What's up with the Stimulus Artics?

[BusHunter]

I've been noticing these stimulus artics have been belching black smoke out of their exhausts lately. Saw #4178 do this on the #6, #4161 was sounding terrible one day and doing it too. I also saw another #4165? It's weird, they shouldn't be doing this, they are hybrids and are not even supposed to be producing exhaust below 25 MPH. If i was in charge of rehabs, I would say they need to do these buses first or we may have to resort to gas masks?

[Busjack]

I've been noticing these stimulus artics have been belching black smoke out of their exhausts lately. Saw #4178 do this on the #6, #4161 was sounding terrible one day and doing it too. I also saw another #4165? It's weird, they shouldn't be doing this, they are hybrids and are not even supposed to be producing exhaust below 25 MPH. If i was in charge of rehabs, I would say they need to do these buses first or we may have to resort to gas masks?

The theory of "Clean Air Hybrid Bus" on the decals sure isn't working. Since you are correct that they are supposed to start using electric power, it sounds like the whole hybrid system is broken.

[Jaylin gill]

I've been noticing these stimulus artics have been belching black smoke out of their exhausts lately. Saw #4178 do this on the #6, #4161 was sounding terrible one day and doing it too. I also saw another #4165? It's weird, they shouldn't be doing this, they are hybrids and are not even supposed to be producing exhaust below 25 MPH. If i was in charge of rehabs, I would say they need to do these buses first or we may have to resort to gas masks?

I seen 4176 on the 6 the other day it sounded like it was about to be on fire on 9/18/15

[sw4400]

I've been noticing these stimulus artics have been belching black smoke out of their exhausts lately. Saw #4178 do this on the #6, #4161 was sounding terrible one day and doing it too. I also saw another #4165? It's weird, they shouldn't be doing this, they are hybrids and are not even supposed to be producing exhaust below 25 MPH. If i was in charge of rehabs, I would say they need to do these buses first or we may have to resort to gas masks?

Probably a Hybrid system failure(these buses are 6-7 years old), forcing the bus to work on the diesel portion of it's engine or quit running altogether(this practice no doubt eventually causes a dead motor). Since the diesel engine is only a part of the HybriDrive technology, as opposed to a Clean Diesel bus, the Cummins engine has to work twice as hard to power the bus on takeoff and operate normally.

But, it's not uncommon for even a Clean Diesel bus to emit black smoke(which they are not supposed to do).....

[BusHunter]

I saw a #4000 yesterday that was leaving a trail of blue smoke behind it. And it says on the bus these are hybrids!! i couldn't help but get a laugh out of that. Hope they don't have to go for an emissions test because they are not passing. I don't know know why your 40 footer there was smoking, it supposedly has a new engine rebuild from the rehabs.

[jajuan]

In both sw's years old pic of 1764 (that looks like a section of Lincoln that hasn't had CTA buses in the past almost three years) and the recent sightings of a few 4000s spewing of smoke that's not usually part of the exhaust for those buses, it sounds like a filter failure could also be a possibility. Whether it's 6 or 7 year old artics, new clean diesel buses, or newly rehabbed 1000s, we're still talking about machines with a thousands of parts on them. And when you have that many parts on any machine, there's still the possibility that something is going to give out somewhere for a host of reasons. The focus should be more on how soon and how well CTA gets faulty parts fixed and/or replaced than on the fact that they had a failure that doesn't appear to be immediately dangerous to passengers. Any mechanic or engineer will tell you that you're not going to have a machine at optimal condition 100% of the time especially when we're talking about a machine that's halfway into its rated service life under non-rehabbed conditions. So a bit of realistic perspective needs to be used here.

[BusHunter]

That makes sense, but I think the #4000's engines are playing out. It's a good thing they have a rehab coming because they need it. If we notice alot of #1000's don't have a smoking exhaust now, but I did see #1091 on the #82 blue smoking away down the street. But we could argue that was among the first buses to get rehabbed. Still not really an excuse. Right now if you asked me to grade exhausts per fleet type, the #6400's at FG beat the stimulus artics and there are many more of those than there are #4000 stimulus artics plus they are 8 years older than the artics. So what do we have here, bus engines that are prematurely dying?

Edited October 11, 2015 by BusHunter

[Busjack]

In both sw's years old pic of 1764 (that looks like a section of Lincoln that hasn't had CTA buses in the past almost three years) and the recent sightings of a few 4000s spewing of smoke that's not usually part of the exhaust for those buses, it sounds like a filter failure could also be a possibility. Whether it's 6 or 7 year old artics, new clean diesel buses, or newly rehabbed 1000s, we're still talking about machines with a thousands of parts on them. And when you have that many parts on any machine, there's still the possibility that something is going to give out somewhere for a host of reasons....

However, the distinction seems to be that a diesel bus only has the diesel engine, while a hybrid is supposed to start up using the electric motor.Thus, even if the particulate filter is clogged, the hybrid bus shouldn't be spewing smoke like that on start up, so there are several systems that need maintenance on that bus.

[jajuan]

However, the distinction seems to be that a diesel bus only has the diesel engine, while a hybrid is supposed to start up using the electric motor.Thus, even if the particulate filter is clogged, the hybrid bus shouldn't be spewing smoke like that on start up, so there are several systems that need maintenance on that bus.

Well he said the 4000 was already in motion and if I recall the diesel engine does kick in at a certain speed so it sounds like from his description the diesel engine still came into play either way and the distinction you point out less a factor.