Does Mack Make An Engine Anymore?

[kentuckydiesel]

Iwas justpoking around their website and it appears the CL is only offered with a 500hp Cummins.

Hell, the Mack motor is half the reason for buying a mack.

-Phillip

[granitefan713]

Well first off, the CL is no longer in production. But in regards to Mack engnies, the new Mack and Volvo engines share the same block; however, all the "trinkets" on a Volvo engine are Volvo, and all the "trinkets" on a Mack engine are Mack. Both engines are made in Maryland.

[HK Trucking]

All BS aside, the MP7 & MP8 are Volvo engines, re-badged to appease the Mack truck buyer.

[Coalbucket]

All BS aside, the MP7 & MP8 are Volvo engines, re-badged to appease the Mack truck buyer.

Let's see. All the EGR system design and certification is done by Hagerstown engineers. The Purchasing is done by Hagerstown Purchasing. The assembly is done by Hagerstown Manufacturing. The Maxidyne, Econodyne, and Maxicruise ratings are clearly Mack. Sounds to me like Mack has enough of their thumbprint on it to call it a Mack.

This year Detroit Diesel is going to put their name on the Mercedes MBE-4000 which is designed developed and assembled in Brazil. That's not a Detroit.

But these engines are Mack.

[maxidyne237]

look at the torque and hp curves on the new motorrs....can you say old school maxidyne?

[HK Trucking]

Sounds to me like Mack has enough of their thumbprint on it to call it a Mack.

You could put a bulldog and Mack emblems on a 770 Volvo tractor too, would it then qualify as a Mack?????

Just sayin'.

look at the torque and hp curves on the new motorrs....can you say old school maxidyne?

Mack-specific programming of the ECM. Other than that, it's a Volvo engine.

[granitefan713]

Speaking of power, according to one of the compaines who test drove a Pinnacle with the 395hp MP7 mentioned in Heavy Duty Trucking, that it climbed hills faster than their 427hp E7s.

[Coalbucket]

You could put a bulldog and Mack emblems on a 770 Volvo tractor too, would it then qualify as a Mack?????

Well if they just put the Mack name on an engine made in Europe I would agree with you.

But a lot of Mack engineers have put their heart and soul into these new motors. I met some of em on a tour. They think it's a Mack engine.

[HK Trucking]

They think it's a Mack engine.

Would you really expect anything other than the official company line, when touring the official company factory?

[GearheadGrrrl]

IIRC, the E7 had it's roots back in the 1930s. It was a great engine and had one helluva good run, but times change. The new engines are as much Mack as Volvo- the basic architecture is Volvo, but to the driver they feel like a good old torquey Mack, and they're made in a Mack plant.

As for losing Mack's identity, if their is no sharing of parts their's no way Volvo could survive on their 30,000 or so unit a year production. To justify investments like the new robotized assembly line you need six figure volumes. You see this throughtout the industry- Navistar standardizing on one cab, Paccar building their own engine, DCX dumping Detroit Diesel for a Brazilian made "modular" diesel. Fortunately in Mack's and Volvo's case the new engine is an improvement over it's predecessor.

[ThaddeusW]

Well one thing that we cant ignore is the fact that the older mack engines had allot of European influence. Hell the lanova engine was developed by (if my mind serves me correct) a guy from Germany.

[HK Trucking]

the basic architecture is Volvo

I rest my case.

[GearheadGrrrl]

And 21st century Volvo engine architecture is way better than the best of the 1930s!

Honestly, I wish people would be a little more open minded about "crossbreeding". Mack has seldom built the entire truck- besides the brakes, wheels, electrics, fuel system, etc., Mack has used vender cabs for a long time- I've seen R model cabs being trucked to Macungie, the MR cab was first seen on a Diamond Reo, the MH was made by the same company that made the fiberglass White 5000, and a lot of Mack axles are made by Spicer. In fact, until recently the CHs were literally "assembled" trucks, with oftentimes the only Mack components being the engine and bulldog. None the less the customers seem to be happy with the CH and keep coming back for more, despite the cab being one of the oldest in this market segment. Despite being built by a vendor, there's plenty of decade old and more CHs running around the rust belt, and I've yet to see them showing any signs of "cancer". Even some of the most cross bred Macks ever built- Continental Baking's mid 60s Mack Western F cabovers with Detroits- were still hauling bread in the early 90s, long after newer Freightshakers had rattled out their rivets.

