Warranty & Fuel Filters

[dcalex]

I was at the dealer today looking at trucks and asking more questions. As they started to try to sell me a truck, I said I will not buy a truck if the service manager has warranty heartburn about putting 265's on it, and I would not buy a dmax if he had heartburn over an aftermarket fuel filter system. The sales guy disappeared for a while and when he came back he said no problem with the 265's, but the service mngr wasn't excited at all about the fuel filtration. Maybe you can help me here.....why in the world would a service mngr NOT want more filtration? I even told him I'd talk to him about it before I bought one......I said I'd even let him install it or inspect my install. I'm just beginning to research filtration, but saw one at 2 microns and 90gph rate. I would think he'd be jumping up & down to have people install something like that. Am I missing something that I need more education on?

[jbplock]

Dcalex,

I would ask to talk to their Duramax Tech. This could give you a feel for how much experience they have with the Duramax… If you don’t get good vibes look for another dealer… Looking back I wish I had done this before buying my Duramax.. After I bought my truck and installed a Mega filter I asked the service writer about added fuel filtration .. He told me it would void the warranty.. He also said they don't have problems with Duramax injectors... My conclusion was either they don't sell many Duramax trucks or he was being less than truthful... Needless to say I don't deal with them anymore... Good luck! smile.gif

[Kennedy]

If you go to a 3500 SRW, you get 265's from new.

If he bucks about added filtration, he obviously knows little about diesel...

[royalglen]

When i took my 03 in for bad injectors dealer said fuel filter was plugged. tryed to sell me $700 add on filter.the purchase price of the truck flashed across my mind.If they can`t filter them they sould`nt sell them.by the way i cut filter they said was plugged and was not.I could`nt tell which side of paper filter was filtered.Laying blame on filtering covers a multitude of bad injector sins.I should say i realy like the truck-but-dealer attitude?????

[Jim Brzozowski]

dcalex, I agree with you, I also would think the service manager would jump at the opportunity for more filtration. Could it be he or she might not get to see you as often if you have better filtration than OE offers? The service writer gets to write more service if you have more problems, right? I think enough people have encountered the extra filtration and warranty thing and won, that the dealer would have to go with the flow and not void a warranty repair that you didn't cause by adding more filtration. A properly designed, installed ,and serviced secondary filtration system could, in no way that I can think of, cause a problem. One can't have fuel that is too clean. I've talked to a lot of folks that have oversize tires that have no problems, of course a lot can depend on what your tires encounter along the way. These are some pretty awsome trucks compared to some of the older trucks. As long as mine does what I ask it to do when and how I want it to, that's all the truck I need. Good Luck shopping.

[dcalex]

Thanks for the posts guys. I'm a bit in a quandry over this. The dealership is one of the biggest ones around....good reputation....been here forever, etc. Big place....body shop and all. They have as many Dmax's as anyplace I've seen.....I'd guess a dozen or so on the lot at any one time. So I know they know Dmax's. I try to see it from their perspective, and can to a degree. So many guys putting really radical modifications on the trucks now-a-days have them gun-shy I guess. But I just cannot look at those little tires & wheels on a HD truck. You can talk all day about engineering and I'll agree with you, because your right....but then I see those little things and shake my head. Especially when it's sitting next to a little 1/2 ton that has stock 265's on 17" wheels. Yeah, they might be only load range D or maybe even C....didn't look, but at least they looked like they belonged there. Shoot, I'm no teenager.....I'm 60 years old. I'm not looking for a "ride". I just want it to look like what it is....a truck. Anyway.....'nough said.
I'll be going in next week and see if I can get further with the service folks re: the filtering....if I can't I'll probably just do it anyway and fight them later about it if I need to. It's a sad time, when something so simple as this can actually effect what you buy, if you buy, a who you buy it from. I really don't like to be held hostage over a warranty that I'm paying for....or I should say, we owners are collectively paying for.

Thanks again for the advice and allowing me to vent my little frustration here. :eek:

Yeah.....I shure do love those trucks.....warts and all.

[Kennedy]

Originally posted by royalglen:
When i took my 03 in for bad injectors dealer said fuel filter was plugged. tryed to sell me $700 add on filter.the purchase price of the truck flashed across my mind.If they can`t filter them they sould`nt sell them.by the way i cut filter they said was plugged and was not.I could`nt tell which side of paper filter was filtered.Laying blame on filtering covers a multitude of bad injector sins.I should say i realy like the truck-but-dealer attitude????? I have a nifty little gauge to help diagnose filter condition:

http://www.kennedydiesel.com/images/Dmax-fuel-filter-rest.gif


The image to the right shows my LB7 at idle with OEM single pleat filter and synthetic Super-Mega element installed registering just over 2.5"hg. The lift pumps are idle and fuel is being drawn through them. My LLY with the dual pleat element actually reads more restriction by about .5" hg netting a solid 3"hg last I checked.

The image to the left shows the psi of the lift pumps running at idle.

[dcalex]

Kennedy:

Last night I went to your web-site and was looking at your filtering and the pic's you posted above....I'm not versed in all this so I don't know what it all means. I assume it's good smile.gif ...but, like I said, it's all Greek to me. The graphs on your site lost me too. Any chance you can give us dummies a short lesson on filter systems 101? I suspect a lot of us are no more knowledgeable than I am. :confused:

[Kennedy]

Someone (jbplock?) has a description odf waht ISO levels represent etc.

First it should be known that "field" sampling can be very difficult. While these tests realy should be done in a lab, we have had excellent success in the field which in reality is where our trucks are operated. The important thing is to remain consistent, in testing. Example is, if one were to sample the fuel from the pump at the time of filling, then drive the truck using much of the fuel present the results would then be skewed to the positive side as much of the fuel is multipass filtered due to the constant flow/return design of the system....


From my site:

The Results:



Below are particle count samples showing the size and number of particles found in the fuel at the various test locations. For the after filter tests, I used the Fuel Filter Restriction Gauge which connects to a post filter sampling port on the engine. I basically removed the gauge head from the line and used the hand pump to push fuel out through the hose. Care was taken to flush the hose AND I triple rinsed the sample bottles. This test represents worst case scenario as I drove immediately to the shop after fueling truck. This means the fuel has only passed through the filtration once. During the course of operation, the fuel will recirculate and get progressively cleaner as you drive!.