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The Heavy Duty Parts Report
Each week Jamie Irvine and his guests have conversations that empower heavy-duty people. They discuss tips, tools, and technology that help heavy-duty parts manufacturers and distributors sell the right parts to fleets, repair shops, and truck operators.
The Heavy Duty Parts Report
DPF Cleaning Do’s and Don’ts
Episode 342: We are happy to have captured this discussion with the now-retired Wayne Cochrane, past National Sales Manager of Redline Emissions Products. With many older ones retiring and leaving the industry, making sure we can still benefit from their years of experience is very important.
Have you ever wondered how to know if a DPF filter is genuinely clean? What should you be doing after getting your filter back from the cleaners? Wayne explains the dangers of running a poorly cleaned filter and how you can make sure that it’s done right. Keeping a clean filter isn’t just about environmental standards, it also saves in cost and performance.
Show Notes: Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com for complete show notes of this episode and to subscribe to all our content.
Sponsors of this Episode
Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation: Find out how many “fault codes” your heavy-duty parts business has. Meet with us today. Visit HeavyDutyConsulting.com
Hengst Filtration: There's a new premium filter option for fleets. If you're responsible for a fleet, you won't believe how much using Hengst filters will save you. But you've got to go to HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/Hengst to find out how much.
Diesel Laptops: Diesel Laptops is so much more than just a provider of diagnostic tools. They’re your shop efficiency solution company. Learn more about everything Diesel Laptops can do for you today by visiting DieselLaptops.com today.
HDA Truck Pride: They’re the heart of the independent parts and service channel. They have 750 parts stores and 450 service centers conveniently located across the US and Canada. Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/HDATruckPride today to find a location near you.
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You're listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, jamie Irvin, and this is the place where we have conversations that empower heavy-duty people. Welcome to another episode of the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. In this episode, we are going to talk about legacy and capturing that tribal knowledge that people who have worked for us for 30, 40, or 50 years are taking with them when they retire. How do we capture that? How do we make sure that we don't lose that knowledge so that the next generation can benefit from it? We're also going to talk about the do's and don'ts of DPF cleaning. It's going to be a great episode. Let's get into it.
Jamie Irvine:One of the things that I set as an objective when I started the Heavy Duty Parts Report was to capture knowledge from people who had 30, 40, and 50 years of experience in the heavy duty parts industry. I recognize that we are faced with an unprecedented problem. There are more older ones in our industry than there are young ones. Normally it's the other way around, but the reality is that we are moving into a time in human history where we are going to experience demographic inversion globally, and this is where, over time, because there are more older people than younger people, our demographics are actually in decline. That's what the inversion means, and what that means for us in the heavy-duty parts industry is simply that there are more people with lots of experience leaving than there are new ones coming in, and we can't train them fast enough. So if you're in a company and you've got some of these people, what could you do to ensure that you capture some of that knowledge? Well, if these older ones with so much experience are willing to take on a more mentorship role with your young people in your company, that is an excellent first step. Here's the problem with that first step. That is an excellent first step. Here's the problem with that first step Once the retired people are gone, you've lost the opportunity to capture their knowledge. So the people that they mentor and train benefit, but they don't always stay with your company and we have seen a trend with younger people. They tend to move from company to company more often than people did a generation ago. So just mentoring, just training in the moment, although it's a good first step, really has the downside that once those people are gone, you've lost the opportunity. This is where video comes in. Capturing those mentoring and training sessions via video ensures that you are able to retain that training and that industry and tribal knowledge that has been built up over decades, and so I highly encourage you, if you are a leader at a heavy-duty parts company, to start thinking about how you might compensate your older employees with all of those years of experience to participate in a training program where their knowledge is captured on video, thereby preserving it for generations to come. So it's something to think about Now. As I mentioned when I started the Heavy Duty Parts Report, I recognized that I had a unique opportunity to do that, and in our interview for this episode, what you're going to see is you're going to see somebody with 40 years of experience in the diesel industry and over 15 years of experience or more in DPFs sharing their wisdom and knowledge. Now this individual has since retired they are no longer working in our industry, but because we have this interview from our archives, we're able to share it with you and we are able to share it in the future, and this wisdom and knowledge that was gained from 40 years of experience hasn't been lost. So I really hope you enjoy this week's interview. We are going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and when we get back. We're going to share this interview where we talk about the do's and don'ts of DPF cleaning from an industry vet that has since retired and yet we do not lose his knowledge and wisdom because we captured it on video. We'll be right back.
