I was stopped in line at a red light. I was in the outer lane, and to my left was a big diesel pickup. While waiting for the green light, the left lane moved ahead about one car length. The diesel pickup moved ahead to where the exhaust was pointed right at my windscreen. My open front air vent and fan brought in that diesel stench and gassed me out. I hate diesel pickups

I have no issue with diesel pickups, normally. If you have a regular old diesel pickup because you need the power, or frequently pull big things, or just because you like them, that's all well and good.

I do have an issue with the redneck "diesel bros" who take their diesel truck, jack it up, add a bunch of light bars and other accessories, and modify the exhaust and engine tune to be able to "roll coal" on demand (belch out massive amounts of black exhaust while accelerating).

Typically late teens or early 20s, driving a high mileage diesel truck that Mommy/Daddy paid for, spending every last cent of their pizza delivery or burger flipping income on truck accessories, doing burnouts in big clouds of black exhaust while taking off at intersections, and generally being all-around obnoxious to the rest of the drivers on the road.

Basically the country boy version of the "rice rocket" modified import cars with big spoilers and fart can exhaust tips.

Yeah. We have an unmodified 2013 GMC 3500 for pulling a huge trailer and it doesn't make any real smell.

You have a dickhead owner problem, not a diesel problem.

My problem is I can't breathe that stuff. It chokes me up. Sensitivity of a sort I think. Dad died of pulmonary fibrosis and had said chemical things like that did him in.

You can mitigate it somewhat by rolling up the windows and running the A/C on "max" or recirculate. This prevents most outside air from coming in.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
Yeah. We have an unmodified 2013 GMC 3500 for pulling a huge trailer and it doesn't make any real smell.

You have a dickhead owner problem, not a diesel problem.

^True. I’ll complain that the emissions systems kill mileage and cost a lot to repair, but the flip side is that when they are functioning as designed, there is good, clean air coming out of the tailpipe. There’s some parking spots along the interstates in Florida and other areas like university parking lots that have spots designated for Ultra Low Emissions Vehicles (ULEV), imagine my surprise to find my pickup qualified. At least for the first 120,000 miles when everything was functioning properly anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Hamden106:
My problem is I can't breathe that stuff. It chokes me up. Sensitivity of a sort I think. Dad died of pulmonary fibrosis and had said chemical things like that did him in.

That I can understand. I have asthma and some allergies, and some things just set me off. If diesel is one of the things that does that to you, I can certainly sympathize.

When I was younger I always poo-poo'd diesels. "They're expensive to buy, expensive to maintain, they're noisy and they smell bad," I always used to say. Then I bought an F-250 with the bigass 460 gas engine, to carry a good size camper. Well, I found that combination resulted in about 6 MPG, maybe 8 on the highway, and was still underpowered on many upgrades. So I bit the bullet and replaced the truck with another F-250 a couple years newer with the 7.3L Powerstroke diesel. I never badmouthed a diesel again (the coal rollers excepted). I drove that truck for 20 years and 385K miles and it was still going strong when I made the mistake of loaning it to a friend. She let her GD cell phone distract her, and rolled it. Totaled. Yeah I was just a little pissed.

Before I bought the diesel I did a lot of math and figured that between the difference in MPG and the difference in cost between diesel fuel and gasoline (diesel being actually cheaper at the time), it would take about 8 years to break even on the higher purchase price of the diesel truck. Of course only about 2 years passed before diesels became wildly popular and diesel fuel prices skyrocketed (so did gas prices, just not as fast). At that point I quit worrying about the break-even numbers and just drove it. Never regretted it though, that was a great truck.

My peeve is owners who seem obsessed with showing off how their diesel truck can sit and idle spewing fumes out for 10's of minutes at a time. There's one in a 3500 Ram I've seen a few times that's particularly obnoxious. He pulls right up near Kroger's entrance that's clearly marked "no parking" and sits there with the engine idling. He takes the wife (or someone) and lets them out at the front door and just sits there emitting fumes and noise waiting for them while they shop!

Another time, I got caught at a railroad crossing waiting for a loooong slooooow train. And I was behind a school bus emitting stench right at my gas pickup. I had to get out of my vehicle and wait away from the foul air until the train finally went through.

Another time crossing over I-5 on a day of heavy travel on the freeway and the air was very still, on the bridge over I-5 I caught the fumes of the many cars below. It was tough to breathe only for that moment crossing the bridge

And yesterday marks the day 31 years ago that Dad died from his bad lungs. Today I am 6 days older than Dad was back on that day.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
I have no issue with diesel pickups, normally. If you have a regular old diesel pickup because you need the power, or frequently pull big things, or just because you like them, that's all well and good.

I do have an issue with the redneck "diesel bros" who take their diesel truck, jack it up, add a bunch of light bars and other accessories, and modify the exhaust and engine tune to be able to "roll coal" on demand (belch out massive amounts of black exhaust while accelerating).

Typically late teens or early 20s, driving a high mileage diesel truck that Mommy/Daddy paid for, spending every last cent of their pizza delivery or burger flipping income on truck accessories, doing burnouts in big clouds of black exhaust while taking off at intersections, and generally being all-around obnoxious to the rest of the drivers on the road.

Basically the country boy version of the "rice rocket" modified import cars with big spoilers and fart can exhaust tips.

100%. We call those “Brozers”. I modify most of my vehicles. You can modify a diesel as well to get more HP/TQ. And you can do it without turning it into a coal roller. Coal rollers are just obnoxiously stupid. And yeah it’s the equivalent of coffee can exhausts on regular Civics (not even a Si or CTR) with neon lighting underneath a la Fast and the Festerment.

Nothing wrong with diesels. I’ve owned one before and just drove it stock. Half the planet has an IQ of 100 or less and for some reason the low IQ amongst us like to buy diesels and mod it to roll coal.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
100%. We call those “Brozers”.

I call them bro dozers. I like the #1 "bro dozer" definition at Urbandictionary:

quote:

A pick-up truck that the owner took to the truck accessory store and said "give me the micropenis compensation package." In other words - lift kit, oversize wheels, off-road tires, hub spacers (because the oversize knobby tires and wheels aren't taking up enough parking already), light bar, and a trailer hitch. It'll never be intentionally taken off-road and the trailer hitch will never tow anything.

quote:

"give me the micropenis compensation package."

OT
That is kind of what we often say at the range when some bozo dumps 30. Dump 30. Add an inch.