The anti-intellectualization of America on wide display here.
Idiocracy was funnier when it wasn’t a documentary.
As much as I love pointing out policing issues in this country, this isn’t really one of them. A ton of diesel owners delete their DEF system. The article mentioned a horse power and torque gain that “isn’t actually proven” but that’s never what a deleted emissions system has been for. It’s always been an issue of reliability and cost long term. A lot of diesels use to be incredibly reliable, and would go for 100s of thousands of miles. Today most owners are ditching them after the first 100k because of costs. I personally know of one company that works on diesel motors that had fleets of diesel trucks and switched to gas because maintenance on them had become far too expensive and frequent.
It’s also not like AR has any CARB law making them do bi-annual inspections for emission systems. I’ll bet if I looked in AR for diesel trucks 7/10 would be deleted and say so in the post. This guy just happens to be a sheriff.
I work on this sort of truck for a living. The emissions shit on these things is a nightmare. There’s always something else, it’s always expensive, it’s typically a huge pain in the ass to fix. I’m all for the environment, but I understand why a tune and delete is a common thing. I wouldn’t personally buy a newer diesel unless it was absolutely necessary.
Sidenote: I’m not big on trucks. I don’t think most of them are used anywhere near their potential. I would get an electric station wagon if I could afford one and there were more options.
Ps. Fuck Ford.
I would get an electric station wagon if I could afford one and there were more options.
I’d love to see an electric Subaru Outback (or similar) someday. That might be about the only thing that could convince me to trade my perfectly fine Outback in for something electric anytime remotely in the near future. Longevity, hauling capacity, towing capacity (on the 3.6R model, anyway), AWD. Perfect, except for the gas mileage.
https://www.subaru.com/vehicles/solterra.html
Check it out. They’re roughly the same size.
Thanks for sharing. First I’ve heard of it (ah, the joys of not seeing TV commercials).
Doesn’t look like it can compete with the Outback yet, especially at that price, but I’m glad to see they’re working on it. Maybe a few years from now I will upgrade after all.
I would point out that the Solterra is an SUV rather than a wagon–it has dramatically less storage capacity and my giant dogs wouldn’t fit in it as well as they do in the Outback. I also like the wagon length of the Outback so I can haul most things without having to rent a truck. It doesn’t have the same towing capacity, either, which could be problematic for someone with a boat, like me.
Anyway, the Solterra is not quite there, but it looks promising. I’ll check the options again in a few years. I certainly wouldn’t be buying anything without a few years of history to know if it’s reliable, anyway. I don’t like to be a beta tester unless we’re talking computer games.
