Optima boss says the system is flawed in concept and design, insisting it is expensive, unreliable and ineffective
By Rob McKay | November 15, 2012
A New Zealand-based retailer of AdBlue suppression devices has defended his firm’s sale of them and attacked the technology that vehicle makers use to tackle nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.
Jack Dieleman, of Optima Transport Solutions and Bay Oil Supplies and Services of Rotarua, insists that the flawed nature of the concept and design of such urea-based systems, along with and the cost of running them, have led to a growing demand from heavy-vehicle-users for the devices.
“I am quite passionate about what I do, and I really do believe that AdBlue is one of those [politically correct] things to pacify lawmakers, and give engineers a job – it should never have been implemented at all,” Dieleman ATN.
“AdBlue reduces the amount of NOx a truck puts in the atmosphere, but at what cost?
“The truck is complicated without need, parts are seriously expensive, people and technicians don’t understand it and can’t diagnose faults properly.
“The added cost of extra equipment on the truck to measure and store and inject ad blue, the cost of downtime and failed parts and cost in pollution to produce and deliver ad blue must outweigh the partial benefit it may produce.
And to add insult to injury, ad blue only partially reduces the amount of NOx that comes out of the exhaust. Would you let your plumber fix 40 percent of a leak? No.
“At least a good diesel particulate filter (DPF) removes 99 percent of the particulates and lasts a good 5 or 10 years before it needs any maintenance.
“And they are serviceable. AdBlue components are not serviceable, astronomically expensive and fragile, and worse, technicians cannot diagnose the systems properly either.”
Dieleman, whose firm, Optima, sells the devices in Australia,
thinks that the Truck Industry Council (TIC) campaign against them is misguided.
“I merely fill a need, I have fixed several buses and trucks that would not run anymore and nobody managed to fix them, despite throwing thousands at them,” he says.
“Also we have seen several fleets with AdBlue handling issues, drivers hate it.”
He adds that, to have “real acceptance, parts would need to be reasonably priced and reliable as well and technicians would need to know what they do to diagnose and fix systems”.
Optima has come to some prominence through advertising the devices openly and Dielemann feels his firm receives opprobrium because of that.
“The fact that I actually advertise has made my product an easy target, although it does the least damage,” he says.
“We do not affect the working of the Oxycat or DPF, because those two bits do the hard work.
“I would not dream of trying to interfere with a diesel particulate filter, because they get the real crap out of the air, and contrary to ad blue, a DPF does not really affect performance or carry huge on-going costs.”
He believes there are plenty of other more unscrupulous concerns working under the radar who are involved in more alarming operations than Optima is.
“Some simple questions by a savvy truck operator or mechanic would find 10 or 12 people in Australia already involved with deleting AdBlue,” he says.
“In fact these guys do worse, they are into deleting DPF and Oxycats while at the same time rewriting the fuel map of trucks to increase power and torque.
“Engine remapping, common and shady because it completely changes the engine from what the [original equipment maker] intended it to be.
“I know some guys who even sent engine control modules overseas to have them reprogrammed to high horsepower and returned.”