kscarbel2

This is all about Dan Ustian, the former head who was fired way back in 2012. https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/44620-ex-navistar-ceo-ustian-faces-sec-suit-over-emissions-disclosures-misleading-investors/?tab=comments#comment-329265 Ustian tried to take the EGR solution too far, further than MAN did (the source of the engines). It wasn't possibly, reliably, with the EGR technology of the time. There is no relationship, whatsoever, with what transpired in 2010 and today's Navistar.

Navistar Ordered to Pay Milan $30.8 Million in Connection With Flawed Engines Transport Topics / August 14, 2017 A civil jury has awarded a Tennessee trucking company more than $30 million in civil damages for fraud and violation of the state’s consumer protection act in connection with the sale of 243 Navistar International Prostars with Maxxforce engines. The 12-member jury’s unanimous decision upheld allegations that Navistar Inc. failed to disclose to Milan Supply Chain Solutions that it sold the International heavy duty trucks and 13-liter exhaust gas recirculation engines in 2011 and 2012 with “serious known defects in the engine and its components,” Milan said in an Aug. 14 statement. The jury said that the Milan, Tenn.-based motor carrier is entitled to $10.8 million in actual damages and $20 million in punitive damages. In its lawsuit filed in Jackson, Tenn., Milan alleged that Navistar, while touting the quality of its testing program, knew that the trucks had serious flaws and sold the trucks “knowing that the customers would end up becoming the de facto test fleet for Navistar’s new 2010 year model engine,” Milan said. The Maxxforce engine in question was Navistar’s advanced EGR sold between 2010 and 2012. Milan is a logistics company and owner of a commercial trucking fleet that hauls refrigerated and dry van commodities across 48 states. Milan said after it purchased the tractors it experienced numerous breakdowns, specifically with the EGR system EGR coolers and EGR valves. “We’re disappointed in the jury’s verdict and are evaluating our options to challenge it,” Lyndi McMillan, Navistar’s external communications manager, said in a written statement. “We have successfully defended similar claims regarding our MaxxForce 13 engines in several other jurisdictions, including dismissal of claims of fraud in courts in Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Alabama and Illinois.” McMillan said Navistar tested the MaxxForce 13 engine consistent with industry standards. “They were tested for 12 million miles prior to launch under rigorous conditions, in tests cells and on the road,” McMillan said. “At the time of the product launch, we were confident, based on this testing, that the product would perform. All products undergo continuous improvement throughout their life cycle. When some parts unexpectedly failed, we fixed them under warranty for our customers, including Milan Supply. We’ve invested a significant amount of resources standing behind our products and supporting our customers.” In court documents, the truck maker said it conducted millions of miles of road testing with no serious issue or defects in design, components or materials. But when Navistar could not obtain EPA approval for the Maxxforce engine after the expiration of its emissions credits, Navistar switched emission-control technologies using the same selective catalytic reduction technology as its competitors. During the trial, Milan said its attorneys offered evidence and solicited testimony from current and former Navistar executives who said that prior to the launch of the trucks the truck maker had not completed field testing. However, Jack Allen, Navistar’s former president of truck operations, testified in the two-week trial that in his opinion it was “normal business practice” for companies to not disclose to customers in advance of a sale information about known defects in the products or to disclose to customers that they were buying a product that had not been fully validated or tested by the manufacturer, Milan’s lead trial attorney, Clay Miller of Dallas law firm of Miller Weisbrod, told Transport Topics. “Their attitude during the whole trial was arrogance,” Miller said. “They just don’t think they have to stand up and do right by the customer.” But McMillan said, “Navistar strongly disagrees with plaintiff counsel’s characterizations of Navistar’s conduct. Navistar has and will continue to defend our products, our reputation in the market and the integrity of our employees.”