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Jamie Irvine:We're back from the break. Before the break, we were talking about the importance of capturing the knowledge and wisdom of those that have worked in our industry for decades. Wayne Cochran from Redline Emissions Products is one such example where, because we've captured this interview on video, we can share it with you again, despite the fact that Wayne has retired. Now Wayne may have retired from his position and we hope he is enjoying his retirement, but the company that he works for is still operating. They still offer these great products and services and you should definitely think about doing business with them. Steve Hoke is their president. He is a longtime client of the Heavy-Duty Consulting Corporation and we want to make sure that you know that his company is alive and well and doing great, despite the fact that Wayne has retired. All right, listen in to our interview with Wayne Cochran, national Sales Manager, now retired from Redline Emissions Products.
Jamie Irvine:Today we're going to talk about a subject that gives a lot of owner-operators and fleets heartburn, because it is an issue that keeps coming up. It's an area of maintenance and repair that has grown exponentially in cost over the last 15 years. If you just from that little bit of a tidbit, maybe you're already realizing I'm talking about diesel emission systems. Our guest today is a returning guest. Wayne Cochran is the National Sales Manager of Redline Emissions Products.
Jamie Irvine:They also manufacture and sell the FilterTherm brand of DPF cleaning equipment and he's got some deep expertise and some insights into specific problems that he's seeing. Some deep expertise and some insights into specific problems that he's seeing in the market. We're going to address one of them today and we're going to talk about the solution in terms of what fleets can do. And then, if you're in the parts business or if you're in the parts and service business and you want to get involved in providing this solution to your customers, we're going to talk about how you can do that. I will mention that unfortunately the neighbors are away at Wayne's house and the dog is barking, so you may hear a dog in the background. We like dogs at the Heavy-Duty Parts Report so we won't hold that against their neighbors too much. Wayne, welcome back to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here again.
Wayne Cochrane:Thanks, Jamie. Always good to see you. Glad you didn't blame my dog in all of that barking. But yeah, such is life.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, as a new dog owner, wayne, I know how they become very quickly parts of the family, and I know there's listeners right now driving down the highway in their semi-trucks with their best friend sitting on the seat beside them All right, well, the subject today is DPF filters and the cleaning of DPF filters, but we're going to talk specifically about one thing that you're seeing in the market. So I saw a social media post you did recently. It was very well received. A lot of people talked about it. You showed a couple of pictures of a quote unquote clean DPF filter. Tell us a little bit more about that situation. What was going on there and what's the root problem?
Wayne Cochrane:I was speaking to a gentleman that was interested in purchasing some of our filter therm DPF cleaning equipment and through conversation I just asked, are you on volume? And he had indicated that he's currently having this filter cleaned by an outside source, and I just casually asked who that might be and he gave me a name. Out of curiosity, I visited their website and I was shocked that they had photos of before and after, and the after photos had what appears to be black spaghetti poking out of the holes. Now, if you're not familiar with DPF cleaning, you may not realize what those actually are. It's actually unregenerated soot that is still in the cell walls.
Wayne Cochrane:To us, that's definitely not a clean filter. It's one that needs to be baked at least one more time. But again, this was someone who was professionally cleaning DPFs and showing that as a clean filter. My concern is how many other shops are out there without the experience to understand what a clean DPF looks like and how many fleets receive DPFs back without really checking? Was it Ronald Reagan that always said trust but verify? There are steps that you can take when a filter comes back from a cleaner to verify that it is truly clean and not one that needs to be sent through the process again.