[HK Trucking]

And 21st century Volvo engine architecture is way better than the best of the 1930s!

My point is that it should never have come to this, where the Greatest Name In Trucks (Mack) has been acquired by Volvo, and slowly but surely Mack is losing it's identity.

As I said before in other posts, Mack is headed for the same fate as Autocar and White/GMC.

A new family of true Mack engines would surely have been developed if Volvo had not gotten involved.

But why should Volvo spend the money & time developing a true Mack engine, when Mack will eventually either be phased out, or assimilated so thoroughly into the Volvo organization, that for all practical purposes it will cease to exist.

A little honesty on Volvo's part wouldn't hurt either. The MP engines are Volvo engines camouflaged as Mack engines, why can't Volvo (and Mack) just admit that openly, instead of trying to B.S. the public about it?

[GearheadGrrrl]

It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to engineer and tool up to build a completely new engine. That's why even the big volume builders like the car makers, Cummins, Navistar, etc. will keep an engine around for decades. How long has it been since Cummins introduced a "new to the last washer" engine? The reality is that without Volvo's volumes we never would have seen a new Mack engine- they would have to switch to Cummins, Cat, etc. after the old Mack engine became completely uncompetitive. By sharing an engine block with Volvo, Mack gets a hand in the engine design and the engine is still built in the USA.

[HK Trucking]

It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to engineer and tool up to build a completely new engine.

Exactly: which is why I said this: "But why should Volvo spend the money & time developing a true Mack engine, when Mack will eventually either be phased out, or assimilated so thoroughly into the Volvo organization, that for all practical purposes it will cease to exist."

The reality is that without Volvo's volumes we never would have seen a new Mack engine-

And we still haven't seen one. It's a camouflaged Volvo engine.

If Volvo had not entered the picture, a new emissions compliant Mack engine would certainly have been developed out of necessity.

At least when Mack was owned by Renault, The Renault management pretty much let Mack do it's own thing, because they knew that Mack has always been a legend, and you don't change a good thing.

Volvo, on the other hand is just bent on jamming their corporate ideology down everyone's throat, not only in Sweden, or the U.S., but globally.

[GearheadGrrrl]

Let's imagine for a moment that rather than getting merged into Volvo, Mack had been taken private or spun off as a seperate company around 2000. Things would have gone pretty well for a couple years, with profits coming in despite the aging model line. Heck, Mack would have even gotten throught the 2004 emissions standards OK.

Then comes the 2007 emmisions standards, which require a lot more cooling capability to meet as well as particulate filters and a lot of expensive software and hardware development. And without Volvo's help to develop the Granite, Mack's bread and butter construction lineup would still be using the R/DM cab. That's a great cab, but their's simply not much room under that hood to fit a bigger cooling system, etc.. Mack would have been lucky to kluge together a CH cab on a double frame to barely meet the 2007 emissions requirements. Then comes 2010, with even tighter emmision requirements, and the 20 year old CH cab is due for replacement.

Good luck getting Wall Street to fund a billion dollar bond issue to fund both a new engine and a new cab. Mack would be forced to vendor engines only, which in the old CH cab wouldn't prove popular. The Mack drivetrain is built in the same complex as the engines, and a cash strapped Mack would soon sell the whole mess. With a Mack pretty much carrying the same vendor components as a Navistar selling for thousands less, Mack sales would plummet and the death spiral would accelerate.

Fact is, you need 6 figure volumes to survive in the truck building biz today. Volvo can spread the cost of developing engines over 3 truck brands and construction equipment as well. You can see this all over the industry, with DCX putting the same engine in the MB, Freightliner, Sterling, and Western Star brands. Paccar is sharing their DAF engine with KW and Pete, and Navistar, MAN, and Scania are looking for partners.

Sorry, but that's 21st century truckbuilding... I don't like it either!

[kentuckydiesel]

It's sad that companies producing good quality prouducts cannot make it anymore. It's not just trucks, but generally everything. Every once in a while you will find a small nich company that produces only the best, but had Mack gone that route, the only people who could afford it would be the extreme duty market and we would be out.

You can have a big company producing mediocre products, or a small company producing wonderful products, but there is no way to offer a great product to the mainstream anymore. Those days are gone.

I guess it's goodbye to the real Macks.