Jury awards trucking company $30 million in Navistar engine case Neil Abt, Fleet Owner / August 14, 2017 Tennessee case involves older EGR engines A Tennessee jury awarded a trucking company more than $30 million in a case involving Navistar’s older generation of trucks and engines. On Aug. 10, the jury in Jackson found Navistar violated the Tennessee Consumer Practice Act, and provided Milan Supply Chain Solutions $10.8 million in actual damages and $20 million in punitive damages. The trucking company sued after purchasing 243 Navistar 2011 and 2012 International Prostars with Maxxforce engines. Navistar said it was “disappointed in the jury's verdict and are evaluating our options to challenge it." Milan accused Navistar of failing to disclose that the Maxxforce 13 liter engine had defects. The engine used exhaust gas recirculation to meet federal emissions standards. However, Navistar later abandoned that technology after it failed to meet regulations. “It appeared the jury’s punitive damage verdict was a message to Navistar that it is not acceptable for the company to cover up important defects in the engines and the engines’ testing program in order to make a sale,” said Clay Miller of the Dallas law firm Miller Weisbrod, lead trial attorney for Milan. The law firm said the jury heard evidence that Milan had lost over $35,000 per truck on trade-in values over the last several years. In an e-mailed statement to Fleet Owner, Navistar defended its actions. “We have successfully defended similar claims regarding our MaxxForce 13 engines in several other jurisdictions, including dismissal of claims of fraud in courts in Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Alabama, and Illinois. “Navistar tested the MaxxForce 13 engine consistent with industry standards. They were tested for 12 million miles prior to launch under rigorous conditions, in tests cells and on the road. At the time of the product launch, we were confident, based on this testing, that the product would perform. All products undergo continuous improvement throughout their lifecycle. When some parts unexpectedly failed, we fixed them under warranty for our customers, including Milan Supply. We’ve invested a significant amount of resources standing behind our products and supporting our customers.” .

Heavy Duty Trucking / August 14, 2017 Navistar Inc. disputes allegations that it didn’t thoroughly test its MaxxForce EGR engines – allegations that surfaced in a lawsuit where a jury last week awarded $30.8 million in damages – including testimony about the engine program by former executive Jim Hebe that the company "did not test s**t". The Tennessee jury found that Navistar committed fraud and violated the Tennessee Consumer Practice Act in connection with the sale of 243 Navistar International ProStars with MaxxForce engines to Milan Supply Chain Solutions. It awarded $10.8 million in actual damages and $20 million in punitive damages. Tennessee-based Milan alleged that Navistar misled them, saying the truck maker failed to disclose that the MaxxForce 13L engine, which used exhaust gas recirculation to meet 2010 emissions standards rather than the selective catalytic reduction being used by other truck and engine makers, was launched with “serious known defects.” Milan also alleged that Navistar, while touting the quality of its testing program, knew that the testing had serious flaws, was incomplete at launch, and put the trucks into customers’ hands knowing that the customers would end up becoming the de facto test fleet for Navistar’s new 2010 year model engine. In a statement, Navistar said it is disappointed in the jury’s verdict and is evaluating its options to challenge it, noting it has successfully defended similar claims in several jurisdictions, including dismissal of claims of fraud in courts in Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Alabama, and Illinois. “Navistar tested the MaxxForce 13 engine consistent with industry standards,” the company said in a statement. “They were tested for 12 million miles prior to launch under rigorous conditions, in test cells and on the road. At the time of the product launch, we were confident, based on this testing, that the product would perform. All products undergo continuous improvement throughout their lifecycle. When some parts unexpectedly failed, we fixed them under warranty for our customers, including Milan Supply. We've invested a significant amount of resources standing behind our products and supporting our customers.” Indeed, those warranty claims have dogged Navistar, being a key factor in many quarters of disappointing financial results. EGR vs. SCR Milan purchased the MaxxForce-powered ProStars in 2011 and 2012. The MaxxForce engine used Navistar’s go-it-alone strategy of “advanced exhaust gas recirculation” to meet EPA 2010 emissions regulations, which it used hoping to avoid the use of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) adopted by other truck and engine makers. However, Navistar was never able to get EPA approval for the MaxxForce engine after the expiration of its emissions credits, at which point it switched emissions-control technologies to SCR. Since that time, Navistar has overhauled its management team and product lineup, moving to engines supplied by Cummins and a new Navistar A26 engine just going into production developed based on proven engine technology from new partner Volkswagen. What would eventually turn out to be an ill-fated decision by Navistar to use Advanced EGR instead of SCR led to numerous quality problems with the engine, which resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of warranty costs to Navistar and losses on the resale market for trucking companies like Milan. During the trial, numerous executives testified either live or by deposition, including the aforementioned comment from Jim Hebe, former senior vice president of North American sales, who said Navistar never tested the final version of the engine before selling it to customers. In an email to current CEO Troy Clarke, Navistar’s current Senior Vice President of Engineering Dennis Mooney quoted former Vice President of Quality Tom Cellitti (who was in charge of testing the Maxxforce engine) as saying over and over again prior to the launch to customers, “we have no field testing,” because the company only tested engineering development trucks rather than validation trucks. In the same email, according to plaintiff’s attorneys, Mooney admitted that customers ended up uncovering problems that Navistar would have uncovered with the Maxxforce had it been able to do more testing. In another email exchange between Mooney and Clarke revealed at the trial, Mooney said the management had told the board of directors in 2013 that the “physics of the EGR strategy is (sic) not sound.” None of these things were ever revealed to the public prior to trial, according to attorneys. The jury also heard evidence that Navistar knew when it launched the engine that critical engine components had serious quality problems and a shortened life span. For instance, the EGR cooler allegedly had a life span of less than 20% of the design requirement based upon testing done before the sale of the engines to the public, according to the attorneys. While the attorneys for the plaintiffs charged that none of this information was disclosed to customers, Jack Allen, the former chief operating officer and president of truck operations, testified for Navistar that in his opinion it was “normal business practice” for companies to not disclose to customers in advance of a sale about known defects in the products or to disclose to customers that they were buying a product that had not been fully validated or tested by the manufacturer. “The jury seemed shocked to hear this testimony about the corporate culture and philosophy of Navistar from one of the company’s top executives,” said Clay Miller of the Dallas law firm Miller Weisbrod, lead trial attorney for Milan, referring to Allen's testimony. Miller said he believed this played a key factor in the punitive award. Milan and its attorneys also criticized Navistar, saying the company refused to work with the fleet to address issues and instead went the litigation route. Navistar said it “strongly disagrees with plaintiff counsel's characterizations of Navistar's conduct. Navistar has and will continue to defend our products, our reputation in the market, and the integrity of our employees.” .