Jamie Irvine:Well, I think the situation with the diesel emission system really in general for many years is it's been a bit of a wild wild west, right Like it's just. There are so many conflicting ideas out there about what constitutes a good cleaning program. You know what methods you should use, what is a clean filter, what isn't, and I think to your point. I see a lot of those misconceptions are really just an issue of not having access to good quality information. So, first of all, let's give people that good quality information. Wayne, if you don't have a clean filter, if you have that unregenerated soot coming through like spaghetti after a cleaning has been done and you install that back in your vehicle, what's the impact, what's the big deal with that?
Wayne Cochrane:You're not going to get any reliable service life out of that filter before it needs to be pulled again and cleaned. And if you go back through your records and say, well, the filter's been cleaned, I've put it on, driven a month, it's plugged again. Do I have engine issues? Do I have a bad DOC? It causes all sorts of questions to be raised when it really the root cause is the original filter was not cleaned properly. So then you know, you're digging into your engine, et cetera, et cetera, trying to figure out what might be wrong, when really it's just the service provided was not correct.
Jamie Irvine:Well, and the minute that you're doing exploratory diagnostics, all I'm hearing is cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. As that dollar goes up and up right At downtime, you have to pay the mechanic to do it. I mean, that's just unnecessary cost. What kind of performance issues do vehicles encounter when they have filters that are beginning to be plugged or plugging prematurely because they weren't cleaned correctly?
Wayne Cochrane:Well, first of all, the engine's going to start regenerating or ask for manual regenerations more frequently. You're going to get performance issues. High back pressure can cause turbo problems, egr problems, all sorts of issues. So you know, having a clean filter on your vehicle is pretty important.
Jamie Irvine:When I hear all of that, I just think of like you had a situation where really, at the end of the day, you just had a filter that wasn't cleaned properly and if it's left unaddressed and you keep using that service, I hear that that leads to actual problems with all these other systems. And we know and you've been on the show before you've talked about the absolute necessity to identify upstream issues. So you're just opening yourself up to a whole bunch of trouble, exactly Okay. So if this person who owns the truck and is getting their DPF cleaned, what intelligent questions should they be asking of their DPF cleaner to kind of gauge whether or not this person knows what they're doing?
Wayne Cochrane:Look for documentation. Many of the DPF equipment manufacturers, such as FilterTherm, have software packages that allow you to track DPF cleanings and report on what you're seeing when the DPF comes through the door. For example, most people will do either a flow test of the filter or a weight test of the filter before it's cleaned and then again after it's cleaned. And then we do a pin test where you take a 005 welding rod TIG rod and insert it down several of the channels of the filter just to check on the depth. But you weigh the filter before the cleaning and flow test it and then you do the same process at the end of the cleaning. You should see a notable increase in flow and obviously a decrease in weight. Most weights are done in grams because the ash is a very light material and the difference is not that great in the number of grams reduced.
Jamie Irvine:So when it comes to the you said the weight and or flow, should a shop really be doing both? Like is there an advantage doing both?
Wayne Cochrane:Yeah, there is, because sometimes we'll clean a filter and we'll see an increase in flow but no change in weight. And we realize at that point, with pin testing et cetera, that there may be soot like those spaghetti rods that's allowing the flow to get around the filter, but there's still restriction in the filter. Okay, makes sense.
Jamie Irvine:So when it comes to somebody that has a number of vehicles, let's say they have a fleet. It doesn't have to be a mega fleet. How many units before? Maybe they should start thinking about doing their own DPF cleaning themselves.
Wayne Cochrane:You know it varies. I've had school fleets with 12 buses that have been interested in cleaning their own DPFs, just to be able to get their arms around the process and make sure that the vehicles are serviced when needed and they're not waiting in line behind a bunch of other people, and also to have control over the process. Maybe they've been bitten in the past by people that are in the cleaning business but don't really understand what a clean filter looks like.
