Maxidyne

Could we have our old Ford back, please?

Ford's plan changes every couple weeks... Clearly they have no real plan.

There's a half dozen makers who can produce a basic "municipal" truck for less then T-Line... T-Line needs to offer trucks to fit the niche markets the big makers ignore instead of compete with them head on.

This may be the one thing Ford is doing right... Globally over a billion people live in low to mid population density markets where parking is readily available, traffic congestion is manageable, and fuel costs are moderate. For those markets a scrunched hatchback with a transverse drivetrain are unnecessary.Ford could easily build whole families of sedans, wagons, tall wagons AKA crossovers/SUVs, pickups, and the Mustang off a longitudinal rear/all wheel drive platform with viable volumes approaching a million worldwide.

Yup, they want something the size of a UPS stepvan. As far as rust goes, here in the midwest everything steel rusts, they've even had to replace some of the steel frames under the LLV's aluminum bodies.

USPS's problem is that they want something bigger- Their spec is for a near 7' interior height so they can haul their "APCs" around. An APC is a shelf on wheels about 2' wide. 3 and 1/2' long, and 6' tall. Might be able to do that with a high roof Transit, but the body will be a pile of rust after 30 years and USPS won't be able to get it with electric propulsion and all their other wants for $40,000!

2/3rds of big truck sales are in Asia and 1/2 of sales are in China. The U.S.A. is a much smaller and oddball (conventional cab) market.

I've been around the biz long enough to remember when Toyota "assembled" pickups near the west coast docks where they came in, and "assembly" pretty much consisted of dropping the box on the frame and bolting it down. That was probably the most expensive pickup box in history, but the ruse allowed Toyota to claim the pickups were "American made" and get around the 25% "Chicken Tax". Ford has been pulling a similar ruse with the Spanish built Transit Connect van, putting cheap seats in the back to get around the "Chicken Tax", pulling them out at the ports upon arrival, and even shipping them back to Spain for another trip! It's pretty obvious Trump has a hard spot in his heart for Euro cars, and he's itchin' to hit them with a hefty tariff... All BMW, Daimler, FCA, Volvo cars, VW Group etc. have to do is source more of their Euro built cars from their U.S. and Mexican plants, overvalue them like Toyota did, and they'll slip their BMW cars, Mercedes cars, Alfas, S90s, and Audis right past Trump's tariffs!

Looks like Mexico is the winner in this deal.

Would make more sense... GE has an effective monopoly in freight locomotives with Cat owned EMD still struggling to produce a Tier 4 compliant locomotive. Rumor has it that GE wants to get out of the locomotive business, or with a billion dollars Ford could buy engines from Cummins and develop their own. The passenger locomotive business is even more in need of a new competitor, with German company Siemens getting Amtrak's latest order. In light rail the closest thing to a domestic maker is Bombardier, and Ford could produce significant cost savings and value with a standardized design, sort of like a 21st century PCC. As for trackage, Ford could make a good sized railroad out of just the trackage serving their plants!

I suspect the decision was driven by the likely higher costs of building the old cab as well as declining demand. Peterbuilt already has an axle forward version of the new cab out, and that may be costing KW some sales. There's also the fuel efficiency standards, and the old cab is an aerodynamic disaster area.

And after they've plowed a billion into the rehab, it probably won't even be a functional train station!

Wonder what they're gonna do with them foreign antiques?

32k pounds on drive tandem, 13k pounds per axle unless it's 9' or more from the next axle in which case it's allowed 18k, maximum of 11 axles. That rig is the simplest configuration and theoretically good for 154k, but I doubt they can load the front axle to the full 19k and as you imagine, it's hell on trailer tires. The better specced Michigan trains are B doubles or truck and trailer combinations with a few axles spread a bit and they can gross 160k or even 164k.

Weissburg said. "We're a relationship company, not just a vendor of trucks." Sorta like another failing company, HOG(NYSE)? Stuck too with a legacy product that's no longer competitive, will the Mack dealerships start to look like Harley dealers?

They must not spread with dump trucks in Sweden...

Up until recently when Mack has gone to air assist clutches Macks have mostly used mechanical clutch linkages for decades with no binding problems. But when the frame is weakened by rust binding could become a problem. No point in messing with the clutch linkage until the powertrain has a solid frame to mount too, and a new frame may not be worth it on an 18 year old truck.

Don't worry, we won't reveal where the hunting camps, fish houses, and double wide are parked...

Heck, thought I was the only one here who made money on Volvo stock. Used to be you'd make more money buying Volvo stock than you would make buying and running a Volvo truck.

Sounds like you're going to just have to live with the fact that trucks are slow. We used to move the same loads you're hauling with less than 300 HP and while we'd liked to have gone faster, they were the best truck engines available at the time. 12 liters is the ideal size for a truck engine for the weights you're running, providing the best compromise between performance, payload, and fuel economy. Sure, you could trade down to a different truck with a 600 HP engine, but you'd lose around a thousand pounds of payload and maybe as much as a full mile per gallon too.

Rust is devious... I've seen trucks with rust perforation clear through the frame while the cab was fine.

Damn good trucks- The IBC bakery in Minot, ND bought a pair of early 60s F100s new and converted them to run on propane. I was by there about 20 years ago and surprised to see one of them still around. A bit later I met the now retired chief engineer of the bakery who informed me that both were still in use when the bakery closed in 1999 and each had been driven over 400,000 miles!

Wish we'd known that when this thread started months ago- Sounds like you may have a structurally questionable frame even before it was hit. If the frame is shifting around enough that the dump body doesn't line up with it anymore, it clearly can warp around and throw the powertrain alignment off in more ways than can be easily counted.

The auto makers will love that... Now they can hide their excess inventory and delinquent loans for twice as long!

It's rather sad to see Ford go down this way, sort of like watching an old friend slowly lose themselves to booze or drugs...