You might want to mention the "6MF" part number cast on the inner side.

Shocking..............call your lawyer ! It was a Mack corporate authorized dealer that failed to "properly" repair your Mack truck. The dealer used genuine Mack brand parts. Mack brand corporate is deeply involved in your whole affair and can not wash their hands of it. (The former Mack Trucks would not have handled the phone call in such a manner, but that's another story.)

But what are the odds that a failure occurs on the day it's surveilling this event. It was reported to be hovering low, one assumes for a purpose, prior to the failure.

Volvo didn't want to spend the money to meet "US" emissions, because sales volume was low. However, Volvo will spend the money for the D16 (aka MP10) to meet Euro-7, because sales volume is high AND their global customer base demands this engine option. The technology is available to meet the new emissions, the newly revised Scania V8 a case in point.

Paul, it sounds like the state police helicopter was shot down. Don't you think? It was intentionally hovering over a neighborhood, typically a surveillance action, and suddenly it spun out and crashed. The public was blocked from the scene............they don't want a rash of copy-cat incidences around the country.

What Mack location are you working with in Alabama? What's the name of your Mack salesman?

David Hollis, Overdrive / August 11, 2017 More than 125 vintage Mack trucks, along with parts and memorabilia, will be on the auction block August 19 in Henniker, New Hampshire. Ryan Auction Sales, which is overseeing the event, will hold a preview Aug. 18 at the auction site, 1492 Old Concord Road in Henniker, northwest of Manchester. Stacy Libby, general manager of Ryan Auction Sales, said 100 or so of the trucks going up for bid come from one man’s collection. Libby said Jeff Remillard has been collecting trucks — Macks, Autocars, Brockways and Whites — since he was 8 years old and feels it is time to “thin the herd” and let his 12-year-old son start restoring trucks of his own. The auction is an absolute auction. There are no minimum prices and no reserves. Among the noteworthy Bulldogs going on the block are: 1961 B 424-X, of which Mack only produced 14, and the one up for sale carries serial number #1 1936 Mack AK documented by Mack as the last one of its kind built, 1939 Mack CJ, one of just 799 made 1936 EB Mack, one of 134 produced two 1965 Mack B47s, which had a total production of 437 units 1958 B 426 cement mixer, one of 221 produced 1971 Mack U 600 dump truck, used in the John Travolta movie, A Civil Action two 1945 Mack LJs, which were produced for a railroad company during World War II, when production was geared mostly toward military vehicles Photo gallery - http://www.overdriveonline.com/more-than-125-vintage-mack-trucks-up-for-auction-aug-19/

