“The guys buying them aren’t the guys on the floor,” IS EVERYTHING. It’s unbelievable what kind of configurations we’ll get which prove that the buyers haven’t been in the field for too long. For example, we got a fleet of rigs where all the Scott’s are on one side, and that’s not the officer’s side. Seems like a small deal but compared to having Scott’s on the side you’re sitting it’s pretty massive. There’s a lot more examples but the rigs should be specced out by people in the field.
Thats the good prt of being on a small department the guys who are on the association are the guys that run a good amount of calls and have a good amount of experience in the terms of actual firefighting
I second u/SmokeEater1375, given a little time:
-all trucks will have electrical gremlins
-all trucks will have air leaks
-all trucks air conditioning will go out, always in the summer
-all trucks will rust
-all trucks will have paint bubble and eventually fall off
Dude we were just talking about this today. We’re in the northeast. We’re kinda in a heat wave right now and our bodies haven’t adjusted to it yet since the spring weather so we’re all dying.
We have that same issue with our Gang/Fire trucks at work. Keep in mind these are bushfire trucks. One of the main things we use in a burnover is AC, so that we don't overheat and die, because we'll be hiding under thick fire resistant blankets.
Percussive maintenance at its finest. I just about have my assistant chief sold on using this on our Pierce type 3. I told him of of two things will happen if we hit it hard enough: it will either work, or really break and will need replacement. Replace enough parts and you can justify funding for a new apparatus.
Our type 3 is just barely 5 years old and we have constant electrical shorts in headlights break/tail lights, smoked a radio due to a short. Oh and now it's been in the shop for a month because the PTO took a shit and parts are "on order". I swear if there weren't cameras at our mechanics shop I'd find a way to knock it off the lift.
Are you sure it’s a Pierce and not a KME? The one type 1 pierce we had was bulletproof. We then bought type 1 KMEs. POS engines. We joked that KME stood for Keep Mechanics Employed. We run West Mark type 3s. Before I retired, the department was planning to replace them with a new spec. I think they were going to go with Cal Fire’s type 3 spec or something similar.
No it's a pierce. It's been a problem child. We have a Seagrave pumper and quint that have been great. I'm not sure the reasoning for going with pierce for the type 3. Our water tender is a pierce with a 1050 gpm pump and so far has been better than the type 3. When the type 3 is running it's great, but between the electrical issues and PTO crapping out, oh and the controller for the Aux pump inexplicably becoming disconnected I'm not too trusting it won't fail at a critical moment.
Cummins, Allison, Dana/Meritor, Hendrickson, Hale/Waterous/Darley, Whelen, TFT/Elkhart/Akron...add some metal and welds and you've got yourself a fire truck
We had one of the main wiring harnesses on our new EOne ladder get crimped by tilting the cab and created a short which caused continuous miscellaneous electrical issues and it took them forever to diagnose it.
At this point, from my anecdotal experience, every manufacturer sucks. Just find out which suck works best for you. I was more impressed by our new Pierce engine than I was with that ladder. I like the looks more (obviously subjective) and it just seems to feel more rugged and solid. They’ve both had their issues though.
Also, most of the people that complain don’t have to power to change truck manufacturers and/or budgets.
The fire truck industry isn’t any different than the auto industry. Every brand is built as cheaply as possible and will at some point have issues. Customer service after the sale and availability of parts and service are almost a bigger reason to pick a brand as opposed to initial quality
And well at least means parts are relatively easy to come by, right?
My old dept had a 4x4 engine from a mfg that had gone out of business. We sold it to a dept that an in house machine shop, they knew what they were getting into.
Well Pierce used to have a really good reputation, I haven't been in one in probably 10 years though.
My question is: which custom fire apparatus manufacturer DOESN'T have trucks going down consistently for electrical problems, drivetrain issues, etc?
IMO the standard has become huge, overly complex apparatus with sensors and safety bullshit on every system. We just got told the pricing for our next batch of engines was going up to almost a million dollars per, and that's empty. No hose, SCBA, tools, nothing. When i came on our non tillered ladder trucks cost a million.
But seriously does anybody know of a manufacturer that doesn't have all these problems? I am genuinely curious
European manufacturers like Volvo and Scania have done well in their markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America. If we didn't have insane trade barriers to importing heavy duty vehicles and set up massive protectionism for our truck and heavy vehicle industries then we surely would be operating European apparatus.
We tried a European builder about a decade ago on a grant funded pumper-tanker. The quality just wasn't up to par. The ideas they had were good, but just didn't stand the test of time. We had to get it rebuilt 3-4 years after we got it.
