What brand of DEF do you use and why you like it.
What Brand of DEF and Why?
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AZDieselGuy
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@ZR2Diesel2018
Welcome to the forum. It's not unusual to go long stretches without having to fill the DEF tank. It is a 5+ gallon tank and our trucks use very little DEF under light load conditions (i.e. normal driving without towing/hauling). The DEF gauge in the DIC will only begin to show level once it goes below 25%. I've gotten down to 9% before prior to getting the refill within 1000mi warning.
Welcome to the forum. It's not unusual to go long stretches without having to fill the DEF tank. It is a 5+ gallon tank and our trucks use very little DEF under light load conditions (i.e. normal driving without towing/hauling). The DEF gauge in the DIC will only begin to show level once it goes below 25%. I've gotten down to 9% before prior to getting the refill within 1000mi warning.
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Thank you for the feedback. Peace of mind
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Thanks for the feedback, I will follow up with your recommendation.
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Locally here in Canada at least, there is a common big box store brand called "Air1" which they say meets or exceeds industry standards. I found out that is also the brand sold at truck stop def pumps. Truck dealerships and other premium stores sell one called "H2blu", sold by the jug which they call a premium def with "maximum purity and performance". I noticed both brands are made by the SAME company. That should tell you something and guess which one I'm using? Having spent five figures repairing the def system on my big rig, I will not take chances with cheap def. If those sensors don't like what they see, then you will face limp mode and eventual shutdown, a situation you cannot get out of and repairs you cannot do yourself. Maybe you can get away with the cheap stuff when your truck is new but, what happens when it gets older? Feed your truck the good stuff so that diesel emissions equipment will be a non concern.
The spec sheets for both are a little different. Yes, it's basically Urea and deionized water, but the Platinum also contains propriety additives. The regular Blue Def is just Urea and H2O.
"BlueDEF PLATINUM™ with advanced SYSTEM SHIELD™ technology is a mixture of high purity synthetic urea, deionized water, and our proprietary additive package"
I don't know what's in the propriety additive package, but there must be something that regular Blue DEF does not have.
I do know a lot about administrative agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission. If the FTC wants to go after PEAK, the manufacturer of the Blue DEF lines, for false and deceptive advertising: PEAK better be able to prove its claims. Otherwise, they could be subject to multi-million dollar fines not to mention negative publicity. PEAK has been around for a long time and they sell a bunch of other fluid products. I don't think they would want to risk the fines and bad rap by bogus advertising.
Now does that mean the Platinum stuff will really work? Who knows. It's so new, it may take a long time to determine if it will work as claimed.
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Well the dozens of threads posted here everyday about buildup before and in the SCR tells me that we'll know within a week or two if this stuff works. That buildup has been a real scourge on these engines. Consumer Reports has advised against ever buying a 2.8 due to the thousands of reports of problems due to DEF buildup.
I wouldn't call the Platinum stuff snake oil. It still has to be seen if it works better than the standard Blue DEF.
You want snake oil? How about Moe's Miracle DEF and Exhaust Scrubber. Why is it snake oil? No one heard of this product or company; they have no track record; and their claims seem too good to be true. Their objective? Sell as much of this stuff as quickly as possible and disappear before the FTC can nail them. 6 months later they will be back as Awesome Annie's DEF and Exhaust Cleaner.
You want snake oil? How about Moe's Miracle DEF and Exhaust Scrubber. Why is it snake oil? No one heard of this product or company; they have no track record; and their claims seem too good to be true. Their objective? Sell as much of this stuff as quickly as possible and disappear before the FTC can nail them. 6 months later they will be back as Awesome Annie's DEF and Exhaust Cleaner.
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I fill up at Bucees here in TX. RIght outta the pump at less than half the price of containered DEF. AND A LOT easier to keep from making a mess.
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My practice is to not fill it all the way to the top, to eliminate the dreaded crustified stuck DEF fill cap syndrome. When it hits the 30% warning, I dump a Walmart / Supertech $8.00 2.5 gallon jug in, have had no more stuck cap problems since I stopped filling it all the way.
Sorry but if you compare the SDS's side by side the they are almost word for word the same, the physical and chemical properties are in fact the exact same. The only difference is the % by wt of the ingredients but that's negligible, really just looks like they decided to use whole numbers on the platinum SDS instead of the usual 67.5/32.5. So my questions are, what are these "harmful deposits" that are supposedly building up in our SCRs? What are these "proprietary additives" that are reacting in the SCR to eliminate the deposits? "Advanced System Shield Technology"? Just sounds like a bunch of buzz words to me. A marketing scheme to justify squeezing a few more dollars out of the consumer. It's a product that makes a bunch of baseless claims to solve problems that none of us have; that fits my definition of snake oil. You'd be better off spending the extra money on a quality fuel additive IMHO.
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But if they have a magnetic control on the pump you'll need an adapter to put in DEF, and I've yet to be able to get an adapter that works. Not worth the hassle, IMHO, particular given I don't want to fill full.
Also the nozzles I've seen have been rather dirty.
I didn't think any of these truck stops ever installed the magnet readers. It was a good idea we'd come up with in the industry that just never quite got implemented. Instead we still get trucks with DEF in the diesel tank. Turns out, that's an expensive mistake.
Yup. LOL.
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I've only tried two stations, and they both had them. The system is designed to keep DEF from being pumped into the diesel tank. It isn't universal, but I don't recall the statistics.
Truck stop for me. It’s $2.79 a gallon. I’m not paying $16.00 for 2.5 gallon box.
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They don't have DEF on their website, but it's only about $8 at Costco if I recall correctly.
They're out of stock, so I wonder if they are switching brands or maybe going to Bluedef's premium product.
Edit: $9.39 per this blog piece. Strange site.
Costco DEF Fluid, Blue DEF Diesel Exhaust Fluid - Costco Fan
I was very surprised to see that Costco carries Diesel Exhaust Fluid. I was browsing through Costco Business the other day, when I came across this Costco DEF fluid. You can’t beat the price at only $9.39 for 2.5 gallons. Every other big box store (Target, Walmart, O’Reilly’s, etc.) carries this...
costcofan.com
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Whatever I can get from a pump. I hate plastic bottles.
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