Jamie Irvine:Right, was that a bit of a Freudian slip bitten in the past, with that dog barking in the back?
Wayne Cochrane:Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.
Jamie Irvine:Wayne, let me ask you something. If somebody wants to explore whether or not doing their own DPF cleaning is a viable economic option for them, tell me about what's on FilterThermcom. That will enable them to really quickly get an understanding not only of what type of cleaning machine and package they should look at, but how they could discern whether or not it makes sense economically.
Wayne Cochrane:Yeah, FilterThermcom is chock full of information. Filterthermcom, I should say, is chock full of information. One of the better tools we have is our ROI or return on investment tool. It allows you to play with numbers how many filters in a week you may figure you're going to be cleaning, what type of savings you will have from cleaning from outside sources. Average across the country is somewhere between 250 and 350 dollars per cleaning and then the equipment cost you. Pour those numbers into the calculator and it will spit out how quickly you can pay for the equipment, and most people are very pleasantly surprised at how quick that number will pay for itself.
Jamie Irvine:Right. So if you're in the situation where you manage a lot of fleets and you want to take a look at this, head over to FilterThermcom Links are in the show notes. Check out that ROI calculator. We'll also put a link directly to that calculator so you can take a look at that. Wayne, you did a great job of talking about the issue of whether or not the DPF is actually clean, what to look for, what we should be asking our DPF cleaners before we just accept that product back. We also talked about what it takes to really, you know, from an economic perspective, would it be wise to invest in DPF cleaning equipment yourself? Now we're going to talk to the parts house, the distributor who wants to sell diesel emission system after treatment parts, but they also want to maybe offer DPF cleaning as a service. So let's talk about that. When you get into the business of selling after treatment and getting involved in DPF cleaning, how important is it to have a product that's packaged well. That also is a product that is manufactured here in the USA.
Wayne Cochrane:Well, we saw through COVID what the implications are of relying on offshore sources. We were able to maintain our inventory levels and service our customers all throughout COVID. So we felt we were very fortunate. But perhaps in hindsight we were just smart with building the US Packaging. That's an odd question. Most people sort of scratch their head, but we feel packaging is very important. Many of our competitors will sell you gaskets or clamps and they're thrown into a large box or shrink-wrapped to a piece of cardboard. They get thrown in a parts truck, they get thrown on a shelf, stuff gets put on top of them and they become destroyed or missing. Parts, especially in the clamps, the little T-bolts et cetera, go missing. So at Redline we've experienced all those problems in the past with similar products and we decided that we were going to try to fix that problem by packaging everything possible in a corrugated box that protects the product, make sure that when it gets to the end user it's usable and fully functional for that application.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, so you want to partner with someone who can provide you with a quality product? Sure, but this packaging component is important. Let's talk about the data not only cross-reference information, but also the actual product data that shows up on that packaging.
Wayne Cochrane:Yeah, again, with our packaging we are able to label every single part and we've gone the extra step. Yes, there's a red line emissions products part number, but beyond that we'll put on our label that if it's for a Volvo application, that it's a Volvo application and then the corresponding cross-reference numbers. In this industry there's many, many super sessions and we try to include as many of those as we possibly can. So when you push a part across the counter to your customer he's come in and asked for a Cummins number he sees on that package that the Cummins number appears and that's immediate confirmation that he's received the exact part he's asked for.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, it's excellent for the customer experience If you're on the parts counter. What tool is available to help people with cross-reference information?
Wayne Cochrane:Well, we have gone and spent an awful lot of time and money creating a cross-reference tool on our website. Even our competitors compliment us on the tool because you put in a Cummins number, a competitor's part number, in most cases, and it pops up with the Redline Emissions Products part number. Additionally, it shows corresponding parts. So if you're looking for a DPF part number, you put it into the tool. It comes up with our part number, some of our competitors' part numbers, but it also shows what clamps and gaskets are required for that unit, which is very important. Information, especially on a parts counter, when you're trying to service your customers' needs 100%. Nothing worse than sending someone away with a clamp and having them call back and say, oh, I needed the gasket. This allows you to plus, sell or oversell to your customers.
