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Today's truck customers in year 2013 wouldn't want a new 1987 spec R-model or RW-613/713 Super-Liner and I woudn't sell it to them. Today's trucking needs have evolved, and thus so has truck design.

Had Mack Trucks remained American owned and operated, the company's truck designs and technology would inherently have evolved to offer customers around the world a cutting edge trucking solution.

I would buy one. I bought an 83 Superliner I'm redoing now to put on the road.

I would buy one. I bought an 83 Superliner I'm redoing now to put on the road.

Yeah me too, id buy a few, but a company could never get a driver to stay in one.

"Any Society that would give up a little LIBERTY to gain a little SECURITY will Deserve Neither and LOSE BOTH" -Benjamin Franklin

"If your gonna be STUPID, you gotta be TOUGH"

"You cant always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need"

Yeah me too, id buy a few, but a company could never get a driver to stay in one.

If they want a job they'd have to, especially with no jobs or work. Anyways were putting an '84 R-model on the road again and looking at a couple more trucks back in the '70s and '80s to use. I dont like our '01 just because of the electronics.

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Matt

Same here..1 of my senior drivers has been driving a 2008 Pinnacle for the last year or so and is now requesting a daycab R-model. I'm looking at a '74 and an '86 R-model. I may keep the '74 for me to play with.

it depends on what your doing with the trucks. we tried to keep running our 89,98 and 2000 yr macks and it was costing us as much in parts downtime and labor to keep them running than it does to have 2 new trucks and maybe a 3rd one next yr. the heavy weights and off road use just doesnt agree with older stuff.

We tried that. Got rid of the DMs and bought a brand new tri-axle. Whenever it broke down no one wanted to know anything and it still has the same problems to this day that they've been trying to fix since it was brand new. We run trucks that are 30yrs old and have 1/2 the rot this thing does and they work in the same conditions everyday. then you go to the dealer and there ate 4 trucks from one company who has 5 trucks in total all getting work done and they had to sit there a week before they could work on them. Howe can you be in business trying to make money when you buy 5 trucks brand new so you dont have problems and then 4 cant be used until they are fixed?

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Matt

The overall parts situation is an important topic that we don't speak anough about, and certainly one of the issues I have with Volvo.

Since acquiring Mack Trucks, Volvo have adopted a strategy/policy of marking up spare parts prices to "just below" the point where most customers will walk away.

Let's take a simple example. An AC belt used to be $3.00 to $4.50. Mack's cost as around $1.00. Mack covered their overhead and made a solid profit, and yet the customer received a fair price. But Volvo came in and decided that most customers would be willing to pay $9.00 to $15.00 for that AC belt. Anyone that has been purchasing Mack parts for many years knows exactly what I am speaking about.

The other day I needed a low air pressure sender. The Volvo/Mack dealer demanded an absurd $105, while the exact same Cole Hersee switch was available for just $7 at NAPA. This is a typical example of Volvo intentionally raping the American customer so as to improve their global margins. Mack Trucks didn't do business this way.

Mack Trucks wasn't selling the parts too cheap, rather they gave the customer a sound reason to shop at Mack's dealers rather than the will-fit parts house. But now Volvo has pushed customers out of the Mack dealers. No customers shop at Mack (Volvo) dealers for anything other than proprietary items they can't buy elsewhere.

Volvo's stick-the-customer strategy has been a poison pill to the service departments at the Mack dealers as well. Up to 80 percent of the service work performed is warranty now, because they are unable to be price competitive with customer and local shops. In the days of Mack Trucks, warranty repairs never accounted for more than 10 percent of shop work.

And Volvo's termination of Mack part numbers, replacing them with meaningless "Volvo global part numbers", has destroyed the once superior Mack parts system. The Mack part numbering system combined shear brilliance with simplicity. Easy-to-remember part numbers that told you exactly what that part was. This is why Mack parts people were the best in the world.

Volvo's randomly chosen impossible-to-remember global numbers represent nothing. It amounts to much more than a huge step backwards. Relating to Mack, the part number change to Volvo global part numbers is just plain stupid.

The Mack part numbering system was VASTLY superior to the dysfunctional Volvo system. The Mack veterans in parts operations told Volvo the change was a huge mistake, and most of them were shown the door for not willingly going along with the "new way".

I agree with you Mack's parts system was second to none. Compard to other manufactures Mack's part numbering system was by far the best out there. After Volvo's takeover parts prices have gone crazy. Nationwide back orders and NLA are common place today even on trucks as new as CH's.

it depends on what your doing with the trucks. we tried to keep running our 89,98 and 2000 yr macks and it was costing us as much in parts downtime and labor to keep them running than it does to have 2 new trucks and maybe a 3rd one next yr. the heavy weights and off road use just doesnt agree with older stuff.

The loads we would be pulling on the R-Dogs are light and on short trips back and forth across The City Of Toronto.

I could see your application being hard on older equipment. :unsure:

Our 85' R did use to haul 120,000lbs gross on a 4 axle dump but after too many cracks popping up suspension wise (Neway), we retired her from that type of service. (too bad, that 350 pulled better then our 460)

I'm lucky we have that kind of work to be able to use older Macks without beating the crap out of them.

