kscarbel

Is $675.00 a good price?

As I recall, Tidewater was selling the stainless steel B-model mirror bracket kits for $75 per side. They purchased them thru Mack from Delbar. So as for a fair price, you be the judge.

do you always have to be an asshole or just certain days of the week

While you may not want to accept the reality that the Mack-branded Volvo trucks produced by Volvo Group are not Mack trucks (as any employee of the former Mack Trucks will quickly tell you), there's no place on this forum for those colorful metaphors. I'm sure that you can communicate on a higher plane than that.

I think Volvo wanted to shut down Mack brand, but they realized that the Mack brand was too important in North America to be closed, it would just be better for them to compromise their Volvo with a Mack badge.

Built like an OLD Mack Truck - It was a part of the language.

Exactly. Volvo Group's arrogant company culture is focused on the Volvo brand. The global plan is to have a sigular brand - Volvo.

Acquiring Mack Trucks, like White and GMC, was merely a stepping stone towards achieving Volvo's ultimate goal.

we would all like to see Mack be what it once was, an independent, successful medium and heavy truck builder.

What would have happened to Mack if Volvo had not stepped in to buy it? More than likely it would have gone out of business.

As to another company (Cummins, Oshkosh) buying Mack, do you think that Volvo would sell to another company thus creating a serious competitor to the Volvo brand?

bulldogboy

Volvo did not "step in" and save Mack. Volvo had a plan since the mid nineties. Mack got caught up in merger negotiations between Renault and Volvo. Ultimately Volvo tried to pull a fast one and had Renault up in arms.

Had Volvo NOT gotten their hands on Mack via RVI so as to conquer the North American market (their third attempt), Renault would have shopped Mack Trucks around to the logical suitors, most being in the United States. Those would include Paccar, International, Oshkosh and Caterpillar, just to list a few. All of those companies recognize the value of Mack Trucks and would have given the unexpected purchase offer serious thought.

i think we all know kscarbel has a agenda to hate everything about volvo.

me personally i dont care who owns mack.

i dont care if volvo or paccar or mercedes or volkswagon owns them.

Volvo has gutted and destroyed arguably the greatest American truckmaker in the history of the United States.

I care very much who owns Mack Trucks. Every American should care about the well-being of America's economy and industrial might.

Mack should be American owned and you should care who owns it with the way our economy is.

Exactly. How could any knowledgeable American who cares about our country's economic survival think differently?

HEHEHE

If an EX-employee of Mack feels Volvo has done him some wrong in life.....Well Sir, I'm sorry you feel that way and I hope Volvo makes it up to you some day.

Foreign domination of America's commercial truck industry is not in the best interest of the United States. What with you being Canadian, my statement understandably has less meaning to you. However, Canada's economic tone does weigh heavily on the state of America's economy.

Every former employee of Mack Trucks is disgusted at what Volvo Group has done to Mack Trucks. Volvo Group has reduced an American and global icon down to a mere shell of its former self that produces Volvo-based trucks with Mack nameplates. What part of that do you disagree with?

Given that you are so thrilled with your Mack-branded Volvos, why not go the extra inch next time around and buy the Volvo-branded models. Same chassis, engines, transmissions and axles (Meritor), Just a more spacious cab. Your having transitioned over to the superior global truck, Volvo Group Trucks Sales and Marketing Americas will be pleased to no end. The sooner they can bury the Mack brand as they did White and GMC, the sooner they can simplify their life in the North American market with one brand - Volvo.

FYI

Chrysler isn't the only company considering a light-duty, full-size diesel truck. Nissan is currently working on a program with Cummins to develop a four-cylinder diesel power plant for Nissan's upcoming redesign of its full-size Titan pickup.

Initial testing of the Cummins' 2.8-liter, four-cylinder diesel was aimed at delivering 210 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque. The 3.0-liter VM Motori V6 diesel that will be offered in the Ram 1500 is rated at 240 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque.

