Just an update about my Isuzu work truck

[Ilikeoldfords]

Hey guys. Just thought I would post an update about the truck that I use for day to day work. If you remember about a year ago, I posted this thread...

First off, I have really not been impressed with it. I am up to 170k on the truck today. This is the service history over the last year:

Replace head gasket and cylinder head (head was warped to badly to salvage)

Replace EGR cooler

Pull and bake DPF twice now and I am already getting a dash warning about it being plugged (Going to replace the element soon)

Two injectors failed so we put in a full set

 

I am putting a fair number of miles on at about 1000 per week most of the time. The mix comes out to 90% highway and 10% city miles so I know the little truck is probably being over worked. I havent put it on a scale yet but I am probably running upwards of 12k GVW at all times. Overall, seems like most of the problems have been emission control related. They narrowed the head gasket issue down to the exhaust temp running to hot for the head.

Does anyone know of a source for delete kits on the Isuzu engines? I am getting pretty tired of the truck being in the shop. My company said they will take care of repairs and the deletes but they arent ready to replace the truck yet

The next truck I get, I am really hoping it has a cummins or Cat or something else!!!

[JAG1]

I really appreciate this information. Up to this point I was thinking of getting an NPR diesel box truck for my biz. Was wanting one real bad, I thought. Thank you Will.

[Ilikeoldfords]

If you are looking toward an older model it might not be so bad. The truck we had before this one was an older Isuzu diesel, probably about a 1998 or 1999. It had over 350k on it when it got totaled and little to no major engine work was ever needed. I think when they brought on all the emission control crap is when all the problems started. Just what I am thinking anyway.

[JAG1]

I think your right on that too. Its like the government is trying to make all diesel engines politically correct with gassers so no one has an advantage over the other.

[IBMobile]

I grew up believing diesels were suppose to be loud, stinky, and smoky.  KISS always worked for me.  I'm wondering what the repair cost/mile after say 300k, and 500k miles for two trucks of similar capabilities from different years.   Compare a same manufacture's pre ECM, EGR, DEF, DPF, etc. truck to say a 2012-2014 truck with costs adjusted for inflation to one from 1980.  With the added system/subsystems I'm sure we'd to a substantial increase in maintenance and repair costs.

  When I started working on cars in the early 70's a tune-up was replace spark plugs, points and condenser,  check and clean distributor cap and rotor,  adjust point gap (dwell), ignition timing, carburetor fuel mixture and idle at a labor time of 1hour @ $12/hr (dealer labor rate 1974) or $61.32 in 2016 dollars.  One dollar in 1974 equals $5.11 in 2016.  Now there is no such thing as a tune-up any more. There are no points, condenser, ignition distributor cap or rotor, and no adjustments allowed.  To replace spark plugs on a turbo charged  5 cylinder Volvo is 1.4 hours @ $130/hr = $182 (dealer labor rate) that's a 297% increase to service the primary/secondary ignition system of a pre ECM vehicle.   

 The maintenance costs are already known by the manufacture and are used by the marketing department in presentations for fleet sales. The manufacturer oil change intervals were extended from every 5,000 mi to 7,500mi so that the cost of oil changes over the life of the fleet is reduced by 50%. that's a big savings to the maintenance cost to the company but the repair cost will increase because of accelerated wear due to oil degradation. I've seen this happen in 1984. By the time the vehicles were reaching about 80,000 mi the cam shaft in the cylinder head was seizing due to sludge blocking the oil galilees.  The manufactures don't seem to care about difficulty or cost of repairs, only that the Corporate Average Fuel Economy  (CAFE) Standards are up and the EPA emission numbers are down, their vehicles are sold and it stays that way until the warranty is up.  This is the price we pay for clean air.   

[JAG1]

Great post IBM.  Makes me want to go out and smoke'm

[Ilikeoldfords]

Anyone ever hear of "Innovative Programmers"? I was just perusing the interwebs and came across this:

http://www.amazon.com/Innovative-Performance-Power-Programmer-NPR-HD/dp/B00WFIJFEM

Here is the actual product website:

http://www.gainmpg.com/performance-chip-for-isuzu-npr

For the price it might be worth a try in the old Isuzu.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Ilikeoldfords
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