Kevin Rutherfrauds $200000 Signature glider truck has complete engine failure!!!

Double Yellow, I'd looked at those, the thing I noticed was how high the fuel dilution was... I don't ever remember seeing that high a number on any sample I'd ever run.

 

Cowpie's Columbia has a RELIABILT Detroit engine in it, not a Detroit that was put together by whoever. So I don't see Detroit putting mismatched parts in any engine they build. I've heard Fitzgerald builds their own Detroit engine with Chinese aftermarket parts or u can buy from their Detroit dealer, again this is all I have heard I have no facts if this is true about Fitzgerald or not. But if it were true about Fitzgerald using aftermarket products, now there I could see mismatched parts. Who knows anymore. But I do tend to believe that the owners of this signature glider didn't know how to operate/run the truck. This was obviously a truck that needed skill to drive & seems like they didn't have it. This wasn'tisn't a swift fleet truck. smh, I don't expect Bruce or kr to stand behind nothingit when they started throwing parts @ it to fix it. That right there tells me they didn't know what they're doing

 

What is with the mismatched parts? That's the sort of bogus excuse of the ignorant. Isn't that what KR is saying now? Mismatched parts? How does a company like Fitzgerald who has been in business for years and obviously has a good thing going keep growing by putting shoddy engines in their trucks? Lemons happen but I don't buy the strange "mismatched parts" argument. It's idiotic. Shade tree mechanics might mismatch parts. I can't imagine Fitz buying hodgepodge mix of parts.

 

I think KR is referring to Detroit reman engines, not Fitz engines. He had a caller today who had one of these low fuel mileage (6.2) engines in a Harrison truck. I am a little unclear too, they mentioned Detroit engine shops. I was under the impression the Reliabilt engines were assembled at the same engine factory as the new ones. Obviously, not the exact same process, but the same tolerances and assembly practices. The way they make it sound they have outside shops contracted to build them, and they are implying they are using blocks and parts they would not have used 6 months or a year ago due to short supply. I find this hard to believe, I just can't believe Detroit would risk the reputation of their reman engines by lowering standards. Seems more likely they would start cranking out new ones to meet demand, even if it meant raising the price.

 

Ask any cat guy about reman part quality .... .


I get 6% oil dilution all the time. When it was under warrantee cat said no problem.
B.S. I say...

 

I stand corrected... from a previous post I gathered they hadn't changed the oil until 50,000.

 

I don't know about Cats stance on dilution, but oil consumption under warranty, they think it has to burn more than a quart in 500 miles before they think it's an issue. That's what they told me years ago, could have changed, but doubt it. 5-6 gallons in 10,000-12,000 miles

 

Yeah, they posted on facebook that they went 50,000 miles on conventional oil before switching to synthetic; I misinterpreted that to mean 50,000 miles on the same conventional oil...

 

Kind of waited to see how this thing unfolded before chiming in. I'm mildly a fan of KR, definitely not a fanatic. IMO, he's the guy that figured out to make himself a motivational speaker of trucking and make a living at it. So what? It's entertainment to me. I hear just as much bad advice and nonsense as good. So sorry the owners of the subject truck are dealing with this, hope it works out for them. Not me in a million years. So that being said...

I think any factory reman is going to be second rate at best. There's a triple constraint to anything you do. Three things always apply, you only get to pick two: time, quality, price. You start doing stuff on an assembly line, it's done that way to reduce cost, in part by boosting production. Yep, quality is the item you don't get. I don't care who's big company name is on the box, the level of care is lesser. Not much personal experience with big diesels, but plenty with automotive gas engines. The very best examples came from specialty machine shops. You send them your long block and wait a week. It comes back ready to go, right out of the box, and it ain't cheap. No magical break in process. Circulate the oil, clear the air out of the coolant, and you're ready for the dragstrip. It's either gonna blow up right away, or last forever. If it blows up, the man that built it will stand behind it and make it right.

My 2¢ on why PP used a reman to start with. It's a fast/easy way to get (what one might think to be) a complete, known good assembly. That is all. I don't believe there was any further agenda other than to save time collecting parts.

Regarding the mismatched parts theory. It's hogwash, mostly. I qualify that because I know from personal experience there are some unicorns out there among the usual, known configurations. I just junked a truck because it had a early S-60 14L egr engine that would not match to anything else except that exact production. It was going to cost more than the truck was worth to fix it, versus being able to use an out-of-frame exchange from a reputable, small builder. Most times, the engine vin and OEM parts supplier will suss that out. If one was building on an assembly line, maybe that wouldn't be tracked as closely. Likewise, in a shop that carries stock parts. Are they looking up every engine vin to verify? Or just grabbing what they need off the shelf and tossing it in. Otherwise, I'm in agreement with others: the core is the core and most of the tuning is in the ecm.

I also tend to agree with others about the add-ons. It comes down to real break even scenarios that aren't hype. Too much spending dollars to save pennies.

 

That's the good, fast, and cheap rule. I would argue factory, assembly line products are good and cheap, not fast. You get the illusion of it being fast, because they can roll em right down the line. But the time was spent in the engineering, research and development beforehand.