The Cummins 2.8-liter ISF is normally rated from 109 to 150 horsepower for light truck applications (the equivalent of an Isuzu NPR). For a 1/2 ton pickup, 210 horsepower would be fine, though I'd rather have the extra displacement of the 3.8 liter ISF.

Here, here. Not to open an old discussion again, but without "outside" ownership the brand would be gone along with the museum and the heritage and legacy we all admire.

Truckmaking is a tough business. Aside from Scania and Paccar, the two most consistently profitable truckmakers in the world, the rest of the truckmakers go through cyclical highs and lows. Mack Trucks was saved by Renault, who invested in the company and allowed it to remain Mack.

But in the mid-nineties, Volvo wanted to grow and acquire RVI, which included Mack as a bonus. A merger plan was announced, and Volvo used that to get a grip on Mack. Although the merger plan failed because of Volvo's deceit to Renault (they were infuriated with the Swedes), Volvo already had the wheels in motion that would change RVI's long time position regarding Mack Trucks.

If Mack had to be sold, it should have been to a U.S. company that would reinvigorate Mack Trucks rather than shut it down and make it a mere shell of its former self. If GM and Chrysler (twice) were worth saving, the iconic American truckmaker Mack Trucks was worth saving.

I dont like Volvo as amuch as anybody else but i think he means hopefully they will continue to buy macks for the rest of their fleet.

Realistically, those aren't Mack trucks though. From the Volvo VN chassis, Volvo engine and I-Shift transmission to the mountain of Volvo global components and Meritor drive axles, that's a Volvo thru and thru with a legacy Mack cab and hood.

Make no mistake about it, those are not Mack trucks.

One of the Plant employees I spoke with mentioned the 10 truck order is a "test purchase" to see if they work well in the fleet.

Any order is a good order!

(Fingers crossed)

Just curious, why are you rooting for Volvo (with your fingers crossed) ?

Like so many U.S. cities, Baltimore for decades had an all-Mack fleet of fire apparatus.

Switson Industries during their Peninsula era broadened their options by becoming the distributor for both Diamond T and France’s Berliet during the 1960-1961 period.

While profitable truck manufacturing is certainly no easy task, it’s odd that Peninsula also failed as truck distributors for both Diamond T and Berliet, given that Diamond T built a solid truck and Berliet’s severe service truck models should have at least found acceptance with French Canadian logging and mining customers. All of Peninsula’s Berliet truck inventory was shipped back to France by the end of 1961.

Peninsula Diesel was the truck division of Switson Industries, and named after the Niagara peninsula where the company’s Welland truck plant was located in Ontario, Canada.

Executives at Switson Industries, a long time vacuum cleaner manufacturer, had decided to diversify and felt Canada’s market for heavy trucks looked promising.

Peninsulas were assembled trucks with Cummins and Detroit engines, and Fuller transmissions. However some imported straight-8 Rolls Royce C8 diesel engines were also fitted.

Peninsula’s COEs utilized a pneumatic shifting system rather than a mechanical linkage, similar to a Mack N-model with a “Unishift” transmission, with pneumatic cylinders actuating the transmission shifters.

After several self-designed COE cab efforts, Peninsula later introduced a new model utilizing the Budd cab (purchased by Ford, Mack and FWD).

After trying unsuccessfully to establish a foothold in the truck market, Switson Industries closed its truckmaking unit after just two years. The company had been working on a large order for Cuba, but the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 brought a swift end to that deal.

Like so many Canadian truckmakers wanting to profit from Canada’s booming logging and mining sectors, the last Peninsula truck was a 50-60 ton off-highway dump truck.

Very unusual with the V8. Would be cool to have.

Cheers, Rob

Also somewhat unusual, Southeastern Freight Lines of Columbia, South Carolina used to run a massive fleet of Cummins-powered U-700 tractors.

Southeastern runs beautiful, well-maintained equipment and is one of the most efficient carriers in the south.

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/donq/southeastern_mack_u_2.html

http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/donq/southeastern_mack_u.html

These mirrors were produced by long time Mack Trucks supplier Delbar Products (established 1947 and headquartered in Perkasie, Pennsylvania).

