Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

I think the goal is to have all "in house" components so that any warranty work is all done internally. Last time I was here, one of the many failed trucks I was assigned was a KW. I drove it from Deland to the Orlando KW dealer because allegedly it's front nanny radar was having issues and, at that time, Crete shops didn't have the ECM software for the Cummins in order to diagnose and fix it. When I got to the dealer, when they pluged their laptop into it, they determined that the engine ecm was faulty, but Cummins wouldn't warranty it until KW went thru the wiring harness for the whole truck to make sure none of the connections that had any communication with the ecm weren't causing the issue, and they estimated that it was gonna be a couple weeks before they completed repairs. If it were all Paccar, then it would have been replaced. So I had to jump over all sorts of dash panels and interior parts to unload my stuff in the service bay.

 

I think the only trucks in the fleet with Cummins are gonna be KW. The reason I asked about Freightliner was I had thought that Freightliner would only install their own engine in their trucks. After I posted that, I Googled it, as it turns out, Cummins engines are compatible with any currently produced truck models, including Freightliner.

 

cost, pure and simple. I had a Volvo. It had some minor issues, but overall, it was reliable. However, Volvos cost more initially and the parts are much more expensive along with the dealer's labor charges are more. Plus, parts availability is another issue. And the Volvo is a much less comfortable truck. They used to ride like a Caddy, but the one I drove rode more like an apple cart than a 20,000 lb truck. And that's another issue, Volvos are notoriously heavy. My Volvo and an aluminum flatbed was right at 34,500 where the KW with the same trailer was around 33,000. Given the choice between a Cascadia and a Volvo, it's a toss up, I hate both. But between a Volvo and a KW, it's KW hands down.