Travelling worldwide with EURO-6 Diesel vehicles

After long research, a few phone calls, postings in relevant groups and a few chats, I can summarize the following. 

You are faced with problems with EU 6 vehicles in non-European countries:

  • Ad Blue is not available everywhere in the world.
  • The sulfur content in many countries is higher than the required 10ppm in the EU.
  • The motor control is tailored to the legal requirements in the EU. Sensors are also installed in the vehicle for this purpose.
  • Hardly any workshop outside of Europe and North America is familiar with EU6 diesels.

Here or here you can find the latest world maps on the sulfur content in diesel as a PDF.

As far as I have been able to find out so far, there are the following possible solutions:

  1. Do not use an EU6 car for Africa.
    A majority of the 4x4 community will agree, with the people questioned mostly driving older diesel or petrol engines.
    Older diesels are not that easy to get (in principle you would have to look for vehicles before 2011) and/or they already have quite a bit of mileage. We decided against this solution because we have no idea about used cars and are not the kind of people who can and want to really tinker with them ourselves.
  2. Buy a petrol engine:
    When it comes to new petrol cars, there is the imported Toyota Landcruiser GRJ79 Single Cab or Double Cab pickup truck, which offers a 6-cylinder petrol engine, but without an automatic transmission and without too much comfort. A Hilux with the 6-cylinder petrol engine is imported from Offroad-Nestle, which comes in a Comfort configuration with Invincible-Design elements are offered exclusively as a Double Cab.
    After some considerations, we ruled out both possibilities. The Landcruiser version seems too uncomfortable to us and the Hilux version is a lot more expensive than a Hilux Diesel in Comfort equipment and is only available as a Double Cab.
  3. There is the possibility to manipulate the ECU (Electronic Control Unit) of the car and thus deactivate Ad Blue/EURO6 and also to replace the original DPF (diesel particulate filter) with a used emptied DPF. Other measures may be required (e.g. regarding EGR = exhaust gas recirculation). Of course it is not legal to drive such a car within the EU.
    Such a solution for traveling around the world is available, for example, from bushcamper.com or Offroad Weigler offered for the Hilux.
  4. The company o-m.services offers a solution exclusively through manipulation of the control unit. The company owner Markus Gruse told me that you can switch between the original and modified coding of the control unit and that you can also remove or add the manipulation to the car within about half an hour. In this way you can avoid driving your car illegally in the EU. The change also offers the possibility to help with problems via remote diagnosis. To do this, however, an internet connection must be possible and an annual flat rate contract must be contracted or an appropriate per-case expense allowance must be paid.

I cannot assess both solutions technically. It would be interesting to hear about your own experiences with such solutions.

Description about the issue and a solution for the Ford Ranger

I have found a very understandable description of the EURO6 diesel problem for long-distance travel in a Facebook thread that addresses this topic and also presents Ford's own solution from an advertising page for the Ford Ranger:

Jet Fuel Compatibility

What happens when a Standard Euro4+ engine runs on high sulfur or non Diesel fuel

  • Catalytic converter can become cloaked with contaminants
  • Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) cooler can develop acid build up and will build corrosion
  • Water could enter to the engine and worst case result in a capital engine failure
  • Engine ECU will recognize EGR cooler corrosion and built up causing error codes advising to diagnose the error at minimum and often other problems
  • Injector and High pressure pump degradation
  • Fuel pressure deviation resulting in engine limp home (reduced performance) condition

What does the conversion consist of?

  • The catalytic converter is replaced with a non-catalytic muffler system. The EGR valve is blocked with a plate to prevent return exhaust entering the EGR cooler. The cooler itself remains in place.
  • A hot climate option is an extra HD fuel cooler to operate F63, JP6 or similar low viscosity fuels.
  • Software updates include recalibration of the ECU to deactivate the EGR sensor and delete the error codes from appearing due to the EGR blockage with the plate.
  • Recalibration of the ECU allows it to manage operation on various fuels that do not meet the properties of Diesel e.g. F63, JP6.
  • Updated calibration is loaded into the Ford aftersales systems so it will be included in any service regular updates conducted via Ford network.

Links for the topic Long distance travels with EU6-Diesel-vehicles

I would like to list my research on the Internet on the topic of long-distance travel with EU6 diesel without comment below. It may be that you have to be logged in to certain platforms in order to read it or that it is paid content:

What we decided on

We ultimately decided on the long-distance travel solution from Markus Gruse, offroad-motorhomes. 

This solution has the advantage that it more or less only involves manipulating the engine electronics, which means that no significant modifications have to be made to the vehicle that would have to be dismantled later.

In our vehicle, the Hilux, we only have to pull the Adblue pump under the car. Everything else is done using the manipulated engine electronics software that you install yourself using a flasher.

It should be emphasized that the original engine electronics software can be reinstalled. The entire procedure takes perhaps 30 minutes. The vehicle then complies with European registration again.

So that the functionality of the Adblue system is maintained even though it is deactivated, we connect the Adblue pump for 10 minutes of driving approximately every 6 weeks and then refill the used Adblue from a 5l canister that we carry with us, so that the Adblue system is filled up again. This 5l canister lasted all the way to Namibia, where we were able to buy another 5l canister of Adblue in Windhoek.

The DPF regeneration takes place every 150-250 km on our Hilux. You don't want to drive behind us when it's active, it smokes quite white-bluish and is no olfactory pleasure either. But in West Africa nobody really notice about it. We tried always to made sure that we do not interrupt the DPF regeneration (by switching off the engine).

So far we haven't had any problems with this solution.
We can't say whether it's possible without changing the engine electronics and we wouldn't want to try it out ourselves in West Africa.

Our impression is that Adblue is gradually becoming available in some places in West Africa. For example, in Cotonou/Benin we were offered Adblue by a workshop without asking for. However, we didn't look for Adblue on our trip (with the exception of Windhoek), so we can't really say anything about its availability.