I thought to point out that in 2008, Spain’s Ficosa International S.A. purchased Delbar (another iconic American manufacturer now under foreign ownership).

Ficosa is the supplier to Volvo Truck and Volvo’s Renault brand, and thus since 2008 Volvo's Mack brand.

Ficosa has closed Delbar's three manufacturing facilities in Crossville, Tennessee. All manufacturing for North America is now done in Mexico, at Salinas Victoria and Escobedo.

While Delbar might have done a run, I doubt that Ficosa would even entertain the thought. And in any event, do you really want Mexican mirror brackets on your B-model?

Great Coastal ran 250 horsepower Caterpillar 3406B-powered Freightliner FLTs governed at 1600 rpm that delivered superior fuel economy.

Absolutely super people across the board at Great Coastal. It was troubling to see the company purchased by Heartland Express in 2002.

The workers at Macungie wanted to make concessions so that on-highway production would remain in Allentown and not shift to Winnsboro, South Carolina. However, the union ignored the very people they represent and fought Mack Trucks, resulting in a lose-lose for all parties.

The Philadelphia Inquirer / February 04, 1987

A Mack Trucks spokesman said the Allentown United Auto Workers membership had approved a new contract despite opposition from the international in Detroit.

William McCullough, Mack vice president for corporate affairs, told United Press International yesterday that members of UAW Local 677 had approved, in a vote Saturday, the terms of a January 18th agreement between local union officials and Mack.

The Allentown local, locked in a dispute with the union's international Detroit office, imposed a news blackout Monday on the progress of its talks with Detroit officials. The international, whose approval of contract terms is a required part of the ratification process, opposes the January 18th agreement because of wage and benefit concessions it contends are unprecedented.

Before Saturday's vote, Local 677 officials had endorsed the tentative 6-year agreement with Mack Trucks primarily because of guarantees by the company that it would not close operations in the Lehigh Valley during the life of the contract.

Mack also had promised job offers at a new truck plant in Winnsboro, S.C. to at least 600 Local 677 members who are laid off or facing loss of their jobs.

But within a week after the terms of the tentative January 18th agreement were released, the international indicated it would oppose the contract no matter how Local 677 members voted.

Local 677 has called its disagreement with the international a "family" matter and even declined to provide some details about the dispute to Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, who went to Allentown on Sunday to try to bring the parties closer.

Casey also met with Mack chairman John B. Curcio.

Robert Grotevant, a spokesman for Governor Casey, said one of the international's primary objections focused on Mack's refusal to give the UAW an open door for organizing workers at the new South Carolina plant. Wages at that plant are expected to be significantly lower than those at the Mack plant in Macungie, Pennsylvania.

My experience with the Mack dealers (especially here where I am at) is they will not support customers that are asking questions without paying for the advice and if they cant pull up your truck with a vin don't even try unless you bring a Mack part number.

If I cant find it aftermarket I now call and order parts from Ballard Mack (thanks Brad & Joe) in Mass and have them ship them to me here in KC. ( I am talking about my 1980 R not the B )

I could start a whole rant on that subject but that does not answer how he should resolve his issue.

Rob

Do you mean that Volvo's ownership of the Mack brand has resulted in a vastly poorer customer experience at Mack distributors? I'm shocked. How could that be? The Swedes told me their way was better.

I believe there is a service bulletin on that. Why don't you visit the service dept. of your Mack dealer and review the older service bulletins.

The cement mixers are cool looking, I never seen a trailer/tractor combo before.

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stinky , they will layoff many workers to meet the target then the big bosses will go away with big $$$ again .

Historically, aside from Scania, the formerly Renault-controlled RVI truck unit and Iveco, that is the way the European truckmakers are. Volvo and the Germans truckmakers are a shady bunch.

I hadn't planned on starting a new thread, but "Your Mack Off-Highway Truck Line" appears to be locked now.

At any rate, this is a nice forum on the Mack CL-350ST logging tractors built and sold by Mack Canada.

http://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/showthread.php?20056-Mack-CL350-ST-logging-truck