I know this post has a rather long title but I wanted to attract International DT MaxxForce diesel engine users. This rebuild took a few weeks to complete due to waiting for parts and sending out components for repair and testing. The bill came out big in the end over 10,000 dollars. This is not including our labor which is one fifth the cost of your average truck shop.
I talked a lot about what we did to repair this engine and it was all absolutely necessary. The bottom end had to be checked out including main bearings and camshaft mainly because antifreeze mixed in the engine oil does not lubricate well. The coolant gets in to the engine oil because of a faulty EGR cooler. The coolant and exhaust gases are supposed to be separate from each other. (The EGR cooler reduces temperature in the exhaust flowing into the combustion chamber via the EGR valve and cuts down on emissions).
When the cooler fails the coolant gets into the lubrication system. Our fleet has been using oil samples for years now and well worth the investment. Our bulk oil supplier offered this service for nothing and looking at the cost of synthetic and semi synthetic oil I can see why they can afford to throw that in for nothing. One full load of synthetic automatic transmission oil is close to 10,000 dollars.
With oil samples coming directly to my email I can keep a close eye on the coolant in the oil issue. Parts are priced through the roof these days especially for emissions. The EGR cooler in the video cost us 2100 dollars before taxes. So there is no cost comparison to a total rebuild of a diesel engine (over 10K) and being proactive with oil samples and getting on top of the problem before it escalates.
Experience will guide me to a tighter preventive maintenance plan in these areas because of the possible epidemic that could develop with break downs and repairs if not take seriously. If one unit in our fleet cost this much to rebuild the diesel engine just imagine if we had the same problem with numerous other units. This job is our fourth engine rebuild and hopefully the last. We got blindsided relying on the 5 year warranty to cover these issues but a few of them were lurking in the back ground hitting us hard with major failures. One of these rebuilds was covered under warranty the others unfortunately were over the warranty period.
I hope this article helps anyone reading this who owns a truck or bus with a Maxxforce diesel engine. If you run short routes this may not happen to you but still make sure if you’re losing coolant to follow up very closely and make certain the leak is not internal.
