Why Cummins for Volvos and not newer Macks?

[carlotpilot]

cornfield cadillac              13 letter shxt slinger

[Jamaican Bulldog]

27 minutes ago, Truck Shop said:

Or Corn Queen

Binder or Corn Queen? Lol first I am hearing that nick name. Where I am from Internationals  were nick named 'Nash' with no relation to the car company of that name..

[Oso2]

On 3/15/2018 at 8:13 PM, HeavyGunner said:

I ask this with all seriousness, how does Volvo stay afloat? Seems they've bought out every truck maker they could afford over the years to gain an edge yet they have never really caught on or gained a loyal following. Yes they fair pretty well in the disposable fleet bubble trucks but I'd speculate not because of of brand loyalty but best (cheapest price) just like all other truck makers fleet trucks. So how do they stay afloat continually buying companies out and never seeming to make any significant headway in the truck market?  I've never heard someone say gee I wish I had Volvo.

How do they stay afloat? By making very good trucks. Once people get over blind brand loyalty they find that the Volvo has a lot of user-friendly features as well as excellent driver-friendly ergonomics (i.e. when you're slip seating different sized drivers can hop in and get comfortable within a few minutes). The engines are very good and the automated transmission (if you go that route) is the best in the industry. The trucks are very maneuverable and the interiors are very comfortable. Interior quality is far better than a Kenworth t800.

I've driven for a number of Volvo and mixed fleets and all the drivers I ever met liked the truck; obviously I'm one of them. Oh - and I've driven old Volvos that have been driven hard and put away wet - they're tough trucks that hang together. And for those reasons I see a lot of them on the roads.

I also like Macks, but they feel a lot like a Volvo anyway.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Oso2
spelling

[HeavyGunner]

Ummm I’d seriously question Volvo being the toughest truck. Guess what you don’t see in the oil fields or heavy haul operations? Volvo’s. Volvo has bought out more truck brands than likely anyone else. SO buying out the competition and burying it should give them a huge market share. They should be the juggernaut of truck sales but they’re not. I’ve drove two Volvo’s and disliked the plastic-y interior (similar to the cascadias) and the cheesy hieroglyphs on the switches instead of words. I don’t want to guess what a switch does before I turn it on. I know this last point doesn’t mean much but I don’t ever see 20 or 30 year old Volvo’s on the road or collectors collecting them which is another reason why I think they are unpopular. Just my opinion and observations 

[Oso2]

I said they were a tough truck - not the toughest. That sort of thing all depends on how they are spec'd. All the manufacturers can make you a good truck - or a lemon.

All Interiors have been plastic for the last 20 years - I think it's time to get over that one. The worst of the self-destructive rattle-bags that I drove were Columbias and T800's.

I have seen 20-30 year old Volvo's. As far as collectors go, I don't buy into the cult of Paccar.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Oso2

[Dirtymilkman]

Give me a wood dash with actual toggle switches and individual gauges. I've rarely replaced toggle switches but plastic rockers switches go out quite often. My old Mack had real wood dashes which were so nice and the power window switches were on the dash.....not on the door. I can't stand having the window switches on the door. 

[kscarbel2]

On 3/18/2018 at 8:32 PM, Jamaican Bulldog said:

I will do just that. Thanks for the info. In the mean time I was hoping to hear the insight and thoughts from others on this forum. The info on Peterbilt and Kenworth was interesting btw.

So what was Martin Weissburg's answer to your question, "Is there any chance Mack will offer Cummins in its heavier trucks"?

[bbigrig]

On 3/29/2018 at 10:10 AM, Oso2 said:

How do they stay afloat? By making very good trucks. Once people get over blind brand loyalty they find that the Volvo has a lot of user-friendly features as well as excellent driver-friendly ergonomics (i.e. when you're slip seating different sized drivers can hop in and get comfortable within a few minutes). The engines are very good and the automated transmission (if you go that route) is the best in the industry. The trucks are very maneuverable and the interiors are very comfortable. Interior quality is far better than a Kenworth t800.

I've driven for a number of Volvo and mixed fleets and all the drivers I ever met liked the truck; obviously I'm one of them. Oh - and I've driven old Volvos that have been driven hard and put away wet - they're tough trucks that hang together. And for those reasons I see a lot of them on the roads.

I also like Macks, but they feel a lot like a Volvo anyway.

