Caterpillar Warranty's Not Being Honored Anymore?

You gonna trade off your fuel guzzling cat now...[/QUOTE]
Darn skippy! I'm tired of driving around with the fuel caps off to keep the engine from collapsing the tanks! Just think, you could take all 15 of those Turbo3000D's off your current truck (we all know that how you get anything over 3mpg with a Cat) and ride in style in a new Cascadia or Vulva!

 

Darn skippy! I'm tired of driving around with the fuel caps off to keep the engine from collapsing the tanks! Just think, you could take all 15 of those Turbo3000D's off your current truck (we all know that how you get anything over 3mpg with a Cat) and ride in style in a new Cascadia or Vulva![/QUOTE]

Let me know I'm in the market to go bancrupt with that fuel sucking cat so I might buy it... Oh wait I forgot you only have half a truck...

 

Hey it would go good with your half a trailer!

 

Hey now FYDA don't question "trucker CB radio ball park facts". Caterpillar doesn't pay you for warranty repairs anymore, you just fix 'em out of the goodness of your heart!

 

Now thats a good one!
We need to meet up and swap trailers. That way it will know what its like to be hooked to a real full size truck....

 

I worked on a lot of CAT's and when the Acert came out and the repairs took longer and longer, they would balk. They built the thing and expected you to repair it in the same time they could do it if it was on an engine stand. The intake housing on the second turbo, is made of cast steel and is tucked under the fender extension.
Early on when the IVA, intake valve actuators were first having problems, they gave you, list of things to check one was the oil intake pipe that ran up the right rear of the engine under the cab behind the turbo, no way to access it, do the test then you had to drive it for at least an hour to clear out the fuel. Then do a valve set, then do a test drive it for an hour, swap the IVA heads and do another valve set and another test, in between you have to disconnect senders and check preasures and "O" rings. They would not allow you to get the parts you knew you would need, until every test was done, it took at least 10 hours to do the checks and would pay you 5. That did not cover the testing and drives to clear out the fuel.
Cat bet the works on a design that did not work. They were loosing market share, only 3% of Freightliners came with "CAT's"
The ISX and the DD16 cover the big power demands and are more efficient.
You can like a brand and buy it because you like it but the bigger companies buy a truck to make money. They were not ordering trucks with CATS. Just a thought!

 

HA! The bigger companies buy trucks to make money but not by hauling freight. They make their money with the "lease purchase" programs which some guys are paying $700 per week in truck payments for the honor of driving a POS stripped down company spec'd truck with over 500,000 miles. Prime example is O&S Trucking in Springfield, MO

 

Not every thing done is a conspiracy, Cat made some great engines in there day, they made bad choices, as far a the design. They were cutting edge, and did not develop it.
As far as trucking companies selling trucks to drivers, I have seen lots of guys do it.
One group spends all there money they make on stereo equipment and new seats. They drive the truck like they stole it, put fancy programmers on the engine to get that little extra.
The other does the maintenance and builds up a fund to pay for repairs. drives it as if they had eggs under the throttle.
One goes broke and blames everyone else, and burns his bridges.
The other, may also go broke the first time, the second time but many times he will make it, and he builds a list of contacts and trusted suppliers.
Just a thought!

 

I talked to my local Pete dealer and he said that cat will be back with a new truck engine and he says they might even come out with their own line of trucks. Guess we will have to wait and see.

 

WELL...... as many members of this forum already know, an ACERT is very capable of getting respectable fuel mileage AND running circles around nearly anything else out there. A few inexpensive mods will get an average ACERT a mile to the gallon improvement and change the character of the way it runs and drives, all while running well more than a million miles without cracking it open. My BXS has 764,000 miles on it and I drive it like I respect what it can do and what it costs to repair! It uses no oil, has no leaks and has had no major components replaced or repaired to date.

Then we have the EGR Gang - Cummins, Detroit and The Others. Do I really need to go into the nightmarish litany of EGR related problems, poor performance and warranty avoidance when a dealer finally throws up his hands in frustration after fixing or replacing an EGR or related components multiple times and is facing doing it multiple more before the warranty expires???

My 2 cents worth is that all of the engines are built as compromises to satisfy the EPA and the accountants. They all have potential to perform properly and economically if you're open minded to find and use the technology available. There is plenty of quality aftermarket technology that will correct the shortcomings of any of them - including programmers that pay for themselves in fuel mileage gains. This forum is an excellent source of information to do just that. As someone else said, I'm constantly amazed by the amount of knowledge shared here!