T700 vs Cascadia

Since my '0 9 Cascadia w/ a DD15 was totalled a year ago I've been in a lease 2013 386 with an ISX 15. In 2 weeks when the lease is up I'll buy again & I'm leaning Freightliner.

I love the way the ISX runs. It pulls great, has nice linear, predictable throttle response and may even use less fuel than than my Detroit. But, it's needed valve guides replaced, the egr cooler replaced and uses a gallon of oil in 3,000 miles, which I'm told is typical of the 30 or so of these my carrier has leased. A lot of them have had in-frames under warranty, Cummins has apparently updated the piston & ring design to control the oil consumption. A lot of ours have also needed turbo's and/or actuators and we have a policy of changing the oil filters when the truck gets lubed between oil changes because they have a proclivity to clog filters and lose oil pressure.

I'm also not crazy about the 70" single bunk sleeper, the storage layout is way inferior to Freightliner or a 63" Pete double bunk. I hate the Pete Nav Center and I don't understand the engine fan programming being such that the fan comes & stays on every time you start the truck up, which raises a huge dust cloud that filthy's up your wash job & blows dust all over your interior if you have a window down.

On the other hand I thought my Cascadia was butt ugly, I hated the switches on the steering wheel and the way the jake brake was programmed. The only way I could make the jake livable was to have it set to come on every time you step on the brakes. IIRC we finally did get the brake lights not to come on with the jake which drove me insane. But the motor needed nothing in the year that I owned, I checked with Detroit before I bought it & it hadn't had any major warranty work done when Wal Mart owned it.

If I buy an ISX I'm going to first perform my due diligence with Cummins to see exactly what's been done to it under warranty, find out if it's had the piston upgrade & be sure the mileage is low enough to see if it has an oil consumption problem and get the problem fixed while it's still under warranty.

 

Check out the T680 KW. Has lots of places to put stuff, rides good and I might suggest looking at the Paccar 500. It's less expensive, weighs 300 lb less than Cummins, is quiet and has good power and economy.

 

Cascadia hands down. I'm a KW guy, but the Cascadia is heads and tails above the T700. That's why they stopped making them. Now a T680 vs a Cascadia? Different story.

 

I've driven a PACCAR, they suck. My carrier wants me to take a new lease on a 2016 579 Pete with a PACCAR motor and an autoshift. If I've earned anything in 40 years of driving it's the right to not drive an ugly truck with a gutless engine and a 10 speed transmission.

The architecture on those engines is moronic. The cam comes out the back of the head, a lot of the accessories are mounted on the rear of the engine, if you need any parts or service you can only go to a Pete or KW dealer and hope they have some inventory and/or a mechanic with enough experience to have a clue.

 

Know someone who shorted traded ( 6 ) KW T-700's with ISX at 14 months instead of his normal 36 months as he could no longer afford the downtime , got new CASCADIAS with DD and very with them , talking about going all FRLR for his fleet.

 

Most likely the engine is designed like that is because they are basically a European DAF engine where they are all cabovers. With the cab up it is easy to get to the accessories, a truck with a hood it is near impossible.

 

Any Cascadia before the year 2015 sucked hard. I am shocked at how much better my Cascadia Evolution is over the old Yugo crap they had previously.