EPA Hits Small Nebraska Ford Dealer With $40K Fine for Deleting Diesel Trucks

A Ford dealership in Nebraska faces nearly $40,000 in fines for violating the Clean Air Act by installing diesel deletes on up to 20 pickup trucks. Moody Motor Co. out of Niobrara, Nebraska, was sentenced for one charge of “accessory after the fact to a Clean Air Act violation,” as a U.S. Attorney announced following the dealership’s trial on July 31.

The EPA cracked down on the Ford dealership, which has been in operation for nearly 70 years, first opening in 1955. While the dealer wasn’t responsible for producing the parts itself, a federal judge levied a $39,741 fine and a $125 special assessment fee for its role in ordering and installing them.

The kind of diesel deletes that Moody Motor Co. dealt with are not uncommon. These aftermarket mods basically remove a number of parts from the exhaust system of a diesel truck, hence the name.

They allow diesel engines to breathe better by bypassing restrictive exhaust components that normally remove pollutants. Deleting those is a “prohibited act” under federal law, and a violation of the Clean Air Act carries hefty fines for truck owners, let alone shops selling kits or performing the mods.

Authorities were led to Moody Motor when they audited Dallas-based Diesel Performance of Texas, and found records that indicated the supplier sold parts to the Nebraska dealership. Moody reportedly purchased these kits 14 times, from 2019 through 2022. Techs at Moody Motor then installed the offending hardware in up to 20 diesel trucks, according to admissions from the dealership’s own mechanics.

One of the trucks with the illegal mod found at the dealership belonged to the relative of an employee who later explained the delete was done because “the truck was a trade-in that needed a lot of work done on it to include having sensors out and that this was easier than replacing the sensors.” Be that as it may, that truck is one of the strikes against Moody, which was also sentenced to a one-year probation, on top of the roughly $39,900 fine.

Got tips? Send ’em to tips@thedrive.com