AP Explains: How Robert E. Lee went from hero to racist icon Russell Contreras, Associated Press / August 13, 2017 Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee was vilified during the Civil War only to become a heroic symbol of the South's "Lost Cause" - and eventually a racist icon. His transformation, at the center of the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, reflects the changing moods in the United States around race, mythology and national reconciliation, historians say. Lee monuments, memorials and schools in his name erected at the turn of the 20th Century are now facing scrutiny amid a demographically changing nation. But who was Robert E. Lee beyond the myth? Why are there memorials in his honor in the first place? THE SOLDIER A son of American Revolutionary War hero Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, Robert E. Lee graduated second in his class at West Point and distinguished himself in various battles during the U.S.-Mexico War. As tensions heated around southern secession, Lee's former mentor, Gen. Winfield Scott, offered him a post to lead the Union's forces against the South. Lee declined, citing his reservations about fighting against his home state of Virginia. Lee accepted a leadership role in the Confederate forces although he had little experience leading troops. He struggled but eventually became a general in the Confederate Army, winning battles largely because of incompetent Union Gen. George McClellan. He would win other important battles against other Union's generals, but he was often stalled. He was famously defeated at Gettysburg by Union Maj. Gen. George Meade. Historians say Lee's massed infantry assault across a wide plain was a gross miscalculation in the era of artillery and rifle fire. A few weeks after becoming the general in chief of the armies of the Confederate states, Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865. THE SLAVE OWNER A career army officer, Lee didn't have much wealth, but he inherited a few slaves from his mother. Still, Lee married into one of the wealthiest slave-holding families in Virginia - the Custis family of Arlington and descendants of Martha Washington. When Lee's father-in-law died, he took leave from the U.S. Army to run the struggling estate and met resistance from slaves expecting to be freed. Documents show Lee was a cruel figure with his slaves and encouraged his overseers to severely beat slaves captured after trying to escape. One slave said Lee was one of the meanest men she had ever met. In a 1856 letter, Lee wrote that slavery is "a moral & political evil." But Lee also wrote in the same letter that God would be the one responsible for emancipation and blacks were better off in the U.S. than Africa. THE LOST CAUSE ICON After the Civil War, Lee resisted efforts to build Confederate monuments in his honor and instead wanted the nation to move on from the Civil War. After his death, Southerners adopted "The Lost Cause" revisionist narrative about the Civil War and placed Lee as its central figure. The Lost Cause argued the South knew it was fighting a losing war and decided to fight it anyway on principle. It also tried to argue that the war was not about slavery but high constitutional ideals. As The Lost Cause narrative grew in popularity, proponents pushed to memorialize Lee, ignoring his deficiencies as a general and his role as a slave owner. Lee monuments went up in the 1920s just as the Ku Klux Klan was experiencing a resurgence and new Jim Crow segregation laws were adopted. The Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, went up in 1924. A year later, the U.S. Congress voted to use federal funds to restore the Lee mansion in the Arlington National Cemetery. The U.S. Mint issued a coin in his honor, and Lee has been on five postage stamps. No other Union figure besides President Abraham Lincoln has similar honors. A NEW MEMORY A generation after the civil rights movement, black and Latino residents began pressuring elected officials to dismantle Lee and other Confederate memorials in places like New Orleans, Houston and South Carolina. The removals partly were based on violent acts committed white supremacists using Confederate imagery and historians questioning the legitimacy of The Lost Cause. A Gen. Robert E. Lee statue was removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans as the last of four monuments to Confederate-era figures to be removed under a 2015 City Council vote. The Houston Independent School District also voted in 2016 to rename Robert E. Lee High School, a school with a large Latino population, as Margaret Long Wisdom High School. Earlier this year, the Charlottesville, Virginia, City Council voted to remove its Lee statue from a city park, sparking a lawsuit from opponents of the move. The debate also drew opposition from white supremacists and neo-Nazis who revered Lee and the Confederacy. The opposition resulted in rallies to defend Lee statues this weekend that resulted in at least three deaths. