This afternoon, I asked my long time friend why he and his wife just went back from a diesel to a gasser within the past year. Before going back to a gasser, he and his wife had a diesel class B for several years and they had that unit all over the country. Here is exactly what he said today when I asked him about diesel maintenance/repairs and why they went back from diesel to gas:
"maintenance was outrageous and I didn't feel competent to do it. I changed oil one time. The worse stuff is the fuel filter. Ours needed changing about every other oil change and I didn't have the tools or expertise to do it. We had to be towed 60 miles once because of the fuel filter. A guy with a ford diesel truck said he got stuck in Canada for awhile because it had some piece in the exhaust recirculation that had to be replaced and it wouldn't operate without it. My mechanic said diesel engines had to be basically rebuilt every 80-100,000 miles because pollution requirements made them recirculate all the exhaust thru the engine to burn unused fuel. So there is expensive maintenance to compensate for that."
So, I'll look at the diesel this weekend, but I've got to ask lots of questions to see if we, on our lower budget, qualify as a diesel owners. My gassers may have been loud, and may not have handled as well as a DP, but mechanically, neither of the two we had were expensive to maintain.
The unit we're going to look at this weekend has had the same owner for several years, and if he has done his routine maintenance, and if he could lead me through the routine stuff, then it still might be a possibility. I've done lots of work on gas engines before, but never anything on a diesel other than fluid changes on my diesel farm tractors.