You may not know this oso2...you like me being of the Canadian denomination will see a lot more Volvos in use and on the road in our daily lives. Volvos market share is much higher here in Canada then in the US but it is on a steady rise in the states. For the others, working at a Volvo/Mack dealer, it's easily a 10 Volvos for every 1 Mack sold on the new truck side. Both makes have the same issues as they are basically using the same power trains. For the Macks that are sold it's 90% Granites.  What's sad is at least if you buy a Volvo Mack product you know you will have the same issues that were there since 2008. Lol.  Not much has really changed.  Very few powertrain improvements. When it comes to the I shift and it's ugly brother, we usually have 5 out on the floor at a time at around 800,000kms. They arnt that great considering we wouldn't be pulling Fullers at half of that rate.

You won't see a Cummins X15 in any Mack unless they lengthen the hood and move the cab back on all models. It don't fit...bottom line.

[james j neiweem]

Jbulldog: We are waiting for the answer to KS's question. Would be nice to ear from the horses mouth(Weissburg)

[41180]

5 hours ago, bbigrig said:

You may not know this oso2...you like me being of the Canadian denomination will see a lot more Volvos in use and on the road in our daily lives. Volvos market share is much higher here in Canada then in the US but it is on a steady rise in the states. For the others, working at a Volvo/Mack dealer, it's easily a 10 Volvos for every 1 Mack sold on the new truck side. Both makes have the same issues as they are basically using the same power trains. For the Macks that are sold it's 90% Granites.  What's sad is at least if you buy a Volvo Mack product you know you will have the same issues that were there since 2008. Lol.  Not much has really changed.  Very few powertrain improvements. When it comes to the I shift and it's ugly brother, we usually have 5 out on the floor at a time at around 800,000kms. They arnt that great considering we wouldn't be pulling Fullers at half of that rate.

You won't see a Cummins X15 in any Mack unless they lengthen the hood and move the cab back on all models. It don't fit...bottom line.

I agree , volvo/mack doesn't see a need for a 15 liter mack . They are hoping if a mack customer wants a 550-600 hp they buy the volvo vnx as most mack dealers are volvo dealers.  They aren't going to put the money into development of a new truck that is designed for a vendor engine and only sell 150 -200 trucks a year , now if they made a retro design superliner ,made it cheaper than a pete or kw and offered  different engine options including cummins x15 , it would be a home run .

[HeavyGunner]

23 minutes ago, logtruckman said:

I agree , volvo/mack doesn't see a need for a 15 liter mack . They are hoping if a mack customer wants a 550-600 hp they buy the volvo vnx as most mack dealers are volvo dealers.  They aren't going to put the money into development of a new truck that is designed for a vendor engine and only sell 150 -200 trucks a year , now if they made a retro design superliner ,made it cheaper than a pete or kw and offered  different engine options including cummins x15 , it would be a home run .

Volvo can’t seem to figure out that a good looking retro truck with big bore power IS what the customers want. 

[Maxidyne]

Problem is that about 85% of the new trucks are bought by fleets, and they don't care about looks- They want fuel economy and that dictates an aerodynamic truck and that means a sloping hood and set back front axle. So the market for a high hood set forward axle classic conventional is maybe 20,000 units a year, and Paccar has that market pretty well sewn up.

[41180]

29 minutes ago, Maxidyne said:

Problem is that about 85% of the new trucks are bought by fleets, and they don't care about looks- They want fuel economy and that dictates an aerodynamic truck and that means a sloping hood and set back front axle. So the market for a high hood set forward axle classic conventional is maybe 20,000 units a year, and Paccar has that market pretty well sewn up.

I agree but disagree with one point. You take the Pinnacle axle forward, extend the hood 6 -8 inches slap a superliner look alike hood and grill , ,90 percent of the people buying the current short hood Pinnacle af would buy the long hood if they made it , alot fleets that run petes and kw long hoods also have some pinnacle axle forwards around my area . 

[HeavyGunner]

3 hours ago, Maxidyne said:

Problem is that about 85% of the new trucks are bought by fleets, and they don't care about looks- They want fuel economy and that dictates an aerodynamic truck and that means a sloping hood and set back front axle. So the market for a high hood set forward axle classic conventional is maybe 20,000 units a year, and Paccar has that market pretty well sewn up.

I understand what you’re saying but I think if you pare Mack down to just fleet trucks and granites Mack goes away. Give the customer what they want. It seem ridiculous to me that you can get everything we want here in a Mack in Australia. 

[Jamaican Bulldog]

On 5/6/2018 at 10:39 PM, kscarbel2 said:

So what was Martin Weissburg's answer to your question, "Is there any chance Mack will offer Cummins in its heavier trucks"?

Never got an answer. I will definitely post it here if I do.

[james j neiweem]

How hard could it be to change a hood. Not very hard or costly.