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Statue at the Center of Charlottesville’s Storm The New York Times / August 13, 2017 Since white nationalists marched Friday in Charlottesville, Va., the quiet college town has seen a nighttime brawl lit up by torches and smartphones, and worse violence that left one person dead and dozens injured. At the center of the chaos is a statue memorializing Robert E. Lee. It depicts the Confederacy’s top general, larger than life, astride a horse, both green with oxidation. The white nationalists were in Charlottesville to protest the city’s plan to remove that statue, and counterdemonstrators were there to oppose them. The statue — begun by Henry Merwin Shrady, a New York sculptor, and finished after his death by an Italian, Leo Lentelli — had stood in the city since 1924. But over the past couple of years some residents and city officials, along with organizations like the N.A.A.C.P., had called for it to come down. One local official made a similar suggestion as early as 2012 and quickly discovered that emotions surrounding the issue run deep. ‘Ugly stuff bubbled up’ It was during the Virginia Festival of the Book, a series of readings and events held every year in AlbemarleCounty, which includes Charlottesville. At a talk given by the author and historian Edward Ayers, a Charlottesville city councilor, Kristin Szakos, asked about the city’s Confederate monuments. She wondered whether the city should discuss removing them. People around her gasped. “You would have thought I had asked if it was O.K. to torture puppies,” she recalled during a 2013 conversation on BackStory, a podcast supported by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The response to her comment was heated, and swift. Ms. Szakos said she received threats via phone and email. “I felt like I had put a stick in the ground, and kind of ugly stuff bubbled up from it,” she said. It was a local turning point, helped along by national events. Ms. Szakos’s comment came about a month after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17, in Florida. The trial and eventual acquittal of the man who shot him, George Zimmerman, helped fan the flames of the Black Lives Matter protests, which erupted into full force in 2014 following the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. By 2015, debates about Confederate flags and monuments were heating up in Southern states including South Carolina, Texas and Louisiana. Those who favored removal saw the symbols as monuments to white supremacy, but their opponents accused them of trying to erase history. In Charlottesville that year, someone spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” on the foundation of the Lee statue. City workers cleaned it quickly, leaving only a faint outline. Buildup to a vote By 2016, Wes Bellamy, another Charlottesville city councilor and the city’s vice mayor, had become a champion of efforts to remove Confederate monuments. At a news conference in front of the Lee statue in March of that year, he said the City Council would appoint a commission to discuss the issue. “When I see the multitude of people here who are so passionate about correcting something that they feel should have been done a long time ago, I am encouraged,” he said to the crowd of residents in front of him. Some clapped. Others shouted, accusing Mr. Bellamy of sowing division. That same month, Zyahna Bryant, a high school student, petitioned the City Council asking for the Lee statue to be removed. “My peers and I feel strongly about the removal of the statue because it makes us feel uncomfortable and it is very offensive,” she wrote in the petition, which collected hundreds of signatures. The City Council established its special commission in May 2016. Later that year, it issued a report suggesting that the city could either relocate the Lee statue or transform it with the “inclusion of new accurate historical information.” The addition of historical context might have been welcomed by some defenders of the statues. One group, Friends of C’Ville Monuments, said on its website that statues could be improved “by adding more informative, better detailed explanations of the history of the statues and what they can teach us.” But in February, the City Council voted to remove the statue from the park. Opponents of the move sued in March, arguing that the city did not have the authority to do so under state law. That court case is continuing, and the statue has remained in place. It was the focal point for a gathering held in May by the white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was among the demonstrators in Charlottesville this weekend. In June, the City Council gave Lee Park a new name — EmancipationPark. ‘Unite the Right’ The rally that descended into violence Saturday was organized by Jason Kessler, a relative newcomer to the white nationalist scene who is well known in Charlottesville, where he has fought against the city’s status as a sanctuary city for immigrants. A self-described “journalist, activist and author,” Mr. Kessler also waged a monthslong online media campaign against Mr. Bellamy, whom he depicted as anti-white. More recently, Mr. Kessler became involved in the fight against renaming Lee Park — one reason for the “Unite the Right” rally this weekend. The rally was by far Mr. Kessler’s largest undertaking yet. Last week, he won an injunction in federal court against the city, which had voted to revoke a permit for the rally. “This is my First Amendment right,” Mr. Kessler said of the rally during a news conference on Thursday. “This is the right of every American to be able to peaceably assemble and speak their mind free of intimidation. That’s why I decided to do it.” With the lawsuit over the Lee statue still unresolved, it remains unclear what will become of it. The violence this weekend was one of the bloodiest fights over the campaigns across the South to remove Confederate monuments, and the statue remains a lightning rod in Charlottesville. Mr. Spencer, for his part, has promised to return. .