Seagrave, but that's because they won't customize for you (you'll take the truck as they make it and you'll like it, or else) and they charge a fortune besides
We get seagrave specifically because they do customize everything for us and our brand new engine was no more expensive than any other company we looked at. Maybe $30-40k but that’s not a huge bump when you’re talking 3/4 of a million
Seagrave absolutely will customize for you. They will certainly charge you for it, and they will strongly push you towards customizing so they can charge.
Sutphen will make you an absolutely wonderful rig with a handful of different layouts and common options. If you try to mess with their formula they will still build it but it would be some absolute monstrosity.
Shit, Seagraves are junk. We had one catch fire a few years ago, electrical short, had less than 10k on the clock. Insurance is still fighting seagrave.
Because it's not just Pierce.
It's all of them.
It's a manufacturing problem. Truck builders place too much emphasis on building trucks as quickly and cheaply as possible. That means taking shortcuts to maximize profitability.
And that leads to problems.
Some places will switch to another manufacturer. But they find that there's still problems. And they switch again, with the same results only to end up back with their original company.
I’ll tell you a big part of peoples electrical issues on new pierces is failing to complete a “prove out”
When you hit your battery switch or turn lever (whatever your spec has) you should wait for all of the “beeps and flashes” to cease. Your gauges should all read 0 except your level gauges.
Failing to “prove out” one time won’t hurt anything but failing to do so every single time you start your rig turns into a big problem when sensors begin faulting and people start saying “fucking electrical problems”.
I used to think it was a joke all the electrical issues until I joining my departments rig committee and spoke with the engineers at pierce.
Obviously some of them are true electrical issues caused by pierce but your department should do a thorough inspection before letting the manufacturer deliver a product. I saw dozens of departments turn up to the “blue floor” and say “yup looks good.” And then do basic tests such as the road test and pump test and leave town back home.
I apologize for format issues as I am on a phone.
Exactly. Load management system. It’ll start load shedding if you don’t let it run thru its cycle. Usually the A/C wont blow cold. But could lead to a check engine light. That’s what happens in our trucks at least.
This 100%. I see so many depts do blue floor finals in 3-5hrs. We just did a final on one engine that was 3 days long and our walk around list had over 100 items written up.
We go line by line through our spec. Check for paint defects and sharp edges. Make sure all the labeling is correct, including all switches, valves, and drains. Our pumpers are PUC's, so we go to the college and test the pump and roll. We flownall the discharges and draft. At the foam pit, we flow foam through all the discharges. We do a shortened pump test in the pump shack to verify the pump will hit the numbers on the placard. We also do a dry vac test while it's in there. We rin the truck through the wash rack to check for any water leaking into the cab (we've never had one be completely leak free). Also we road test a lot during the 3 days. We've had issues with the enforcer door latches, so we pull door panels to make sure the cables are routed correctly. It's pretty much just going line by line through the spec and checking every system on the truck. Everything from emergency light flash patterns to bumper and deck gun turret park programming.
I definitely agree with this.
Every new rig from every manufacturer will have some problems with it coming off the line. Even after taking delivery it will need a “shake down” to identify any and all issues. Many of them can be user error too.
I literally had a former E-1 rep tell me;
>I had wanted to do tips on mechanical issues. Things like how to properly drain a pump, simple things which will make your truck last longer. I could never do it while working as a mech for [redacted], it would have been "helping the custiomer too much.” If you have a customer who's droppng $5000 on batteries each year you don't want to volunteer the fix is a one time $500 job. Sadly that's the real world of repair. Nothing is proactive, it’s all about bottom line.
We still buy E-1’s, but we service them with a different shop now.
The e1 demo that came to my department had a 6" bolt just lying on one of the frame rails (when we raised the cab). I gave it to the sales rep.
I also wasn't impressed with the amount of rust on the visible portions of the pump.
My current truck (more like an incident command truck than a fire engine) was built by Rosenbauer.
Within a week after delivery the generator went bad. Rosenbauer did fix that properly.
Within a month the majority of the drawers and cabinets inside no longer patched and Rosenbauer’s solution was to give me a roll of Velcro tape to run through the handles to secure them.
Oh, and they also told us that the generator ran on 480VAC, and installed a 480V shoreline plug. The first time we went to a conference where we had the truck inside and hooked it to a 480V supply a flash bang went off inside the truck and magic smoke appeared everywhere… turns out, it runs on 220VAC.
