April 17 - 18, 2025
About an hour into our travel day from Youngstown to Niagara Falls, Harold tells me that he's going to stop at the next exit to troubleshoot the check engine light that had just popped up - emissions malfunction. He calls Spartan Motors and the technician guides him through the diagnostics to determine the underlying code.
The underlying code indicates that we will need to find the nearest Cummins Service Center. Diesel exhaust issues can cause engine derating issues. Essentially that means that in order to protect the engine, your speed can be reduced to 5 mph. Yikes! Now you're talking about a big rig tow.
The nearest service center happens to be back in Youngstown. So, we turn around and head back to Youngstown. At the facility, Cummins uses their software to offer an immediate assessment. Immediate assessment doesn't necessarily translate into immediate service. It just lets you know what the issue is and allows you to work with the service advisor on a plan of action.
Thankfully in our case, they were having a slow day, and we were able to start service immediately following lunch. Yeah! Still troubleshooting at the end of the day, we overnighted in their parking lot. We called to the campground to let them know that we'd be a day late. Thankfully, they chose not to charge us for the night.
Eventually, it was determined that our onboard software needed to be updated. The code that was giving us the issue had been fixed in one of the interim updates. Cummins still went through testing procedures to make sure the emissions system was functioning properly, and that there were no real underlying issues. We're glad it was just a software issue. However, we wish we had known about the software updates so we could have addressed them on our time without having to change plans.
 |
| Orange lamps |
 |
| Glad that means something to someone |
 |
| Handy little assessment gadget |
No comments:
Post a Comment