So I get the truck back from the shop, and EGR cooler failing?

I feel for ya’. I got my 680 back, a couple Saturdays ago. Took them 8 days to do a shift stalk and sensor. The sensor was the result of our mechanic going to get the truck and the CEL was on. Shouldn’t have been any issues, given the dealer had it all that time.

 

No sense getting pissed at the dealer if it was a faulty part. They didn't build it.

 

Post the code(s) or the SPN and FMI numbers. What engine do you have?

 

Hate to rub salt in your wound, but first KW, like many others, doesn't care. They have already heard the words.

Second and more importantly is this, I used to say have at least 6 months of operating expenses in the bank to cover down time but seeing dealer times have not just increased by 5 times, in some cases three months for a repair that should take a week, I now am saying that you should have a solid years worth of funds in the bank to cover the downtime. This is getting to be a joke with some dealers who are booked for a couple of weeks on simple things, they blame the lack of labor or a lack of parts but it seems to be something national with some dealers themselves.

 

Just for the record, this is not KW specific, and all dealers are grappling with subpar replacement parts. I'm not sure it's that they don't care, and I'm not crying for dealers, but they also have to put up with employee shortages, and the replacement parts are made in some foreign country, and THEY are the ones that don't care. Hey, when these things were made in Pittsburg, by great people who DID care, are now made in Nagasaki,( who may still hold a grudge) not so much.

 

Hey I get their problems, however it isn’t our problem.

my problem is keeping the trucks running, having one or two down at a dealer is acceptable but when dealer shops have lying mechanic or worst, service managers and managers in general lie and treat customers like *****, I don’t give a crap what their excuses are, fix the truck even if you have to force your employees to work 20 hours a day.

A while back I had a truck sitting for a little over 4 weeks at a Mack dealer down south. This was for a problem first they said the part was on back order, then they claimed they had no one to work on the truck then we were told that the wrong part was sent and a few other excuses.

We were all patient about the problem, had a staff person call every few days for a status update and it was always “the parts are on back order.” The driver has another truck assigned to him but this one was newer and it needed to return to the road.

At the start of the fifth week what I did do was rip the service manager a new ********** while the regional rep was on the phone listening to the bs. This was because 10 days before my mechanic at my in-house shop not just located the part at a dealer in Ohio, he also purchased all the parts that were related to the part they claimed was defective. He sent them via courier, not next day, not via ups/FedEx but dropped them off at dtw to be flown down to the nearest airport then picked up at the airport and hand delivered to only the service manager. All because we had to get the truck fixed.

And what did they do?

They didn’t touch the truck for a week after the parts were delivered. When they finally got to it, the assigned mechanic found the parts in the box have been pilfered (we included a detailed list of parts and pictures were taken of them when they were boxed up), including the one that was claimed as the problem so then claimed first they never got the parts and when confronted with the evidence they were handed to the service manager, they changed their diagnoses of what caused the problem with the truck to cover their ******.

I had enough, when I called the service manager, i was talking to the regional service rep which he had a hard time believing me until he heard the excuses first hand. So a three way call was made. The result was the truck was towed out of there to a third party shop at the dealers expense, they ate the bill and compensated me for the parts that that were delivered to them and they stole and the truck was fixed with a few days which it wasn’t even the issue the dealer claimed it was, it was fuel pressure sensor and the truck has not even had a hicup since.

 

Actually it’s the smart thing to do because there’s no telling how long the trucks going to be in the shop. I’ve seen a 2023 t680 with only 25k miles sit in a shop for weeks because one of its parts were defective and it’s in back order for months. Working or not the banker’s going to want his weekly or monthly payment or he’s going to repo the truck and ruin your credit.