Trucking in North America vs around the world

You need to understand one thing:
When Daf had faulty orings under injectors, they blamed users for bad fuel quality. Meantime then made new part which solved the issue. If you had warranty and you shout loud enough, you had 1 oring replaced at a time. Otherwise you had to pay, even though it was clearly Dafs fault.

I had 1 truck which had problems even to start the engine. It was towed to service in Osnabruck (Germany) where they said all is ok.
The company I work for (Nordfrost) was really NOT happy when they heard that I tell them truck doesn't work, and service was like, truck is fine.
I asked Daf to print all 20 pages of fault codes, and I sent it to owner of Nordfrost. Told him, if he thinks that a working truck has 20 pages of fault codes, then I can load the truck with fresh goods again and go to the other side of Europe.

Guess what? He called them, explained that they are bunch of liers. They replaced ALL orings at once in next hour, washed the truck, and handed it back to me with big sorry.

I almost lost work because of this POS truck.

I had power steering issue in one of Dafs, after 3 days they told me they will replace steering pump under warranty, but it's not usual thing, and they only do it for me. I'm standing at the dealership, talking on the phone and then another guys shows up with exactly the same problem, and you know what they tell him? That they never heard about this issue!! I bursted laughing.

PCV valve? They will all fail at some point, everyone is aware of it, any recall, or something? No, just pay out of your pocket.

Etc.

Never, ever again a Daf, unless they sell it for nothing.

 

I have 2 exactly the same Dafs, both almost same spec, both are automatic, I have GPS software from Daf, and I have 3 guys who drive those trucks all the time, I also drove them.

There is NO difference in drivers, driving style, it's just one truck is using 32l/100 km and the other around 28l/100. Daf said they can even replace whole engine if I want, but only if I pay for it. ..

 

If you are thinking about software which is rating drivers driving style, giving starts, precents, it's BS, it doesn't work.

 

Well, we see results of this tuning, terrible fuel consumption.

 

Caesar, it's the same BS everywhere you go, and Daf is well aware of it. Polish dealership was also replacing one injector oring at a time, and telling customers that it's their fault.
Why there was no recall for those stupid orings from Daf? Because it costs, and it's easier to blame customer. But ofc, newer truck had different orings which solved the issue.

The only reason why the dealer from Osnabruck fixed my truck, was that the owner of Nordfrost had 30 Dafs himself, and was also a good customer of their. Well, as you can imagine, he didn't buy new Dafs but Mercedes.

If you are a small company like me, it's not all sunshine and rainbow, people really try to screw you over every single moment. If you have 10000 trucks then it probably makes no difference for you, if one of them is broken, for me it makes really huge difference.

 

did not prove on our construction conditions...
they could not stand with our trucks on site, were mostly parked, later they used them to haul aggregates and asphalt




they had lot of service trucks, fuel and water tanks, cranes, etc. i have somewhere photo of grey school bus












this was tipical load for our trucks

 

well lot of things sum

lower speed than you have 85kmh works quite fine
higher temp of engine work temp reduce drag
longer axle ratios since we dont have high loads
tires with lower rolling resistance (dont work in australian climate conditions)
only 12 tires
our trailers have about 20cm longer front overhang, so less gap between cab and trailer....
side skirts at tractors

 

I forgot to tell you funny story.

I'm based in Gdansk, north of Poland, we have official dealer of MB Trucks here, really fancy place, marble on the walls secretaries in high heels, few sales guys, couple of directors which do gods knows what.

So there was a transport company located circa 150 km from Gdansk, where owner decided to also become MB dealer. Employed 2 sales guys, transformed his workshop so he could also work on MB. Just very efficient way to lower his costs (he got trucks cheap) and make some money on the side.

As you can imagine, truck prices where few thousand euros lower in 2nd place, so only idiots bought trucks in Gdansk dealership. So what they did? Try to lower the costs? Fire all unnecessary people? Nope, they complained to MB, so they set minimum prices around Poland and started regionalization, so dealers wouldn't compete.

Result is the prices of MB are now so high, that nearly nobody buys them, even this transport company who started this mess recently bought couple of Volvos just to piss MB.
Socialism at its finest

 

It did before Paccar bought Daf as a shortcut to a in house engine……

now I’m not so sure…..you have KW , Pete and Western Star. All bastardized by euro management thinking…. I’d throw Mack in there for construction vehicles too…..

Very Sad…..

 

The European influence is why trucks have become like cars, all proprietary. Back in the good old days they could build you a truck to 100% your specs. Now we have like 2 engine choices and a small handful of transmission and diff options. I remember being able to take a truck of any brand to any dealer and they'd be more than happy to work on it.