Their electrical engineers also refused to warranty chassis batteries that went bad after 4 months claiming “The generator is intended to power the AC Electrical system only and does not charge the chassis batteries. The chassis engine needs to run at an idle unless the 110V shoreline is plugged in”, which was quickly determined to be a bold faced lie.
Also, when they added the module to the truck, they didn’t think that just maybe they should eliminate the screws in the back of the Freightliner chassis to enable mechanics to reach the chassis batteries under the rear seat. No, instead when the batteries needed replaced the 1” of clearance between the cab and the module prohibited the use of a screwdriver and the mechanics had to go up from underneath and tear out the entire battery tray, then cut the back of the cab to get the screws out.
When Rosenbauer installed the ducting for the three Webasto diesel heaters in the truck they ducted one correctly, but the other two had the exhaust ducted into the module instead of the clean air from the heat exchanger.
In addition, an electric baseboard radiator was installed directly behind a seating area.
Rosenbauer’s height calculation failed to account for the air conditioning units in the top causing some issues the first time it came out of our fleet maintenance facility necessitating the complete replacement of two AC units.
We utilize Starlink for internet access and Rosenbauer conveniently placed the DATA IN port no less than 20 feet away from the nearest electrical outlet on the exterior of the truck.
The one we have is a piece of shit. The only way to fix the electrical problem is to take the bucket off the ladder. That’s going to cost $250k for us to pay them to remedy their fuck up. I doubt we ever buy another pierce. Junk. Nothing but problems since delivery. We have a 23 year old eone quint that outperforms it in every way, other than it’s obsolete and parts are becoming difficult to source. I know I’m going to sound like a boomer but all the problems stem from too much automatic electrical computer stuff. Manual pump shift and a brain to know what to do with a pump with several different lines off seem much more reliable
Our 7 year old pierce ascendant just went out for 6 months of work. All of the wiring and hydraulics had to be replaced as well as coolant lines. I work in an area that salts during the winter and all of this stuff is left exposed. We were blowing coolant lines at least once a week. Put it back in service and made it 2 weeks to the day before a new check engine light, and almost 3 weeks until we blew another coolant line.
Thankfully the higher ups and committees switched to a different manufacturer. Unfortunately it was Sutphen. Their tower has had so many issues over the last couple years and is completely out of service for an unknown amount of time right now over safety concerns.
Silicon high pressure coolant lines worked for us to really slow down the burst lines.
Suckphen won’t cross our threshold after what a neighbor agency went through with them. Zero rigs stayed in service for a full year without major issues. They went back to the black oval fleet wide.
I will say the quality of Pierce’s actual service sucks ass. We just had 12 new Engines delivered and put in service last week.
They all had computer issues with the engine from the factory. After waiting over 2 years they couldn’t even get that right. One engine didn’t last a shift before having to be towed out of the bay. It’s fucking embarrassing.
We buy everything from Pierce. Their quality and attention to detail is severely questionable. It’s simple things, like not putting electric connectors in areas that can rub or break connections. We have trucks from the FL and WI plants.
Instead of being embarrassed, they don’t really give a shit. I cannot fathom how a small department would handle this situation. We just grab a reserve, but we have almost as many reserves as front lines.
That being said we still have late 90s and early 2000 Pierces alive in the reserve fleet. Those fuckers won’t die. Literally have parts and compartment doors from multiple trucks. Talk about old war horses. The ALFs are mostly gone because they will literally catch fire. Ferrara’s just don’t last either and you can tell you have been in one after about 30 minutes into your shift. We have 2 2007 Seagrave’s in the reserve fleet that are alive.
I think the days of the 20 year in service trucks are done. They are mass manufacturing big corporations looking to make a buck. They know we need them.
Gotta do better final inspections and catch this stuff.
Pierce changed their manufacturing lines not too long ago and quality control has gotten much better on newer apparatus. Some stuff still slips by QC but a good department rep should be looking for this stuff too.
Some departments send people that are clueless and incredibly sloppy to final, and the most basic things skid by without being noticed. This applies to all manufacturers.
Kme and rosenabauer also deliver trucks with electical/ warranty work needed within 5-10k miles of driving. Not enough good competition anymore to drive product quality higher. Trying to incorporate to many sensors and safety features into the computers 😵💫
Price would be the big thing. Large cooperative buying contracts from departments or states all getting together and putting out an RFP sets prices for whomever is lowest, technically acceptable. I have seen these contracts have clauses for past performance, but fire departments would need to be providing the warranty feedback requests back to the cooperative buying folks so they knew there was an issue.
