Prison time, probation and other criminal penalties appear to be off the table for the many truck owners who've had "delete" work done.
That doesn't mean, however, that those owners are running fully "legal" in the eyes of the federal government. Significantly, DOJ also noted that working with Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Act enforcers where appropriate, it would "still pursue civil enforcement for these violations," as reported.
Generally speaking, that means fines. Fines that could cripple a small business's prospects.
A criminal case against a small fleet owner that was brought during the Biden administration concluded during the early days of this Trump term, and included probation for the fleet owner and more than $100K in fines for "deleting" 13 different pieces of powered equipment over some years, or roughly $8K per truck.
It was one of a relative few criminal cases that didn't include a shop with a history of offering deletes to a multitude of customers -- some of those also hit fleet/truck owners in the process. Overdrive's aware of very few civil enforcement efforts brought by EPA against truck owners like fleets and owner-operators. Like safety-compliance audits conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and state partners, civil penalties levied by emissions enforcers at EPA it seems hide in the background of day-to-day news.
With the generally much-less-gung-ho attitude of the Trump administration's EPA around environmentally-focused equipment regulation, owner-operators and fleets might expect that hidden nature of any such enforcement to only get more so.
For two past "deleters" among truck owners Overdrive talked to in the aftermath of last week's DOJ announcement, the assurance of no criminal pursuit for emissions tampering didn't fundamentally change much about their approach to their power units.
Neither would agree to have their names and other identifying details published in this story.
[Related: DOJ dropping charges, cases against diesel 'deleters,' emissions device defeaters]
Mitigating 'insane' cost, improving performance: Why two owners deleted
The first owner-operator currently hauls in a truck with a post-2020 emissions spec that hasn't in fact been tampered with in any way at all.
With the unit still under factory warranty, he said, he's running it with the factory spec in place, well knowing what making a change could do to the ability to take advantage of the warranty.
His last power unit, though, he still owns. Its engine featured an early exhaust-gas-recirculation (EGR) emissions spec, pre-2007, before diesel particulate filters (DPFs) and diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) came into play. After the warranty ended on that truck and its engine, he had the EGR bypassed via a modification of the engine's computer, with only a slight mechanical adjustment on the boost side of the turbo, the work performed by an independent mechanic he relied on in his area.
He then ran the truck that way for upward of 10 years, he said, offering up his reasoning for disregarding regulatory prohibitions on tampering. "It made the old truck run a lot better," he said, calling the before and after veritable "night and day with the difference in the power and everything."
Fuel mileage, too, was a "little better after the delete," he added. "The performance was the thing you could really tell."
He got a reminder of it some years following the delete when a turbo went out and he had the truck towed into an engine shop that was part of the manufacturer's official network. He didn't tell the shop about the delete, but techs quickly discovered it.
"We either put it back to factory or we can't work on it," they told him, a significant drawback of emissions modifications that violate EPA regs.
He told them to go for it, and he experienced the performance drop-off pulling the next load back toward his home base and his go-to mechanic. "It was a dog," he said. "I couldn’t believe how far the power and performance were down."
The second owner-operator runs a unit with an emissions spec ranked the second-most-unreliable by owner-operators, according to Overdrive research -- the 2015-'19 spec, originally equipped with a DPF and reliant on DEF in the selective catalytic reduction system (SCR) for NOx emissions. He knows well the maintenance drawback the first owner identified trying to replace his turbo at an engine dealer, and notes it's not confined just to dealers.
Among the biggest drawbacks "of deleting the truck," he said, "is all dealerships and some independent shops, too, will not work on a truck that's been deleted."
If you're over-the-road and have a problem you can't readily fix yourself, you're limited in the "amount of shops you can take it to to get work done," he said. In his mind, though, any really "serious drivability issue or major engine problem on the road" he'd solve by putting the rig on a lowboy and bringing it back to his trusted shop anyway.
Other, minor issues he can usually handle.
[Related: 'Not gonna be a guinea pig': Owner-operators wary of maintenance unknowns with EPA 2027 emissions]
Dealer reticence to work on deleted equipment is understandable, given heightened enforcement attention to shops performing deletes over the long term, likewise the fact that manufacturers designed their equipment with emissions controls for a reason. They were required to under regulations governing new diesel equipment over the last two decades.
DOJ's recent reversal on criminal enforcement pursuit for tampering isn't likely to change those shops' behavior at all, given civil enforcement remains a threat.
The second owner bought his power unit used, and his early experience with the emissions system underscores the reason the emissions delete has become as prominent as it has among truck owners around the nation.
The unit was in the shop far too often for one problem or another, and "the downtime will kill" you as a small business owner, he said. He's owned other trucks, though had only experienced emissions in a company truck he drove for roughly a year and a half. He put just 80,000 miles on the unit over that time, and "it had half a dozen emissions problems," with plenty trips in and out of the fleet's shop.
When he bought his current truck, he initially decided he was "going to do it right," he said. "Not idling the truck, clean the filter. I used a fuel additive to run it cleaner."
[Related: Fuel treatments increasingly part of owner-ops' PM routine]
The SCR system turned out to be more than he was willing to handle. "It was so damn sensitive," he said, and he experienced more than one financial hit after this or that check-engine light for a DEF-related code. "It could be something as as simple as air bubbles in the DEF" after fill-up, he added, yet "I can’t clear the code. I have to go to a dealer to do the diagnostic and spend the money."
Three months in, a sensor failure in the system in the middle of Oklahoma, far from home, put him in a fast derate situation. "It starts shutting the truck down," he said, an issue EPA regulators have attempted to address by enabling a more relaxed approach to derate timing for manufacturers and shops.
The situation meant more shop time for the owner, more downtime, lost revenue.
About a year in, another sensor failure and the same outcome.
Via this link, download Overdrive's 2024 survey report charting the cost and reliability premium delivered to owner-operators by successive generations of diesel engine emissions specs.
The work was more complicated than the first owner's delete, of course. He had the DPF removed but left its canister and other system components in place as insurance against the prying eyes of anyone who might know what they were looking at and have the wherewithal to hold him to account for it.
He rests a little easier knowing DOJ won't pursue criminal charges against him and other similarly situated owners. He feels the shift makes it somewhat more likely roadside safety inspectors won't be marshaled for federal air-quality regs enforcement (at least under this administration) in states where such enforcement isn't happening at the scales today.
"I still won't go to California," he said, where state police have been shown to collaborate with the California Air Resources Board's enforcers of more stringent state regs, to an extent. He says the same about some states in the Northeast, too.
He's leased to a larger motor carrier today, and as far as that carrier knows his unit simply isn't California-compliant, so his access to loads on lanes that go into the state is cut off. It's a small price to pay for what he sees as simple "insane" costs and downtime associated with emissions failures and repairs.
"The big takeaway is it’s just a big deal for a small one-truck operation," he said of his pre-delete experience with the truck, particularly with respect to the downtime.
As for the first owner, he's taking it steady as she goes with his fully emissions-compliant post-2020 unit, certainly through the warranty period, still in force. Afterward, he noted, he'll rely on the advice of diesel engine specialists who increasingly note that the latest generation of diesel power certainly can be relied on long-term without deleting the emission controls -- in a way early generations couldn't.
"They can run right if they’re tuned right," he said, "without being deleted. I'm not considering any kind of delete on it."
[Related: Aftertreatment demons: Keep your emissions system clean to prolong life]
Much of the conversation around misdiagnosis of emissions issues featured in the 2021 Q&A below remains relevant today. Find more reporting from it at this link.