Jamie Irvine:As my mentor said, Jamie, sell them what they need, not what they ask for.
Wayne Cochrane:Exactly.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, so okay. So, when it comes to wanting to get into the business of providing the cleaning service, what considerations do you sit down and talk with people about when they're considering buying some filter therm equipment? You know how do you walk them through the process of deciding which packages they should buy, whether or not it's something that they should even consider doing. What's the really important information people need to know?
Wayne Cochrane:It's important to know what target audience you want to serve. As I talk to a lot of people that come in and look to buy the newest, greatest thing on the market. It's not always the right fit for what they are doing. For example, you're servicing 100% heavy duty. You're not servicing vehicles inside your shop and time is not of great importance. I mean, overnight service is sufficient. Our thermal package is perfect. If, however, you're trying to service off-road light duty, ag heavy duty, then perhaps the Aquius package is better for you.
Wayne Cochrane:Budget comes into play, and we try to help people understand what options are available as well to best put together a package that fits their needs and fits their budget. The conversation is always important. I've had many people phone me up and say, hey, I want an oven, and I'll say, okay, what are you trying to accomplish? They didn't understand when they were looking at our website that an oven is just not sufficient to start up a cleaning business to actually understand whether the filter can be cleaned and then provide the information before and then after the service.
Jamie Irvine:When you were talking about the importance of really thinking about who is it that you're going to try to serve and who are you going to offer this service to. In our consulting business at the Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation, we work with a lot of different people and they always kind of have this very broad description of who they want to do business with, and so we always tell them we say, don't go a mile wide and an inch deep, go an inch wide and a mile deep. And you know what that advice works every single time.
Wayne Cochrane:Yep.
Jamie Irvine:I agree. I think why that's so important too is because once you really understand your ideal customer, you start to really get a sense of their needs and you can start to build a service that is very difficult for others to replicate. And that's really important because sometimes in the parts game it's really hard to find differentiation.
Wayne Cochrane:Exactly, and if you're in the parts game, cleaning filters is a natural extension to selling more parts. If you clean a filter and you understand the emission systems, you automatically know you clean a filter. Bang. You've sold a set of gaskets. If you're knowledgeable, sold a set of clamps as well. So it's just not the money that you make over the counter by cleaning a filter. It's understanding all the service parts that are required and go along with that that you can sell it make money at.
Jamie Irvine:I'm your host, jamie Irvin, and we've been speaking with Wayne Cochran, national Sales Manager at Redline Emissions Products, and they are also the ones that manufacture and sell the FilterTherm DPF cleaning equipment. We also had Wayne's neighbor's dog join us on the show, barking incessantly through the entire interview. So thank you to all you listeners for their patience and thanks for your contribution. Fido Wayne, thanks so much for being on the show Just one more time. If people want to learn about FilterTherm, where should they go?
Wayne Cochrane:wwwfilterthermcom. Okay, links will be go wwwfilterthermcom.
Jamie Irvine:Okay, Links will be in the show notes for filterthermcom and if people are interested in looking at whether or not they want to sell the Redline Emissions products or they want to get into the DPF cleaning business, they should go to which website.
Wayne Cochrane:For the product line Redline Emissions products. It's repdirect, wwwrepdirect.
Jamie Irvine:Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview with someone who had over 40 years of experience in diesel engines. Wayne, we hope you're enjoying your retirement and we're so glad that we captured that interview with you so we can share it to new people in the industry for the first time. It's now time for our final segment. That's not heavy duty. I wanted to emphasize a point when it really comes to the don'ts of DPF cleaning, and that's pressure washing your DPF. So we're going to roll a clip right now and we're going to see an example of an owner-operator trying to save money by pressure washing a DPF. Roll the clip.
