(09-03-2019 )Rawze Wrote: ...
I stood there, watching them,,.. and asked "why did you offset the rear axles like that?" ... and the reply was "because of more than 2,000 trucks in the fleet, offsetting them a bit prevents eating steer tires vs. when they are perfectly straight. Adjusting it a bit saves us a bunch of money on tires every year". ... They then went on to tweak and adjust on several other things as well that they knew they had repeating problems with. Things like re-torquing air-bag retaining bolts that tend to come loose on new truck, re-torquing the u-bolts to maximum allowed torque, grinding out the alignment stud holes for the front air bags to prevent pre-mature failure when they move around/settle., replacing the levelling valves with an updated valve body, re-torquing the tranny mounting bolts, a bunch of other things.
Guy stood there and (roughly) said to me that these newer trucks are like buying a cbhineesuim machine tool. - You gotta take it apart and finish/fix all the crap the maker was in too much of a hurry to do properly on a friday afternoon. When you buy and send 500 at a time into service, you tend to see that repeating pattern of mistakes pretty fast.
Well I stand corrected in my assumption. I guess my problem now would be finding someone who could properly align the truck to compensate for the crown in the road. There are no shops, no technician that gives a rats ass about doing proper work.
If you don't mind me asking. Why would a megafleet sell a truck with only 13 miles on it. I am sure its in your blog somewhere. Just curious. Thanks