Well, hopefully someday I can put togeather a strong fleet of 80's and early 90's macks and keep them running, because I don't forsee the quality coming around again.

-Phillip

[kentuckydiesel]

I just saw this quote:

The majority of this additional development work is being performed in Hagerstown at Volvo Powertrain North America, supplier of engines to Mack Trucks, Inc.

In this article:

http://www.macktrucks.com/default.aspx?pageid=1341

I guess that's the proof we need???

-Phillip

[ken1946@rcn.com]

The life cycle of every industry is the same. They start with a bunch of little guys doing some creative innovative work, the good ones get bigger and acquire the smaller ones who haven't failed and as the industry matures the fewer get even fewer and they get larger and larger until they get so large and unresponsive that innovators can come in and displace them.

Andrew Carnegie consolidated a bunch of steel companies in the late 1800's and then sold the whole shootin' match to J. P. Morgan in 1900 for $100,000,000. Bethlehem and US Steel got so big that they have now disappeared. The same went for oil companies(name a small one),electric companies, auto manufacturers, heavy equipment, airplane guys and even shipbuilders. There is no reason to believe that HD Trucks would be immune.

These companies are all in business to make money, hopefully for their owners(the shareholders) but if not at least the managers who become multi millionaires when the are terminated. They are only secondarily in the business of building trucks under a brand. Studebaker became Worthington Pump Co. and Baldwin Steam Locomotive works evolved into BLH, Baldwi-Lima-Hamilton and became a big conglomerate.

Man alive, is my head filled with worthless trivia or what? Just my $.02

[b61mack]

I just saw this quote:

In this article:

http://www.macktrucks.com/default.aspx?pageid=1341

I guess that's the proof we need???

-Phillip

The federal goverment is trying to put everybody out of business!!!

[mudslut28]

As far as the new Volvo engines in the granite having more power...that is bs. I run with a fleet of Granites every day and the ONLY advantage they have over my E7 400 is the engine brake. They do NOT pull any better and they do NOT beat me on fuel consumption. This is offroad heavy hauling. I am NOT impressed with the 405's. They have nothing below 1400 rpm's...in fact the drivers use words like "soft" and "weak" to describe them.

[Q-TRANS]

Any chance of the CAM in the NON MACKS lasting more than 350 - 480,000 miles and MACK telling you SORRY but never heard of 1 failing before

[diesel07]

Well first off, the CL is no longer in production. But in regards to Mack engnies, the new Mack and Volvo engines share the same block; however, all the "trinkets" on a Volvo engine are Volvo, and all the "trinkets" on a Mack engine are Mack. Both engines are made in Maryland.

I work at the Hagerstown plant. I give everything I have into these engines. For the Volvos they get what Volvos want, for Mack they get what Mack wants. Mack needed an EPA compliant engine, along came Volvo that had one. Hagerstown, Macungie, and Allentown have much of the same engineers, mechanics, staff as before and they are all still busting their butts on making the Mack product, only now we have global resources to help us get the job done. We have the backing of Mack, Renault, and Volvo; thats a lot of experience and budget. Mack still gives us their requirements and we meet them. If you like Macks, keep buying Macks....it reminds Volvo of why they wanted Mack , because that is the kind of truck that the majority of the North American market wanted.......but they have to keep it competitive too.

Even though the engine may have its roots in Europe, its been designed, redesigned, tested, and manufactured by us Mack guys and Volvo guys (Volvo just gave us a state of the engine lab....no complaints). There are thousands of american workers that are supporting this. As far as I'm concerned its an american made Mack product. Things didn't change because of Volvo, things changed because of what the customer and regulations demand.

[fjh]

I appretiate what you have said and like to hear that kind of dedication to product that I once had, But the engine is the engine And seems like a good engine ,BUT Theres more to this than just an engine. they volvotized the rest of the truck as well!Lift the cab off and there sits a Volvo frame!We had a good frame! We could have used the mack frame and volvo cross members Best of both worlds! Mack engine mounts nothing wrong with them either simple design they worked!

Volvo seems to like to complicate simple concepts That does not impress me! They make mountains of mole hills .

We need to build a truck that in the end we can be proud of and the customer can rely on for the most part! adding complication to it isn't doing that!

Have you ever watched star trek on the tube! Volvo is the Borg and WE have been asimilated ,Risistance is futile.