Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

In EU a lease means the following:trucking co buys trucks thru a finance co.
Makes the monthly payments.
At the end off the term off the lease there is a balloon payment which is less then the worth off the truck.
So they pay the balloon but sell the truck asap.
Because there is very little capital locked up in the truck,this is the way all cash starved co operate.

 

The cash and carry companies , cash flow is not a issue. They run a three year trade cycle . 1500 truck fleet buys 500 each year . One big check. If you do not have the cash , you do not carry. Wish more companies would work like that. Keeps from getting into trouble . No way to overextend your self.

 

Another issue is that in the EU every truck will need a legal inspection every year. All important aspects of the truck will be checked, incl. the emissions.

However when the authorities do random inspections on the highway, many trucks have problems. The older the trucks are, the more problems they will have. Keeping an older truck in good condition is expensive, and in Western Europe labour costs are a large part of these expenses. In the Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, the wages are much lower, so for a truck owner there it may pay off to have more intensive maintenance costs for older trucks.

 

here it is every 3 months.....

 

Perhaps because the trucks in Croatia are a bit older?

 

maybe but it is YU law , back then trucks were younger in average,

this apply too for taxi, buses, driving school cars etc....

 

Annual inspections are normal.

 

How long you can keep an older truck running depends a lot on how many parts the main dealers hold. Here in the EU you will only get a Scania fuel filter from either Scania or an all makes parts place. In the past the US truck manafacturers would all fit the same engines and transmissions allowing a Cummins fuel filter to be obtained from any truck dealer. Sadly it looks as though you wil be in the same position as we are.
One thing I notice about the European cabover is how tlghtly packed the components on the chassis are. We can run 44 tonnes in the UK on 6 axles. There is very little room left either inside or outside of the frame.

 

Sometimes I can see that old trucks were upgrade with newer parts.

I saw many engine swaps. but now if engine in old truck fails, no one fit engine with EGR ore DEF. All try to find pre EGR engine and use it

 

And ours are available in such configurations, if so desired. Manufacturers build the trucks to the specs as they were ordered.. if that one doesn't have such specs, then it wasn't ordered that way. European manufacturers aren't just going to arbitrarily add features that the customer didn't order, either.

You're acting as if all armored vehicles are tanks. These are vehicles simply designed to offer ballistic protection. Not only do the police use such vehicles, but so do vehicles which transport large sums of money, sensitive documents, etc., and I've seen those in Europe, as well. As for the appearance of the vehicles, yeah, a lot of the specs might be excess to needs, but here's the thing of it. Those armored vehicles come from one of two sources.. surplus stocks from the military, or the civil market. In the case of the former, there'll be a lower initial cost, but higher maintenance costs, especially as a lot of components will be proprietary. In the case of the latter, the long term maintenance costs will be lower, as they tend to be built up from COTS platforms. Now, in the case of the latter, it's not a massive market... the manufacturers of these vehicles don't have such a market share that they can tailor make each vehicle to each application, so they create a general platform which can be used across all their target markets - police and export customers, namely. We're not talking about vehicles that'll get replaced every year - these aren't vehicles used for patrol, but rather, kept on standby and called out as needed. Not really a different concept than what is practiced by police forces around the world, but I suppose media sensationalism might lead you to believe that the police patrol the streets in these armored vehicles.

And the police can chase outside of their respective jurisdictions, as well. We don't have any such arrangement with Mexico and Canada, and your non-EU countries often don't, either... hell, some not even within their own country, at that! Look at Bosnia, for instance, where police from areas which were part of the Federation can't pursue fleeing criminals into the Republika Srpska.

Again, the Sheriff's Department can be 'local' to quite a large area, not to mention the role of such a department can vary greatly. Denver is incorporated as a city and county, so the Sheriff's Office provides corrections, bailiff, etc. services, and the Denver Police Department does all other law enforcement functions. In other counties, that isn't the case. The 'local' Sheriff in San Bernardino County, California has jurisdiction of an area of 52,072 square kilometers, while the state itself has a land area of 423,970 square kilometers. It's only common sense that a localized agency in a region will respond more readily to local situations than an agency which might be headquartered all the way on the other side of the state, not to mention that multi-agency callups are going to be slower than a single agency callup.