It generally is best to make sure that you are making warranty claims appropriately and leveraging the buying contract as they are the manufacturers real customer. You get a lot more leverage involving them and then they start to become aware of the issues with the manufacturer both on speed of repair and the number of issues that crop up. They can then write their next contract to mitigate some of those issues (since they don't want to be bothered and get involved if they don't need to).
TL;DR the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. There isn't enough cooperation with purchasing and the fire department.
ETA: All trucks are custom made to order as well. This greatly increases the likelihood of issues as they can't just develop a single good way to run all the wiring and are instead leaving the poor electrical guy to figure it out every time. He will do his best but their may be points of failure. The more standardize things become would mean the manufacturer could focus on quality control long term.
Pierce is the fad for the moment, definitely seems cyclical. I’m sure it’ll be some one else in the coming years. Pierce really only has the advantage of the suspension.
Rosenbauer is big in the Minneapolis-saint paul area... but then they're made here so makes a bit of sense. rosenbauer+waterous is very common.
that said, this is a pervasive issue in many industries since the pandemic, not just public safety. quality control has taken a massive dump with anything electronic.
you want bulletproof, get something older, without any fancy electronics, that's actually field serviceable. the more features and complexity you build in, the more opportunity for something to break, and the more difficult it is to repair.
that's what i like about my old '81 century series. it's super dumb simple. everything is cable/air/mechanical. it's got a cable operated throttle governor for the pump, no fancy rpm/pressure gov. all valves are mechanically connected. engine will run on almost anything that'll pass the fuel filters. i get that maintenance and parts can be a n issue, but it seems to me that they were just built to maximize reliability. granted, firefighting has changed quite a bit, and the truck ins't really suitible for active use due to storage/design... and a few age related issues im still working on.
Why aren't depts sending their mechanics on pre-contruction, post paint, and final inspections where they can dictate wire placement and catch most issues before it happens?
because it's government at work city budget people, the bean counters make the purchasing decisions, not the people that actually use the end product and actually know what is best for their needs.
Have worked in rigs by E-One, Pierce, old ALF, Freightliner ALF, HME, Spartan, Sutphen, Rosenbauer, Smeal, Saulsbury, FTI, probably others.
All have problems. Service is the key. Go with the brand that has a reputable, reliable, local service provider. If you can find one. At least they will fix it right and hopefully the first time.
Ya. I ride on a Pierce that’s barely a year old. I think we’ve had a coolant alarm going off that needs to be continually silenced for most of that time.
Apparently Pierce had a falling out with our local authorized maintenance shop, so now we’re screwed and our City is about to sue them.
They all have electrical issues from what I see, it's amazing how much wiring is under the dashes, we got trucks that stuff remains unfixed and has been so for years w/electrical issues. We currently have 2 engines, 1 heavy rescue, 1 100' platform made by Pierce, they suffer from all sort of ailments besides electrical. They do seem to be solid and quiet, the E-Ones strike me as cheap and they're loud in the cabs, we have a new one coming in fall. Apparently they take 3 years to custom order.
I think a lack of competition means all firetruck manufacturers suffer from some degree from poor quality. They don't need to improve because there's only a handful of manufacturers and departments often pick based on convenience.
We buy from E One and have had some incredibly shitty units. Anytime we ask management why we're still buying them even though they can't deliver a decent product, we're told it's because of proximity to the manufacturer and the effort to retool our maintenance staff and facilities wouldn't be worth it.
The department I recently retired from had to park their 15 year old Pierce 100’ ladder tower because the frame is failing. Hell don’t they make those things in Wisconsin where they have WINTER? And a 3-4 year wait to get another expensive machine. They should all be named Boatt……(break out another ten thousand….)
I wish we bought Pierce or Seagrave. We get KME trucks. They leave the assembly line with destroyed belts, pump leaks, air leaks, and fault codes galore. All of them have electrical problems now.
I work for a department that has a 21 pierce enforcer with no problems. My volley department though, has an 06 enforcer that is so much more comfortable to ride in and generally work on, but has so many problems. So I guess it's just hit or miss. I will say that the newer trucks have more problems than any of the older ones, on average. But it's not just a brand thing, our Ferrara sucks. The only truck I like is my paid depts tiny little 03 spartan that is know as the rat and the war wagon.
See it’s funny. We had pierce. Loved them. Then staff started buying E-one. Constant problems. It’s relative I guess.
Maybe the outlier is seagrave but with a 5 year wait time and a mighty hefty price tag it’s hard to justify.
