Caterpillar to move headquarters to Texas from Illinois in fresh blow to the Chicago area
Move to near Dallas-Ft. Worth 

All I could read

Dont surprise me...they are screwing everything else up, getting more women in the dealerships which don't know anything, think they have to "run the show", men that have worked in my local dealership for years and knew what they were doing are leaving left and right because they can't stand the women "in charge" atmosphere. They only have one parts guy left and can never get through to him on the phone [always busy]. New parts person doesn't know what you're trying to order or complains about the computer or whines about having a bad day. Go to pick up your parts and a guy with tattoos, earrings, scraggly hair asks "what company are you with?" Dealerships used to have display shelves with all kinds of support items like oil filters, grease guns, paint, ant-seize, lights, ect. now its t shirts n hats.

I think it has more to do with "Blue vs Red States". The "woke" crap is everywhere.

Yea forgot about that too Mag.

Parts persons who have no interest in knowing the products they sell are worthless. Others with the new in look of tats, piercings , and funny hair have been surprising me by trying to help. So I try to not be to critical of different looking parts persons.

yes if you dont know the product or have a good general grounding how can you help anyone. sometimes the book is wrong. or what about those with classic machines like us, which are not computerised you actually have to engage the brain cells to fix em.

went to the local auto parts store yesterday and they told me the last two jugs of def fluid on the shelf was all they could get for the foreseeable future. the classic machines and the redundancy built in will be like gold for a while. i see farmers with modern tractors choosing to just opt out of farming for a season because the machine won't run because of stuff like this.

My old D6 9u runs without def, thank goodness. Ran it this morning cutting fire breaks at the ranch in Penngrove! Fuel prices out of sight, tank still full of 3.49 a gallon last years deisel. Wont last long though.

it does seem ridiculous using aqueous urea solution which is a form of nitrogen as a catalyst to reduce nitrogen oxides in exhaust emissions.
and dont get me started on dpf filters. both ideas work very well but only if correctly designed and used correctly. proper and right on-time maintenance is a big thing with these modern engines. you cant service em early or late or they play up because its so finely engineered.