammo for a shooting match, The rifles were in the back seat and the bed contained a grill, 2 generators, 5 gal of gas, and a gun cart so it was moderately loaded. Towing was smooth and steady. I set the cruise for 62mph. Round trip mileage was 13.9.

This past weekend I did another 200mi round trip loaded the same way but because this waz my third dry camping trip without dumping, I had over 1000lbs of water, including my fresh so my camper was easily 800lbs heavier than tyhe first trip. On the 100 mi trip out which began at about 1120 feet and ended at sea level I averaged 14.8 mpg. The way home was windy, and I averaged 14 mpg. Before I reset my trip meter without thinking I had about 146 miles since my last regen and was showing 20.9% DPF. I have noticed that either because of redesign or the fact that I have a new, unclogged DPF filter it has been going longer between regens.

Speaking of regens, I think when the Peak Blue Def Premium hits the shelves I'm going to start using that to try to keep the DPF from building up as much as I can from the DEF.
 

J-Cooz

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Nice report. How does the towing feel? Haven't gotten a chance to tow yet with my eco but looking forward to it
 

bill-e

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Nice report. How does the towing feel? Haven't gotten a chance to tow yet with my eco but looking forward to it
If your load is right for your tow vehicle, any truck will feel good. I used to tow a 3500# 20' camper with my Honda Ridgeline and I would often forget I had anything back there. The Ram is the same. Load and hitch set up correctly and you forget your towing. I have yet to run into a situation where I needed a lot of torque so I really can't comment on that.

Depending on how big that "sail" is that your towing, wind can push around any half ton truck but I didn't notice any sway towing my 28' box on the windy ride home. On the first trip I spent a lot of miles on the highway and since I tow at 60-65mph I was passed quite often by semi's and from memory I don't recall being blown around when they passed with the '20 but with my '15 I would. I did not have the truck tires aired up for either trip but I head out in 2 weeks on another 300mi round trip camping weekend and I will air them up for that.
 
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gorilla57

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Speaking of regens, I think when the Peak Blue Def Premium hits the shelves I'm going to start using that to try to keep the DPF from building up as much as I can from the DEF.

Ummm....you might wanna look at what you wrote there, it is very wrong. DEF has NOTHING to do with the DPF. The DPF is up close to the turbo outlet/downpipe and uses diesel/high exhaust temps to do a regen.

The SCR filter (the one that uses the DEF) is further downstream in the exhaust. That's the filter that takes care of the NOx. The Peak Platinum DEF is supposed to help the problem of the SCR plugging.
 

neddles

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How common is it for an SCR to plug up? A difficult fix?

What does the Peak DEF do to alleviate that concern?
 

JGRaider

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How do you know how often the 2020 EcoD regens? Is there a way to check it?
 

bill-e

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Ummm....you might wanna look at what you wrote there, it is very wrong. DEF has NOTHING to do with the DPF. The DPF is up close to the turbo outlet/downpipe and uses diesel/high exhaust temps to do a regen.

The SCR filter (the one that uses the DEF) is further downstream in the exhaust. That's the filter that takes care of the NOx. The Peak Platinum DEF is supposed to help the problem of the SCR plugging.
Yea, I know my mistake, just never came back to fix it. ;)
 

gorilla57

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How common is it for an SCR to plug up? A difficult fix?

What does the Peak DEF do to alleviate that concern?
I've personally NEVER heard of an SCR plugging up. It's usually a DPF that will clog up over time due to the ash accumulation.

I'm guessing the Peak is just good marketing. :unsure:
 

bill-e

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How common is it for an SCR to plug up? A difficult fix?

There have definitely been out of warranty repairs to the DEF system including clean/replacing clogged injector (~$900 at dealer) but it is unclear to me if this is much of a consumer concern since we don't rack up hundreds of thousands of miles or more of a commercial fleet concern. And of course on a Gen 2 the DEF system is now AEM warranted to 120kmiles.

What does the Peak DEF do to alleviate that concern?

It's not the current version, the new Peak BlueDEF Platinum is supposed to have an added formulation which reduces the buildup. I emailed them and asked for more info and did not get a reply.
 
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md-lucky

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How do you know how often the 2020 EcoD regens? Is there a way to check it?

yLSFSHj.jpg


I don't know if this is the message that will show up every time, but this is what showed up on mine.

