Road rumors were the talk of the summer: On call-in shows, the CB and social media, truckers debated the likelihood of a further delay in the California Air Resources Board’s powertrain upgrade compliance requirements for small fleets and owner-operators. Owner-operators and fleets with three and fewer trucks registered with CARB had been granted a reprieve from compliance with rules to date requiring upgrades of trucks with 1996-2004 model-year engines. That extension runs out at the end of the year, and 2005-06 engines now come into CARB’s upgrade mix.
“We’ve heard rumblings that there are probably going to be extensions,” reader Donna Klaffky Pullan posted to Overdrive’s Facebook page in August. “What are you hearing?”
Simply, further extensions are not in the offing, says CARB Public Information Officer Karen Caesar. Come Jan. 1, she notes, “the first [particulate matter] filter is now required” for small fleets with 1996-2006 model-year equipment under the upgrade requirements of the agency’s Statewide Truck and Bus Rule. For owner-operators of trucks powered by 1996-2006 model-year engines, this means it’s compliance crunch time if you live in or are running into California on a regular basis.
Owner-operator Bill Taylor’s 2007 Western Star, powered by a 2006 14-liter 515-hp Detroit engine, was leased to FedEx Ground until recently. “They told me I’d have to have my truck CARB-compliant,” Taylor says. He researched his options, working in part with his business services provider, ATBS, and the organization’s maintenance consultant, Bill McClusky.
Taylor found diesel particulate filter retrofits – putting a particulate matter filter system onto a 1996-2006 model-year engine – to be the least expensive option, even at $15,000 to $16,000. He worked through Ironman Parts, which he calls a “clearinghouse for retrofits,” to come up with an all-inclusive estimate based on his truck specs. “Drop your truck off and two days, three days at most, when you come back, it’s all set to run in California.”
