That's OK, DEF is cheap and easily accessible in my book. We spend more going out to eat in one meal than the money I would spend on that in six months. A non factor in my purchase....
It's not entirely a literal cost comparison, but also convenience/time.
At what ratio of gallons of DEF to gallons of diesel would it no longer be acceptable from a convenience/time perspective for you? (ie. if everytime you had to fill up on diesel, you also had to also fill your DEF tank)
I think with emissions becoming more stringent, DEF consumption will probably increase in newer vehicles over time.
Right now I barely put in one jug per oil change of six to 7000 miles. If it was even double that that still only a jug every three months. That's nothing. Takes 5 min to dump one in with no mess. Go to Walmart every week, could store a jug or 2 at home if necessary. It doesn't go bad as much as people think. I've never seen a vehicle yet in a shop because of expired DEF in the tank.
Wow, your experience seems contrary to some Youtube videos out there. I think DemonWorks has made multiple videos documenting DEF consumption for the baby Duramax series of engines.
When towing a 6,000 lbs trailer, it appears that the DEF usage is about 4.5 gallons per 1,000 miles (or 2.25 gallons for every 500 miles). So he's probably going to be topping off the DEF with a 2.5 gallon DEF jug every time he stops for fuel unless he wants to run the risk of going empty on DEF.
Since DEF consumption appears to be proportional to fuel consumption, I wouldn't be surprised if the baby Duramaxes consume about 2 gallons of DEF per 1,000 miles. If you do oil changes every 5,000 miles, that's about 10 gallons of DEF. Again, if you don't want to run the risk of running empty on DEF and you're dumping a 2.5 gallon jug into the DEF tank every time it reaches the 1/2 way mark, that's about 4 top offs every 5,000 miles right?