Engine/ transmission advices

If it has this on the dashboard, walk away.

 

Anything MX-11/13 are literal ####. Cummins in the i think 2010 to 2015 range had ceramic parts that tended to destroy engines. Anything in the 07 to 2015 range should be avoided due to new emissions causeing a lot of issues....especially paccar and maxxforce. Acert twin turbo cat engines had tons of issues and were crap detroits never really heard anything bad about them other then they drool and the 07-14 ones were boat anchors due to the same emissions issues as everyone else. Volvo and mack engines were fairly to my knowledge at least middle of the road. no major issues save the usual emissions bullshittery of the first couple gens.

Transmissions are all fairly decent as far as i know though the alison autos had a spate of computer issues and some of the new eatons have them. They arent great for walking out of mud and offroading but are pretty decent onroad nowadays. Ive never used an auto save the first gen models and those like to throw you through windshields or through the back of your rig and are gutless wonders in general.

Otherwise any modern truck save paccar garbage are about level in terms of reliability overall. Cummins break more but are cheaper to fix. Mack and volvos are the most reliable overall but if they break boy howdy lube up before you bend over because we are talking tree trunk here for the penetration your wallet is about to get. detroits are middle of the pack in terms of everything nowadays. And paccars are again hot diarrhea spewed from the #### of a year dead zombie horse with a prolapsed colon infested with maggots that has been violated by every single one of grandfather nurgles demon host....twice and thrice on sunday.

Pre emissions wise. Non acert cats are the most durable and easiest to limp bypass or field repair engines best models were the 3406B 3406E and 6NZ also best imo for raw power and torque also have the largest fan base and most likely to get support for the longest. However a wound up cat eats fuel like a starving fat man at an all you can eat 24/7 taco buffet. Cummins n14s were good reliable runners though needed rebuilds around the 500k mark pretty consistantly but were good on fuel. And DD60s were zombie engines. Drooled leaked and pissed everywhere but #### near unkillable if maintained well also not as good as cummins for fuel but better then cats by a mile.

Others may have more expeince with other motors mine are cummins, cats and paccraps.

Oh and also paccars are garbage. Did i mention that?

 

You owe me a new iPad for that comment. lol

 

Well i mean am i wrong about paccars? Well i may be wrong but i am deffo not uncertain ;p

 

Pure poetry.

 

Never heard of any disdain for Eaton Fuller. Rockwell, Spicer, Meritor, yes

 

Anything pre epa07 standards is good and can be reliable. Epa10 and newer its a hit n miss. The thing about Cummins is theres people that been able to reach million miles and those that blew apart 200-300k range. The front gear housing is notorious for oil leaks and rear main seal as well. The main beauty of Cummins is that since every truck manufacturer opts them that parts are easy to come across. Detroits mostly the 1box issues other then that not to bad. Volvo and mack I've seen to be the most reliable with the after treatment stuff out of the 3. Main issue is trying to find the parts for them is more tricky and dealers never have anything from my experiences. Paccar majority of the people i know with them say the epa17 are pretty good. All in all its a pick your poison kind of deal.

 

My current truck has one of those (Advantage) behind an X15 and it works just fine.

Now the old AutoShifts, those things were total $#!+boxes.

 

To the op, I have been using Macks with Mack drive trains in it (mix of auto shifts and 18 speeds) for a while and almost all my other brands are all cummins - I have a couple DD and a few cats (which the cats cost the most money of all of them). The reason I prefer cummins is simple, it is one engine I can stock parts for and if there is an issue getting a part, I can send it out to get the truck on the road, and I have in the past a bunch of times.

I prefer 18 sp trans in anything I order but I have a bunch of 13 sp, a number of a 10 and a couple 8LL with some auto shifts and ONE Allison automatic (which isn't used much because everyone hates the truck).

I learned a long time ago that all engines are good to a point, I learned from Detroit themselves that you can have two engines built by the same people on the same line next to each other, both dyno the same and one will run a million miles without an issue while the other will bomb before it makes 50k.

So it comes down to personal preference when you dig down into engines and trans.