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We tried that. Got rid of the DMs and bought a brand new tri-axle. Whenever it broke down no one wanted to know anything and it still has the same problems to this day that they've been trying to fix since it was brand new. We run trucks that are 30yrs old and have 1/2 the rot this thing does and they work in the same conditions everyday. then you go to the dealer and there ate 4 trucks from one company who has 5 trucks in total all getting work done and they had to sit there a week before they could work on them. Howe can you be in business trying to make money when you buy 5 trucks brand new so you dont have problems and then 4 cant be used until they are fixed?

knock on wood our new ones are running great . the first titan we bought has only been back to the dealer once for a a problem with the bendix air brake system and once for a leaking door seal. other than that its got 50k miles and no major problems. we were scared of the new stuff and put off updating for a long time but when you find out that its costing 10 grand a month in repairs to keep the trucks on the road we decided to buy a new one and its been awesome so far no complaints so he ordered a second one and that ones been great. hopefully we will buy another one next year

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  • 1 month later...

Same argument over and over is getting boring, either deal with the fact Mack is owned by Volvo and is not what it used to be but is still alive and actually selling well lately even if its just a Mack Cab on a Volvo chassis or shut up! I hate to see Mack trucks using Volvo chassis and components but I'm happier seeing Mack cabs on Volvo chassis on the road than no Mack cabs at all. I am also glad they are still assembled here in the USA even though the parts are different the same family traditions carry on in those plants and I doubt those folks want to go on unemployment right now. It really boils down to a simple choice be happy there is a Mack "branded" truck or hope they shut down, I'll stick with #1.

AMEN brother

As a Mack lover and Volvo shareholder, I'm glad that Mack is still around... But I expect more! Volvo is very poorly run and misses one opportunity after another. For example the booming ag and oilfield markets, both of which Volvo missed with lack of both appropriate products and dealerships in the right places.

On the "Automated-Manual" issue.... "It is O.K for MACK to have Eaton-Ultrashift but it is a SIN to have the M-Drive" ????

The available Eaton Ultra-Shift Plus on Mack-branded Volvo trucks is not rebadged. It is sold as the Eaton product that it truly is.

However in those same Mack-branded Volvos, Volvo Group deceptively rebadges their i-shift AMT transmission as a Mack product under the M-Drive name. Why doesn't Volvo just call a spade a spade and sell their AMT in Mack-branded trucks as the Volvo i-shift??? Volvo doesn't rebadge the Eaton transmission. What is Volvo embarassed about? Could it be they are afraid this would open up a can of worms, afraid the broad customer base would begin connecting the dots and realize that today's Mack-branded truck is realistically a Volvo?

That last pic wasn't far enough to the left, that Superliner grille is teasing me since I can't see the whole truck.

"Any Society that would give up a little LIBERTY to gain a little SECURITY will Deserve Neither and LOSE BOTH" -Benjamin Franklin

"If your gonna be STUPID, you gotta be TOUGH"

"You cant always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need"

Well parts are getting harder to find for trucks in the '80s because they have been "discontinued". Mack should be American owned and you should care who owns it with the way our economy is. Volvo is taking over as you can see by putting their suspension in the trucks with all their other crap. Go back to E6s and E7s and everybody would be happy.

You know thanks to the good ole epa thatll never happen

I've got the boss at least thinking about a Mack now anyway. They're very disappointed in the KWs we have, having problems getting the warranty to cover repairs when they break down, which is often. He said the one I drive was actually the best one they had, as far as breakdowns go. Only have two Prostars with Maxxforce engines, they've been in the shop as much as they've been on the road, mainly egr issues. He said the Cascadias with DD15 engines were doing best.

I asked him about a Mack the last time I was broke down, and he said one of the salesmen at Virginia Truck Center in Roanoke was a good friend of his and they'd played golf together. The salesman told him that the Macks with M drives came back to the shop with problems less than any truck they sold. So he said he might give one a try. I said that's fine, but I don't know about that M-drive part. He said "you're pretty old, you might need an automatic".

The Va. Truck Center sells Freightliners and Macks.

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Producer of poorly photo-chopped pictures since 1999.

M Drive or not just getting a bulldog on the hood is better than where your at now.

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"Any Society that would give up a little LIBERTY to gain a little SECURITY will Deserve Neither and LOSE BOTH" -Benjamin Franklin

"If your gonna be STUPID, you gotta be TOUGH"

"You cant always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need"

M Drive or not just getting a bulldog on the hood is better than where your at now.

I saw the Mack ad in the last Heavy Duty Trucking magazine for the Pinnacle with the 505 hp, 1860 torque engine and started to chub up a little.

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Producer of poorly photo-chopped pictures since 1999.

I saw the Mack ad in the last Heavy Duty Trucking magazine for the Pinnacle with the 505 hp, 1860 torque engine and started to chub up a little.

Tell that to your boss and I bet he'll stop the "you're getting old" comments. Of course, he'll now have a different opinion of you.

Jim

I saw the Mack ad in the last Heavy Duty Trucking magazine for the Pinnacle with the 505 hp, 1860 torque engine and started to chub up a little.

Where is the "vinny vid"?

Ken

PRR Country and Charter member of the "Mack Pack"

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