Maxx Force 13 Engines

This is a reason that I would not want to purchase a brand specific engine. It takes a few years to work out the bugs. I wish that CAT would come back to making class 8 engines in the U.S.

 

A short update on my former truck.......It blew up yesterday evening. It got towed into our yard as the city driver in it broke down. When our mechanic started it to pull it into the shop it put a rod through the block, literally. It was pretty cool being able to see into the engine
Our lead mechanic told me this morning that the company is going to trade all our Internationals in and then I get a new truck, probably a new Mack as that is what they have been buying since Sterling went out of business.

 

My company only bought 10 of them, 5 transtars and 5 prostars to try them out fleet wide, and it only took about 3 months for them to realize that they were not buying more. Unfortunately for me, I got assigned one of them. I put up with it's constant breakdowns and time at the dealer for about 300,000 miles, but the last time it went to the dealer, for the 5th or 6th time, about 2 months ago, I gave up on it and got into an old Sterling, 2004, we have that no-one was driving.

I haven't heard about any word from International as yet, but those things are usually taken care at levels within the company far above my pay grade....

So far the new Macks we have been getting seem to be far more reliable, at least everyone I've talked to that has one loves them, we do not have any of the new ones at my yard yet.

 

I've driven one of these max force 13's and I had no power, the truck didn't like to shift either progressively or shut your hand in the door and drive it like you stole it style. This truck had 34000 miles on it and the transmission already had noises coming out of it probably from nobody else knowing what the engine wanted in means of shifting... SO, how's the shifting in yours? Progressive? Rap it out? Middle of the road? Let me know so I don't tear this #### thing up. (I'm not raking)

 

Well as i have read through all the posts(noticed that they go back well into last year btw) One thing I notice it seems to be alot of "I herd"this,,well I just clicked 20,000 on my new ride,,,2012 Prostar with a 13 liter maxxforce and have not one of these issues(I did hear that we had them last year but they(Intl) seem to have wrung out the bugs

Well 20,000 miles and all sort of loads(lightest was 8000 and a Fuel mileage of near 11,heaviest was 46,008/FM was 6.28) and one thing I have noticed more than any other GREAT Frickin FUEL MILEAGE!!!,,7.97 avg in 20,000 miles with a 10 speed,tag axle with Super Singles,,Absolutley the quietest truck I have ever drove!

Go on and keep hating on the engine fellas

Our T-600's with Cats cant even touch a avg of 6
Freightliners with Detroit not any better
New T-660's have the hassle of DEF,and mileage is crapola

 

My Maxx Force engine was a 2009, so maybe they have worked out the bugs.... I am now in a 2012 Mack Pinnacle with their MP 7 engine in it and I can honestly say this is the best pulling truck I have had at this company. I have almost 37k miles on it and my fuel mileage is 7.67 for all those miles. This truck is also very roomy for a day cab. We have Mack CHs and Visons and the Pinnacles are by far a much better truck, so far. It does have the DEF system, but we haven't had any problems with it, again, so far. Last night I pulled 43,000 pounds from Toledo, OH to Dubois, PA and got 7.2 mpg for that leg of my run....

ECU51- I'm not hating on the engine just relaying my bad experiences with it, mine was a piece of junk, and you do ONLY have 20,000 miles on it. Hopefully International did take care of ALL the problems they had with this engine, if you stay in that truck you will surely find out if they haven't ;o)

 

International did a lot of changes with the recent Maxxforce engines. They moved a lot of stuff off the top of them to make it easier to access the cover. They also now have a full blown Jake brake option for them.

Interesting that they bought a big chunk of a Dutch company that has developed solid blocks of ammonia as an alternative to DEF. Supposedly, these blocks would only need to be changed out when the truck gets a normal service. No driver having do anything, which has been Navistar's idea for not using DEF. If they are going to implement the ammonia block idea, it would allow them to tune back on the EGR and then the Maxxforce engines should really start to be more problem free and fewer regens on the DPF's.

Oh well, we'll see how it all plays out.

 

I have a new Maxx Force 13, and found out it that it is a C-13 block... painted a different color(not yellow). Interesting huh?

Have not had any problems yet.

 

The new Cat CT660 and CT680 on highway dump trucks are made in a joint venture with IH. So the engines are probably Cat blocks with joint venture emissions mods.
http://www.cat.com/truck/CT660