Hot take: Pre-fueling filters aren't worth the hassle for most of us

I spent last Thursday changing a pre-filter on a 2020 Freightliner and it just seemed like an extra step for no real gain... my old boss back in Denver ran trucks for 15 years without them and never had injector issues. Any of you guys skip them or am I missing something?

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spencer_bell2mo ago

Had a buddy up in Billings who ran a small fleet of old 2006-2010 Freightliners and he swore by skipping them too. Ran them things without pre-filters for like 7 years, maybe 200k miles each, and never had a single injector issue that he blamed on fuel. He figured the main filter did the job just fine and the pre-filter was just more crap to deal with in the cold Montana winters. Only reason he stopped skipping them was cause his insurance guy got weird about it after a claim on something unrelated. I think it depends on how clean your fuel supply is honestly. If you're getting diesel from a decent station and not some backwoods farm tank that's been sitting since 2018 you're probably fine.

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grant_gibson2mo ago

Tbh that insurance thing is a real pain. I used to skip them on my old 2007 T680 and ran it for 3 years without any fuel issues too. But what a lot of guys don't realize is that those older common rail systems aren't nearly as picky as the newer ones. The 2015+ trucks with the high pressure pumps are a whole different animal. One little bit of water or dirt past that primary filter and you're looking at a $8k injector pump replacement. Ngl I think a lot of the guys getting away with it are just lucky with their fuel source more than anything.

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