Had been doing a ton of low, slow, 4x4 driving in the woods that weekend. Surprisingly, I traveled at highway speeds home for a while. Guess that wasn't enough to burn it off.

Didn't notice any difference in how the truck acted, smelled, drove... the message came on, stayed there for about 2 minutes, and then said something like "completed" and went away. Would say the system was working exactly as designed.
 

Finn5033

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Interesting. I’m at 3k miles on my truck and have not seen that message yet. Granted I do 80 miles round trip of highway driving everyday and not many short trips so perhaps it hasn’t needed it yet. I really wish that there was something in the EVIC that showed regen info. Something kind of like the oil life gauge
 

bill-e

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...
I don't know if this is the message that will show up every time, but this is what showed up on mine.
...
No, that message only shows up when the third type of Regen happens as described below.

There are really 4 types of regenerations. The first is Passive which is when your engine is generating enough heat on its own to burn off the carbon which is collecting on the DPF. On my Gen 3 that happens around 600-650°F.

The second is an Active regen which occurs when your DPF loading is about 65-70% and the engine uses diesel fuel to increase the temperature to about 1200°F to burn off the carbon. Both of these first two conditions occur without any notification to the operator. The active regeneration runs until either the DPF is "clean" or until you shut down your truck. 1200°F is what I saw on my Gen2 engine. Thus far on my Gen 3 the Active Regen tops out at about 750°F.

If the Active cycle did not run enough to finish, the next time you drive the truck and the engine gets near operating temperature, the cycle will begin again and run until the DPF is clean, as measured by the pressure differential sensors, or you shut off the truck.

The third type occurs if after this active regen phase the truck doesn't get enough time in Active to clean the filter and the soot loading hits 80%, the EVIC will notify the operator and perform another, the third type of regen, counting down the DPF % full until the DPF is clean. You should always let this finish or you risk entering the last type of regen.

The fourth type occurs if you don't finish and your DPF hits 100%, the truck will issue a warning that you must immediately take it to a dealer for service or severe damage will occur to the emissions system. Once at the dealer they run a parked regen and clear the filter.

Every time a regen runs, even if it doesn't complete, the soot loading will be reduced by some amount so reaching the 80% or 100% point is very infrequent as you have experienced. In my previous 5 years with my '15 I only got the EVIC warning once.

Typically the first two types of regen go unnoticed by the operator.

If you want an inexpensive way to monitor all of this activity I would suggest this OBDII reader and either the Torque app or the app included with the tool.
 

bill-e

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Interesting. I’m at 3k miles on my truck and have not seen that message yet. Granted I do 80 miles round trip of highway driving everyday and not many short trips so perhaps it hasn’t needed it yet. I really wish that there was something in the EVIC that showed regen info. Something kind of like the oil life gauge
This is exactly why they chose not to display the message. Ignorance is bliss and they don't want to scare the average operator off.
 

bill-e

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Fantastic information. Thank you for the detailed response. Will look into this. Cheers!
Thanks, here's a screen capture of Torque pro running on my Gen 3. Actually the truck was off so these are just stored readings from the last time it was run.

Screenshot_20200922-133707.png
 

Finn5033

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Thanks, here's a screen capture of Torque pro running on my Gen 3. Actually the truck was off so these are just stored readings from the last time it was run.

View attachment 70114

thank you for all that great info. Are there any known issues using the obd reader. I get very leary about using anything that could mess with the ECU
 

bill-e

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thank you for all that great info. Are there any known issues using the obd reader. I get very leary about using anything that could mess with the ECU
Not with the one I recommend, or it's big brother the MX version. Edit you're profile to use the following protocol and you should be OK. ISO 15765-4 (11 Bit, 500k baud) On the Gen 3 it can only read.
 

Mchurch52

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bill-e, thanks for the very detailed explanation on regens, great stuff! I can always tell when my truck is doing an active regen because it typically occurs on the interstate and my instantaneous fuel mileage will drop by 6-8 MPG for 8-10 miles. I am at 11,000 miles and have never seen an EVIC message for regen. It's been 800 miles since my last active regen, although we were towing the camper this weekend so it is possible there was some passive regen taking place so I won't see another active regen for a while.
 

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