"In-Cylinder Technology Plus" is the name Navistar gave in July to its MaxxForce diesels that will use selective catalytic reduction starting early next year, but the name is already being dropped, executives said at a dealer sales-training event in Utah this week. Instead, the aftertreatment system will simply be called SCR, as it is by competitors already using it.

"It was confusing. Nobody got it," said Jim Hebe, Navistar's North American sales vice president, about the name and its abbreviation, ICT+. The generic term is well known because it's been in use since the method was first talked about several years ago by diesel builders in the U.S. and overseas.

Navistar plans to buy SCR aftreatment equipment that uses urea injection from Cummins Emissions Solutions, whose engineers are now working with their Navistar counterparts to integrate it into MaxxForce engines. The MaxxForce engines currently use a system called Advanced Exhaust-Gas Recirculation, which cannot quite meet the federal EPA's 2010 absolute limits for nitrogen oxide emissions.

The first engine to get SCR early next year will be the 12.4-liter MaxxForce 13, for use in the ProStar+ highway tractor, and then in other models as 2013 unfolds. Medium-duty diesels will get SCR in 2014, product specialists said.

Cummins will also supply its ISX15 diesel to Navistar, which has decided to use it instead of its own MaxxForce 15. That will cease production in the first quarter of 2013, Hebe said.

Hayes Atwood, new-truck sales manager at Diamond International Trucks in North Little Rock, Ark., said he understands the change but wishes the MaxxForce 15 could stay in the lineup. He has customers who like the MaxxForce 15s they're running and would like to buy more.

The same is true of current MaxxForce 13s, which have turned out to be reliable and economical, Atwood said. "A-EGR has weight and simplicity advantages, and we have customers who are rushing to order EGR engines" before heavy and bulky SCR equipment is added.

"On the other hand, we have customers who are very loyal to Cummins," he continued. "Looking back, it seems that the best mpg our customers got was in ProStars wrapped around Cummins ISXs. Cummins will be just another option, and will enable us to sell trucks to people who are loyal to Cummins."

An early batch of MaxxForce 13s proved troublesome. Engineers worked hard to fix problems with EGR valves and coolers and to recalibrate electronic controls to make the engines run better, said Hebe and Tim Schick, sales vice president for Navistar engines. Several recalibrations were done, and that will probably continue, not only by Navistar but also by other builders.

Meanwhile, warranty claims against the MaxxForce 13 began dropping about the middle of 2011, Hebe and Schick said. They now are at normal levels. That and reports from satisfied customers indicate that the worst of the model's problems are likely over.

The Navistar people were at a company-sponsored Vocational Boot Camp held for the last several weeks at a motorsports complex about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City. It featured training sessions and driving experiences for almost 800 dealer sales people and principals, and is the third such event the company has held.