That is what I thought of the first time I saw this stuff. Now, can't live without it. The DEF injector was faulty on my wife's new Grand Cherokee...spent almost 2 months in the shop while they tried to figure out what was setting off the check engine light. Finally fixed it. Had to refill her tank today, and it is supposed to freeze tonight, and since it is pretty much just water, I was wondering if it should be treated like we treat our windshield washer fluid, in other words, use some low temp version to keep from freezing and busting out the tank. Since we are new to diesels, I figured I would ask here.
All things freeze, if you get them cold enough, but my main question is "And if so, in cold climates, do people have DEF tanks busting on their diesel vehicles?" I ask pretty much anything technical I wish to find out, here. Fixed my sewer system, even. Google is usually a wasted of time. Just a bunch of people with "I think..." answers. There are fluff answers here, too, but if you just skip over them, eventually someone with actual experience will answer. I can be almost guaranteed that there is a truck driver on here that is driving Canada and northern US states, who has actually had experience with DEF and cold environments.
And sometimes the fluff answers are fun to read, or may lead me off into other areas of technical interest, so there is nothing wrong with them, for the most part.
Found my answer on another message board. Pretty elaborate set of systems. No wonder when mine started tripping codes, it took the dealer so long to figure it out!
Does anyone "think" that the tank can rupture? I found all kinds of info on how the stuff freezes, the tank is warmed upon startup to thaw it all out, even how if left in the feed lines, the lines can rupture (so don't disconnect your battery for 15 minutes after shutting off so it can suck the stuff back out of the lines and back to the tank). Apparently, there has been much testing and ruptured tanks have not so far occurred so I am not going to lose any sleep over it.
The tanks are plastic so they will expand. The lines, pump and injector are less forgiving so the pump empties the system when it is finished with a cycle. It's about 67% water, so it does freeze but they all incorporate some sort of heating system.
See...this is the kind of response I expected, eventually. I always know that someone will eventually pop up here and post information that they actually have some knowledge about. Which is always better than a google search.
I Googled... Does Diesel Exhaust Fluid freeze? ...and got this...http://mmb.maverick.to/threads/does-diesel-exhaust-fluid-freeze.103118/#post-1048708 ......
