Not so many people are familiar with heavy duty trucks or trailers as most people know them, yet they are very important to the economy. Trucks move various goods across the nation, they bridge the gap between manufacturers and consumers. If for example these trucks go out of service their impact will be greatly felt, hence the reason why it is important to ensure they keep working.

All trucks no matter the manufacturer use diesel fuel, however, some light or semi-trucks use petrol as fuel. Troubleshooting a diesel engine can be easy or very complicating depending on the type of problem it has or the technology used to build that truck, also note that each make of truck has special methods of diagnosing it for faults, but there are common problems prevalent in almost all diesel trucks. Continue reading to find out.

This information can be helpful to both owners and drivers of diesel trucks because solutions to these problems are obvious from their causes as discussed.

Hard starting or no start

Causes: faulty injector(s), faulty fuel pump, bad return valve, dirty fuel filters, air in fuel line due to cracked fuel hose or loosed fuel filter, low engine compression due to worn rings and sleeves, faulty kickstarter, weak battery; for new generation trucks with electric injectors, ECU and sensors are known to cause this problem as well.

Rough idling

Causes: faulty injector(s), faulty fuel pump, bad return valve, dirty fuel filters, air in fuel line due to cracked fuel hose or loosed fuel filter; for new generation trucks with electric injectors, ECU and sensors are known to cause this problem as well.

Poor acceleration or bad revving

Causes: faulty injector(s), faulty fuel pump, bad return valve, dirty fuel filters, air in fuel line due to cracked fuel hose or loosed fuel filter, faulty turbocharger, dirty air cleaner; for new generation trucks with electric injectors, ECU and sensors (like FPR sensor) are known to cause this problem as well.

Excessive smoke

Causes: faulty injector(s), faulty fuel pump, faulty turbocharger, dirty air cleaner, inaccurate valve clearance; for new generation trucks with electric injectors, ECU and sensors (like EGR sensor) are known to cause this problem as well.

Knocking sound

Causes: faulty injector(s), faulty oil pump, inaccurate valve clearance; for new generation trucks with electric injectors, ECU and sensors (like FPR sensor) are known to cause this problem as well.

These are the major problems found in many trucks. It is worthy of note that 90% of the problems in trucks come from bad or contaminated diesel, which is very popular in Nigeria. Newer trucks with electronic injectors have zero tolerance to contaminated fuel, operators of such trucks are advised to buy diesel from trusted fuel stations instead of blackmarket dealers, using fuel with poor quality is very detrimental to the health of the truck.

This thread is open to everyone, if you have any information not covered in the article, please let us know, you can as well ask questions. Thanks.