You cleaned up the metal shavings ??? Did you photograph the "evidence" beforehand?

For heaven's sakes, don't any of these people have a life........something better to do? Three lives senselessly and prematurely snuffed out. Why not head down to the Outer Banks with your family for some fishing, take them down to Virginia Beach, head over to West Virginia and canoe the Greenbrier river, or get on with restoring your prized classic car or truck? All lives matter........white, black, purple, pink and other. If/when our sun dies, a nuclear mushroom appears on the horizon, or an overdue meteor hits the earth with such force that.................., all this is going to immediately fade into insignificance. Cultural decay and declining standards of behavior in our beloved United States. . . . .

In choosing a truck, it is so important to choose a strong dealer as well. It's all about the owner, the distributor. His "attitude", good or bad, spreads throughout the dealer. After the US truck makers (Mack, International, ect.) got away from factory-owned branches, Scania went the opposite direction to as to offer a consistent customer experience. Today, most Scania sales and service locations are owned directly by Scania. You can promise so much more when you're in control. But that's only half the story. You have to genuinely care about the customer, which Scania does. "Real" silicone coolant hoses from good manufacturers like Flexfab are good, Silicone-appearing fake coolant hoses are junk.

So you have contacted a lawyer, ceased disturbing the "evidence", and plan to contact Mack corporate on Monday demanding nothing less than a complete reman engine............yes?

There is no website I know of in the world that has such a warm family, such a fine group of people. It is a genuine honor and privilege to be a part of this very special family that extends throughout the world. Barry, you must be so proud.

I myself believe this is something to pay attention to. First, the development of artificial intelligence is likely 3 times further ahead in development than is openly acknowledged, owing to the potential for military applications (in the never-ending race to destroy ourselves). And second, there's always that group of scientist that thinks they know what's best for mankind..........and think they can control it..............

Elon Musk issues a stark warning about artificial intelligence CNBC / August 11, 2017 Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired off a new and ominous warning on Friday about artificial intelligence, suggesting the emerging technology poses an even greater risk to the world than a nuclear conflagration with North Korea. Musk—a fierce and long time critic of A.I. who once likened it to "summoning the demon" in a horror movie—said in a Twitter post that people should be concerned about the rise of the machines than they are. Reacting to the news that autonomous tech had bested competitive players in an electronic sports competition, Musk posted what appeared to be a photo of a poster bearing the chilling words "In the end, the machines will win." Musk, who is spearheading commercial space travel with his venture SpaceX, is also the founder of OpenAI, a nonprofit that promotes the "safe" development of AI. His stance puts him at odds with much of the tech industry, but echoes remarks of prominent voices like Stephen Hawking—who has also issued dire warnings about machine learning. If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea. pic.twitter.com/2z0tiid0lc — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017 Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that's a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2017 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind BBC / December 2, 2014 Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. He told the BBC:"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI. Prof Hawking fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans. "It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said. "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."

Speaking with a great deal of understanding of how North American and global truckmakers work, I once more respectfully suggest, and much more so now, that you call Volvo Group's Mack brand customer satisfaction hotline (U.S. and Canada) at +1 (866) 298-6586 and start working this problem from that angle as well. It would make a huge difference when the dealers involved know that Greensboro is following this. I myself would have called Mack, and also had a reman head installed at the original repairing dealer's expense. That Volvo Group's Ontario PDC (parts distribution center) didn't have reman heads in stock for your truck is another red flag.

Now I'm going to get serious.............. I think that it's pathetic that a truckmaker charges Mack truck operators money for an Operator's Handbook. In the interest of spurring greater sales, wouldn't Volvo want operators to fully understand the operational features of their truck for maximum satisfaction and optimized operation? How would it harm the Mack brand to offer the handbook by free PDF download ? Even if the recipient bought the truck used, providing an Operator's Handbook free-of-charge could result in a new truck sale down the road. We're not talking about comprehensive service manuals. Online Operator's Handbook PDF downloads would cause no expense to Volvo Group, and yet be a display of goodwill to serve the Mack brand's image. For now, you have to pay $19 for a TS82304 (Mack CX Series Operators Handbook. 2003-2004) https://macktrucks.vg-emedia.com/InformationListing.aspx?GroupId=593

You can upgrade 34,000lb Mack taperleaf (parabolic) springs to 38,000 taperleaf (4QK3368AM to 4QK3369AM). But you wouldn't want 44,000 capacity taperleaf springs (if even aftermarket available) on 34,000 capacity Mack (ST34) axles.