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DEF Excessive Usage

I mentioned it seemed to be 0% full all the time and using a lot of DEF. I documented the DEF fault in another post and then stumbled on this topic. Crawled under the truck and guess what..... Never heard anything about it until this thread. Score one for the forum! My thinking is it is overly consuming DEF to ensure its clean to make the tree huggers happy and allow the trucks to be sold. Will be interesting if/when we get the recall! Posted build date photo as well.

Most recent trip was approximately 1800 miles round trip with 8-9000 lbs behind. I had to add 3.5 gallons of DEF when it was all said and done. A little over 500 miles / gallon
 

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How would I know to ask? No I didn’t sign or receive the letter. Just like them leaving off cross traffic monitor option because they didn’t have part. Truck was 5 plus months after order date and promised in 10 to 14 weeks. That I kind of expected. But a DEF hog I didn’t. Cost is not the issue just a pain with 5 gal tank.
 
MegaStro said:
I mentioned it seemed to be 0% full all the time and using a lot of DEF. I documented the DEF fault in another post and then stumbled on this topic. Crawled under the truck and guess what..... Never heard anything about it until this thread. Score one for the forum! My thinking is it is overly consuming DEF to ensure its clean to make the tree huggers happy and allow the trucks to be sold. Will be interesting if/when we get the recall! Posted build date photo as well.

Most recent trip was approximately 1800 miles round trip with 8-9000 lbs behind. I had to add 3.5 gallons of DEF when it was all said and done. A little over 500 miles / gallon
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500MPG towing?

LOL, that's one for the record books. Count yourself blessed.

I get 350MPG towing 16K, 500MPG empty.
 
DEF sold at the pump at 90% of all major brand truck stops . Usually cheaper . Get a Fuel card on line and you can save a decent amount of money when used at their listed truck stops .
 
I think the missing sensor is for the DPF (Diesel Particulate filter sensor) and not the DEF portion of the system
 
PRS said:
Just did a 1500 mile trip in western Colorado and northeast Utah pulling an 18k 5th wheel. Mixture of high passes and normal Colorado terrain. Averaged 2.5% DEF to fuel use. We are post HPFP recall.
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I just drove from Denver to Hurricane UT and back via i-70 about 1350 miles round trip about 150 gallons of diesel and used 5 gal. of def. seem excessive that is about 3.3% if I am getting 9 miles to the gallon of diesel. I was doing 75-85 MHP most of the way. Pulling about 7,000 lb. load on duel axle. I have a 2020 HO 3500. Ran Good, but thats a lot of def. My friend with a new 22 ford f250 used 2.5 gal. of def. For my Dodge, that's about $2,200 in def over every 100K miles.
 
tsanfilippo said:
I just drove from Denver to Hurricane UT and back via i-70 about 1350 miles round trip about 150 gallons of diesel and used 5 gal. of def. seem excessive that is about 3.3% if I am getting 9 miles to the gallon of diesel. I was doing 75-85 MHP most of the way. Pulling about 7,000 lb. load on duel axle. I have a 2020 HO 3500. Ran Good, but thats a lot of def. My friend with a new 22 ford f250 used 2.5 gal. of def. For my Dodge, that's about $2,200 in def over every 100K miles.
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Are you filling your DEF tank at a pump? Or just going off the gauge and boxes? Only real way to get definitive usage is filling at a pump.

~270 mpg DEF is on the low side, but the harder the engine works the less EGR is uses and the more DEF it consumes. ~80mph towing a trailer means low mpg for diesel and DEF. 3.3% doesn’t seem too excessive for the conditions you mentioned, and as others have said it beats using EGR. The savings is in the oil and motor intake cleanliness.
 
Nick said:
Ask your Ford friend what the oil change intervals are . 7500 hundred which is half of what a Cummins is . More EGR = more oil changes . Personally dumping DEF in the tank seems the cheaper option .
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Nick, interesting and I will ask my ford friend, But are you saying your oil change interval towing is 15,000 miles? I was planning on an oil change interval of 7K regarless of what the computer says, just because even 7000 sounds like a lot of miles (my last Ram 2005 2500 I did every 5K) and my last oil change was 8/23/21 only 6K miles since then. Just looked at the computer says oil is 60%.
 
tsanfilippo said:
Nick, interesting and I will ask my ford friend, But are you saying your oil change interval towing is 15,000 miles? I was planning on an oil change interval of 7K regarless of what the computer says, just because even 7000 sounds like a lot of miles (my last Ram 2005 2500 I did every 5K) and my last oil change was 8/23/21 only 6K miles since then. Just looked at the computer says oil is 60%.
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12 months or 15K miles, whichever happens first. It looks like you’re due for an oil change, especially under warranty. After warranty you can likely go over 12 months with UOA and top tier synthetics. The Cummins is easy on oil. Unless you hit a time interval 5K miles was excessive on your 05.

This is from the 22 Ford manual.

A360BB68-55B5-4050-8185-E234970C69AE.jpeg
 
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tsanfilippo said:
Nick, interesting and I will ask my ford friend, But are you saying your oil change interval towing is 15,000 miles? I was planning on an oil change interval of 7K regarless of what the computer says, just because even 7000 sounds like a lot of miles (my last Ram 2005 2500 I did every 5K) and my last oil change was 8/23/21 only 6K miles since then. Just looked at the computer says oil is 60%.
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This early oil change stuff wont hurt but you are not doing anything other than spending more money i would stick with the 15k miles or 12 months as per the manual
 
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