Navistar being sued over Maxxforce engines!

One word for those engines.....

JUNK!!

 

Never worked on one, but is it true that they block off part of the coolant passages into the head? The DT 466 was as good as medium duty engine ever built. What happened to their engineering and R&D department? I remember when the 444 E came along. I was trying to think what their electronic service program was called, I want to think ISIS. We spent more time at the dealership I worked at searching for false problems from that system than we did actually solving customers complaints.

 

It doesn't surprise me. They went way out on a limb with their no DEF approach and the limb broke. They got hurt bad on this one. The article says they stopped making the 15 litre 2 summers ago, but actually, it was the 13 that was in the trucks everybody has all the problems with. i think they never got to the 15 before they had to give up and have Cummins come in and save their bacon.

 

Thought they were using short CAT blocks for there build. I read everything else was junk.

 

The Maxxforce 13 is a German engine -- the MAN D20. Caterpillar actually sold it under its own brand as the CT13, but it isn't a Cat. With a little more development, it could have been a great engine. Very light, good power/torque...

The Maxxforce 15 is different -- it uses the same block and crank as the C15. It never really came close to being EPA2010 compliant.

 

I realize that Navistar under their previous leadership made some real knot head mistakes regarding the Maxxforce. They finally realized they were making some serious mistakes. It is sad that the ambulance chasing lawyers have come out of the woodwork and cranked up lawsuits. The folks who bought these pre-SCR Maxxforce engines are not totally as pure as the wind driven snow either. They made the choice to buy that stuff, and should have known more. Problems with almost all emission laden diesels have primarily revolved around EGR and EGR cooling.

There is just nothing that is good about making an engine eat it's own feces, and really cranking it up like Navistar did was pretty stupid. Now the folks who bought them want to cry foul. Where their biggest case may be, is that Navistar bought a major share of a Dutch company called Aminex, that makes SCR using DEF cartridges instead of liquid DEF. Great idea that Navistar should have run with. As opposed to a driver having to pour in DEF, the replaceable DEF cartridge was designed to be done at an oil change. No mess, no liquid spill, and even a spare cartridge could be carried in a side box with no corrosion issues or spillage. The driver wouldn't have to worry about DEF. But, Navistar didn't go anywhere with the idea and got snapped in the backside.

Seems a lot of that "advanced EGR" exhaust was making its way into Navistar corporate boardroom and folks in there were not breathing oxygen.

 

I also hate the litigious society we have become, but NAVISTAR really stuck it to these guys.They promised everyone they had the answers to the new emissions standards and the technology to back it up. They didn't. They built a truck that didn't preform as promised, and then they gave up and tried something else. Resale will suck for these trucks. Remember they had 2 big problems. One, they couldn't get the Maxforce to actually meet the emission standards without the aid of their saved up carbon credit things. This is the reason they gave for getting Cummins back in the game to bail them out. And 2, and the bigger issue for owners, was that the trucks didn't work some or most of the time. They had incredible cost overruns for warranty work. If I remember right it was something like 123 million over budget for a portion of 2012, and then they rolled some heads and re-trenched. A 150 truck outfit I'm familiar with here has always bought International trucks. They had ridiculous problems with these engines(drivers loved the quite ride), and were put to some terrible expenses to get through the debacle. Frankly, I think navistar deserves whatever comes their way.

 

They probably could have preempted this nonsense if they had struck deals where customers that had a problem child Maxxforce engine to enable them to get moved in to a new SCR equipped Maxxfore at a greatly reduced cost. Even if everyone had jumped at it, it would be much cheaper than a batch of lawyers socking it to them. And they would have garnered more respect and greatly improved their customer base for future sales. Now, the only winners in a major litigation will be the attorneys. Navistar will be in worse shape, customers will probably not recover even a fraction of he money they lost, and the lawyers for both sides will fly off on vacation in the Bahamas after thy buy their new high end sports cars.