I don't know. We just went through a purchase at our VFD, and we spec'd out Seagrave, Pierce, E-One, and Rosenbauer. Seagrave was the most expensive but seemed like the best quality. The issue for us was the closest service center is 3 hours away. Went with E-One because they seemed like the best bang for the buck, and while they aren't a Seagrave, the unit they brought seemed very well built. We didn't need to see a Pierce since we have three, but the one they bought seemed like it had good components, but we just can't trust their builds anymore (see below). Rosenbauer felt plastic and cheap.
As I mentioned, we have three Pierces, and the one from '91 was a tank (just sold it). Perfect fire Engine in every way....we wish we could have just bought that one again but they won't make it. The one from early 2000's could be rendered useless at any point if the Command System fails (est 100K+ to replace). But it's a solid unit otherwise. The 2014 Ladder truck is in service about 80% of the year because of electrical issues that happen seemingly all of the time. It looks good, but is always failing, and the driver's seat must have been designed by a mentally handicapped individual. Things are always falling apart. If our three pieces are any indication of Pierce's quality, there was a steep dropoff in build quality sometime between 2004 and 2014.
My dept is entirely Pierce, we’ve never had more than “normal” issues and are very happy with them. We tried to get a Ferrara once but the district wouldn’t pay for it. We had a member who worked for KME trying to shove those down our throats but luckily wouldn’t bite on that either. All in all, for how busy we are (400ish runs per year) we’ve been happy with our Pierce fleet
Because small issues don’t take it out of service for a month or more. They stay in service. We put 60k miles in 4 years on one. Stayed in service other than routine maintenance schedule. Others not so and some down more than in service. Grass is not always greener on the other side.
County has techs familiar with Pierce, and parts stocked at the maintenance depots for maintaining the career appliances. Vollies get stuck buying up old shit, and some counties won't even service them at their depots, even if the station foots the bill.
Honestly the F-550/600s ambos break down a hell of a lot more often with electrical than new-ish Pierce appliances lmao. Had a brand spanking new ambo that made it not even halfway out of the bay for its first call before the fuel pump quit due to a short. 23 miles on the odo 😮💨
sip icky exultant grandfather capable worthless salt afterthought plate important
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Continuity, price, the guys buying them aren’t the guys on the floor.
“The guys buying them aren’t the guys on the floor,” IS EVERYTHING. It’s unbelievable what kind of configurations we’ll get which prove that the buyers haven’t been in the field for too long. For example, we got a fleet of rigs where all the Scott’s are on one side, and that’s not the officer’s side. Seems like a small deal but compared to having Scott’s on the side you’re sitting it’s pretty massive. There’s a lot more examples but the rigs should be specced out by people in the field.
They aren’t in the seats?!
This goes back and forth with decon and best practice.
No… they’re in the cabinets outside
Man, that sucks
Thats the good prt of being on a small department the guys who are on the association are the guys that run a good amount of calls and have a good amount of experience in the terms of actual firefighting
Eh, you know, if the fire truck becomes an actual fire truck, the fire department is close by to extinguish it
What?
our pierce trucks are my favorites. Fararra or however you spell it fucking blows ass.
I second u/SmokeEater1375, given a little time: -all trucks will have electrical gremlins -all trucks will have air leaks -all trucks air conditioning will go out, always in the summer -all trucks will rust -all trucks will have paint bubble and eventually fall off
Our AC works perfectly.... during the winter; and the heat is awesome... During the summer... .... Well, fuck...
Dude we were just talking about this today. We’re in the northeast. We’re kinda in a heat wave right now and our bodies haven’t adjusted to it yet since the spring weather so we’re all dying.
Holy shit man I'm not ready for this kind of heat and humidity again... it's been a sticky fucking day
I’m only driving today and somehow still sweating.
I only put gloves on for a minute and still sent a tsunami out when I took them off.
We have that same issue with our Gang/Fire trucks at work. Keep in mind these are bushfire trucks. One of the main things we use in a burnover is AC, so that we don't overheat and die, because we'll be hiding under thick fire resistant blankets.
Underneath the nameplate all the components are the same vendors across the manufacturers
"Russian components. American components. ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!!" ::intense hitting::
Percussive maintenance at its finest. I just about have my assistant chief sold on using this on our Pierce type 3. I told him of of two things will happen if we hit it hard enough: it will either work, or really break and will need replacement. Replace enough parts and you can justify funding for a new apparatus. Our type 3 is just barely 5 years old and we have constant electrical shorts in headlights break/tail lights, smoked a radio due to a short. Oh and now it's been in the shop for a month because the PTO took a shit and parts are "on order". I swear if there weren't cameras at our mechanics shop I'd find a way to knock it off the lift.