[Maxidyne]

It's all in, sadly, the scale of things: Volvo builds several hundred thousands of trucks a year as well as construction machinery and other stuff. Mack branded trucks are only about a tenth of that, and Volvo management probably views Mack as the mother in law they had to take to marry Renault trucks. Volvo and the most of the world's other volume truckmakers would like to build trucks like they do F150s at 50 an hour pace double shifted. That pace would saturate most of the North American market and Volvo and Mack together have only a fifth of that. Volvo building only conventionals here and Mack almost all conventionals and the world market preferring cabovers, there's little room to grow the export market for Mack branded trucks. So Volvo's goal is probably to cut back to one plant and one cab, Volvo powertrains only, and shorten the replacement cycle by making the old trucks too expensive to fix. If that works (and it's not) Volvo gets to crank out trucks at near F150 pace and profits.

So clearly Volvo, who would wet their pants if they managed to build a hundred thousand trucks a year in the U.S., is not going to be very receptive to our requests to slow down their underutilized assembly lines for even one minute to build a thousand truck a year variant, even if the customers for those thousand trucks took their business elsewhere.

[BillyT]

Hadn't really thought about what market buys the most trucks but it's obvious it's the fleets! The Cascadia is (in my opinion the ugliest conventional tractor built to date!) The little Windows in the sleeper don't match the lines of the truck. I don't like modern trucks in general, but the Scanias are good looking in a modern way, and I really like the International lone star!

[Mackpro]

Bigger engine and bigger hood = more weight. I'd say 98% of our customers here have no problem with 505 being the biggest HP they can get. They are more interested in how much the total package weighs. Less truck weight = more freight, corn , wheat or what ever you can haul.  

[41180]

In the north east where I'm from big hood big power trucks are still very popular. Western star is real popular.  The big dealers up here sell wstar and Mack side by side . They have several stars in Stock on lot 600 hp dd16 long square hoods meanwhile on the mack side 505 hp max. I bet the dealers up here would love it if Mack converted the Pinnacle set forward to a retro superliner ,long hood . It wouldn't take much investment to do it. The pinnacles are pretty popular but would gain if they added the extra 6 inches to the hood and made the grill look like a superliner .that way 90percent of them would be sold with the mp8 but if someone wanted a x15 they could get it. 

[Maxidyne]

Once you go beyond around 10 horsepower/Ton additional horsepower doesn't result in improved performance, unless you run 8% grades all day. Thus 500 HP is enough for better than 90% of the loads hauled in the U.S. today and will usually give acceptable performance up to around 50 Tons metric (110k pounds) which is higher than most states allow for divisible loads anyways. Where the bigger 15/16 liter 600 HP engines are needed is for permit loads, Canadian B-Trains and a few states with higher limits like Michigan, Montana, South Dakota, etc..

[Lmackattack]

I still think that Mack does not have the solid Platform to build off of like they did in years past.  Today I see Pete,KW,Volvo,IH. they all have a truck that can accommodate the largest of engines available or they are simply fitted with more fleet spec power train. Mack has one truck option and it has 2 hoods that honestly look the same at quick glance. Mack is lousing sales in just about every market . forget about total overall sales for a moment as IMO that is just a sign of what the economy is doing. When you start to louse market share. that is showing that your product is no longer the must have brand it once was.  If you look at what Paccar has done in the last 10 years to infiltrate the concrete and refuse market its clear to see that they are continuing to do exactly what they did to push into the Dump truck market 20 years ago. They offer the buyer options with their truck. Paccar has both their old square hoods and their new aero trucks. A single truck owner or large fleet company has the option to pick from and build from there. Mack has the exact opposite. They simply did not stay current with their offerings and in fact moved to a more basic spec platform to cut costs. It may have saved them money on building trucks but it has cost them their large market shares that they once enjoyed.

[HeavyGunner]

Well said LMackattack, give the customers choices to sort of customize the tractors to their liking and they buy more of them. On The flipside Mack wants to tell you what you want/need and there’s no choice. 

[Maxidyne]

I agree- There's a market for custom built trucks, and Paccar knows how to win over that market. Even Daimler gets it, look at the long list of options like SCBA ready seats they offer on the M2 and reasonably priced twin steer axles on Western Star. As long as the North American market remains an oddball and truck sales may actually shrink as more long hauls go to the railroads, there's no point in trying to crank out Class 8 trucks like F150s. The best strategy for Volvo would be to dedicate the New River plant to mass producing cheap Volvo trucks for the big fleets and Macungie to custom building Mack trucks for discriminating buyers.

Problem is, Volvo sees their own as the premium truck and Mack as the in house competitor that must be muzzled.

[Hayseed]

It's a shame that Volvo don't give Mack in North America the same Autonomy & R & D capabilities as they've given Mack Trucks here in Australia...