bbigrig

Most up here are ordering Granites with 445hp and Allison Autos. With dumps that haul small dump trailers behind you will see 18speed Fullers. No one up here orders standard Mack transmissions any more. Most go with heavy Neway air and 46 Meritor rears with 4 way locks. Some order Hendickson HMX all the cement guys order Chalmers. No more Camel back springs or Mack axles here either. Only seen a handful of the M drive 14speeds. Not enough to give a good read on. Allison seems to be doing fine. Most here in Ontario are now running the Simard twin steer front axle.

For fitting a D16/MP10 The CX rails are too narrow and it won't fit in the space between the cab firewall and the radiator. The CX also doesn't have enough space up front to fit a rad that can cool a working MP10. Shit out of luck We use MP7s and MP8s to haul 90,000lbs gross up here. MP8s up to 135,000lbs gross. Thats why very few MP10s ever got sold, not worth the huge price tag as the MP8s are doing the job.

Our newer Allison 4000 and 5000 series on Bus application (2015 and up) have the stack plate type trans coolers under the drive shaft. Plate type coolers always seem to have a higher failure rate. The old standard pressure testing both sides may not show signs of leakage. Your test won't produce heat which is a large cause of plate type cooler failure. It's the only spot your coolant and auto trans fluid mix. Change it and flush both systems real good.

All Renault engines cylinder numberings are backwards. Worked on lots of Mack/Renault products in my day. Pretty reliable trucks.

Had a bunch of Visions even a Rawhide CHN...we were quick to purge anything from 2003 to 2007 thinking They were nothing but problems.... then we bought Pinnacles....they were good for a while but as they got older they started having the same kind of miles between breakdowns the 03-07 trucks did. Just can't win anymore.

Your comments would have more gravity to them if you owned or worked on trucks with newer, more expensive and less reliable technology. I've followed your comments on Hanks for years. I have always found you perceptive and articulate from a certain point of view, but miss the view from many other sides. Holding the bag on costly technology has cut into profits and customer satisfaction for truck owners and shops alike. I've seen lots of tech come and go on trucks in the last 30 years. This HE engine setup will be more expensive to repair on the passenger side of the engine. Anyone who knows these engines is aware of the amount of work that gets done there for both Volvo and Mack on that side. Heat rejection has always been an issue on these engines. With this design, heat will be held longer, have more parts to fail and for a small gain in HP and TQ. These systems were also designed to be mounted on European COE trucks. The entire set up is under the cab and very hard to get at. Both Volvo and Mack had to augment the cab structure and cab mounts to fit it in. Thankfully at our dealer, only one customer has been ordering them on their new VNLs. None on Anthems. There is such a thing as reaching the pinnacle of efficiency and cost effectiveness within a product offering. Our South American friends with brand new Anthems and zero Emission MP engines are much better off in all segments of efficiency and cost effectiveness. Those engines will last longer due to no EGR and far more miles between breakdowns. It's not about advancements for you to read about in Truck news next week.... It's about building a product that manufacturers can be proud of, fleet owners can rely on and people like you can have jobs turning out miles making money for everyone. Rather then being high tech, stuck in the shop for weeks costing the owners their house and livelihood. I have personally seen a small fleet in which 2 of his 2016 trucks are sitting in the back yard of the shop because the customer can't afford the $16k worth of technology advanced repair bills for the 2 rigs. They have been sitting there for 3 months now. None of the repairs are covered by warranty and are after treatment related. Not main powertrain. Turns out unicorn dust and rainbows come off the same assembly line. As an example whats available to the export market versus what we can order here in N.A. Problem is, it's out of reach for people/customers/mechanics like us that want a more reliable product to produce profits for all.

Did you know there were 5 CHs put into the C.F. fleet with factory L10 Cummins engines. They were Mack test trucks and the only CHs to ever be powered with a vendor diesel engine.

If you can get a vendor engine powered Volvo truck 6 months faster then an in-house built engine, I would say there is a supply issue. That's straight from our sales dept. It also shows that customers are much happier ordering the MP/D series engine which also good for business.

This topic depresses me..... The Volvo order delay is just as long.the only way to get a line spot quicker from Volvo is to order a VNL with a Cummins. Engine production from Hagerstown has apparently effected both truck lines. I learned something about the "float" as I believe they call it when they have built trucks on the plant property but are missing parts because of supply issues as the truck travels down the production line. Apparently, this "float" hasn't been as high as it is now in years.... from what I was told. At our dealer, I see the new Volvo VN out selling the Anthem at a ratio of over 50 to 1. I was really hoping to see Mack have a cab/bunk layout that would be comparable to the VN with the Anthems introduction. Huge disappointment. It's obvious they got very little input from competitive brand truck owners when it comes to the bunk space alone. Most Anthems I've seen going out from both our dealers and others are return customers of the Pinnacles. Unless you are a hard core Mack guy, walking into a dealer and having both VN and AN models available, I could see why more customers opt for the larger interior and higher resale of the VN. They did a really good job on the Volvo VN update. For the record, I'd still buy an Anthem over the VN. Just dont ask me to justify why....its hard to explain to others that when you feel let down by your "corporate family" somehow they still deserve your trust and loyalty. It's a fact...Mack guys are just wired differently.

From a 1976 Canadian Bulldog Magazine. They had one up here for a demo at a concrete association gathering.

A little ironic...Sims opened Savage in Utah and later Mack would take them over and build the FDM.

You can now get a 16k fr. On an Anthem...

I was surprised when Simard built the Dramis on the Granite chassis instead of the heavier Titan. Titan was still available at the time of the test trucks being built. May have come down to chassis price. The Simard group did end up going with heavier chassis builds available from other manufacturers instead of the Granite.

City of Toronto ordered 2 of those team managers. Never went into service. Sold them to somewhere in the Caribbean. Once loaded the trucks had issues stopping and the dept wasn't too happy with them. They were ordered for downtown first response.

I've thought about why they dont build a glider. One reason could be that because they build their own engines, trans, axles and emissions systems. I could see A lot of customers rebuilding their current trucks with less emissions on them to save money and not have to worry about the next step of emissions on the newest models. Selling a customer a glider with no powertrain or emission system would seriously cut into Volvos potential profit margins.