Wayne Cochrane:All we're doing is we're holding that pressure washer.
Jamie Irvine:This pressure washer only got 2,000 pounds, so I'm holding it about six, seven inches away not to get right on the cap, and we're going to go through here and we're going to pressure wash this and we're going to see what happens.
Wayne Cochrane:Will this work? I don't know. We're going to see what happens. Will this work? I don't know. We're going to find out.
Jamie Irvine:If you're listening on the audio version of the podcast, you're not going to be able to see the clip, but I highly recommend you go to the show notes of this episode, click the link and watch the video so you get the visual. But what you see is you see an individual, an owner operator who has a situation where they have a truck that's down. It's not one of their main trucks, but it's a truck that's not earning them any money, and so they're trying to save money by pressure washing the DPF. Now, this is a bad idea for a number of reasons. First of all, he talks about holding the wand, you know, about six inches away from the DPF. But the reality is I used to have a commercial cleaning business that did a lot of pressure washing. I've done hundreds or even thousands of hours of pressure washing myself, and I'm going to tell you something right now it's impossible to keep that wand at exactly the right distance. The chances are you're going to move away, you're going to move a little too close and you can do significant damage to the DPF. Another problem with pressure washing the DPF alone is you're not using any cleaning agent like the surfactant that gets used in a proper professional DPF cleaning machine like the ones sold at FilterTherm, and so you're not getting a full clean. So you may be looking visually to see if all the soot and everything is being washed out the bottom of the DPF, but you don't actually get a proper clean that way. So look, pressure washing a DPF is just a bad idea. You can do damage to the filter which is going to cost you a lot more money than just cleaning it professionally to replace it. You're not getting the proper clean. This can lead to other issues and if you've got a clogged DPF, you also want an understanding of what's going on in the larger system, which a professional DPF cleaning company can offer you guidance on that. So, just in general, it's a bad idea. Don't do it. This guy tried it. You know he never did actually tell people how it worked out. I noticed in the comments of that video on YouTube that somebody asked for like so what happened? And nothing was posted that I could see. So chances are it didn't work and nothing was posted that I could see, so chances are it didn't work. So this is another reminder don't pressure wash your DPF.
Jamie Irvine:And really, from a larger perspective, when you think about a heavy-duty person, you think about doing things the heavy-duty way. Trying to take shortcuts with commercial vehicles is not a good idea. It's not a good idea with your after-treatment system engine management, fuel management, foundation brakes, suspension, electrical air doesn't matter what the system is. Taking shortcuts and trying to do things on the cheap is not the heavy-duty way. I know a lot of people do it, but it's not the heavy-duty way. I want to encourage you to don't just look at the upfront costs. Look at the total costs to make sure that you're making good quality decisions when it comes to parts and service on your commercial vehicle. That's being heavy duty. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
Jamie Irvine:I just wanted to remind you that we still have a few open spots for our parts management training program. We talked about that a couple episodes ago. We are giving the first 10 signups a 20% discount. It's a deep discount, but you've got to act soon because there's only a couple spots left. So head over to heavydutypartsreportcom. Forward slash PMT that stands for parts management training. Have a meeting with us. We'll talk about your situation. We'll give you your pricing based on the number of employees you're going to enroll in the program, and we'll give you that 20% discount on top of that, so we look forward to having you take advantage of this unique opportunity in our new parts management training course.
Jamie Irvine:If you haven't already, go over to heavydutypartsreportcom. Sign up to our weekly email so you never miss out on any of the content that we put out. In addition to that, if you listen on the podcast player of your choice, hit the follow button for free and give us a five-star rating and review. If you are given that opportunity, it would really help us with the reach of our podcast. And lastly, if you like watching the video version of our podcast, make sure you hit the subscribe button and the bell notification on YouTube. Thank you so much for your ongoing support of the Heavy-Duty Parts Report and listening right to the very end of our episode. As always, I want to encourage you to be heavy-duty.