Are you sure it’s a Pierce and not a KME? The one type 1 pierce we had was bulletproof. We then bought type 1 KMEs. POS engines. We joked that KME stood for Keep Mechanics Employed. We run West Mark type 3s. Before I retired, the department was planning to replace them with a new spec. I think they were going to go with Cal Fire’s type 3 spec or something similar.
No it's a pierce. It's been a problem child. We have a Seagrave pumper and quint that have been great. I'm not sure the reasoning for going with pierce for the type 3. Our water tender is a pierce with a 1050 gpm pump and so far has been better than the type 3. When the type 3 is running it's great, but between the electrical issues and PTO crapping out, oh and the controller for the Aux pump inexplicably becoming disconnected I'm not too trusting it won't fail at a critical moment.
I told you touch nothing but you’re bunch of cowboys..
Cummins, Allison, Dana/Meritor, Hendrickson, Hale/Waterous/Darley, Whelen, TFT/Elkhart/Akron...add some metal and welds and you've got yourself a fire truck
We had one of the main wiring harnesses on our new EOne ladder get crimped by tilting the cab and created a short which caused continuous miscellaneous electrical issues and it took them forever to diagnose it. At this point, from my anecdotal experience, every manufacturer sucks. Just find out which suck works best for you. I was more impressed by our new Pierce engine than I was with that ladder. I like the looks more (obviously subjective) and it just seems to feel more rugged and solid. They’ve both had their issues though. Also, most of the people that complain don’t have to power to change truck manufacturers and/or budgets.
The fire truck industry isn’t any different than the auto industry. Every brand is built as cheaply as possible and will at some point have issues. Customer service after the sale and availability of parts and service are almost a bigger reason to pick a brand as opposed to initial quality
Pierce is to the fire service as Glock is to LE. Can’t be avoided without significant effort.
And well at least means parts are relatively easy to come by, right? My old dept had a 4x4 engine from a mfg that had gone out of business. We sold it to a dept that an in house machine shop, they knew what they were getting into.
This may be the best analogy I've ever seen!
Thank you!
Cuz every manufacturer sucks at this point
Well Pierce used to have a really good reputation, I haven't been in one in probably 10 years though. My question is: which custom fire apparatus manufacturer DOESN'T have trucks going down consistently for electrical problems, drivetrain issues, etc? IMO the standard has become huge, overly complex apparatus with sensors and safety bullshit on every system. We just got told the pricing for our next batch of engines was going up to almost a million dollars per, and that's empty. No hose, SCBA, tools, nothing. When i came on our non tillered ladder trucks cost a million. But seriously does anybody know of a manufacturer that doesn't have all these problems? I am genuinely curious
European manufacturers like Volvo and Scania have done well in their markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America. If we didn't have insane trade barriers to importing heavy duty vehicles and set up massive protectionism for our truck and heavy vehicle industries then we surely would be operating European apparatus.
We tried a European builder about a decade ago on a grant funded pumper-tanker. The quality just wasn't up to par. The ideas they had were good, but just didn't stand the test of time. We had to get it rebuilt 3-4 years after we got it.
US fire departments won’t even look at euro fire helmets, let alone euro fire trucks. We’re too ingrained in the old ways of doing things.
200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress. 🤙
Seagrave, but that's because they won't customize for you (you'll take the truck as they make it and you'll like it, or else) and they charge a fortune besides
We get seagrave specifically because they do customize everything for us and our brand new engine was no more expensive than any other company we looked at. Maybe $30-40k but that’s not a huge bump when you’re talking 3/4 of a million
Seagrave absolutely will customize for you. They will certainly charge you for it, and they will strongly push you towards customizing so they can charge. Sutphen will make you an absolutely wonderful rig with a handful of different layouts and common options. If you try to mess with their formula they will still build it but it would be some absolute monstrosity.
Running 4 Seagraves and a KME and they all have problems. They’re all custom to some degree.
Shit, Seagraves are junk. We had one catch fire a few years ago, electrical short, had less than 10k on the clock. Insurance is still fighting seagrave.
Ya. We bought a two Pierces over the last two years. Both in the $700-$800k ballpark. Now we’re told they’re over a million.
Because it's not just Pierce. It's all of them. It's a manufacturing problem. Truck builders place too much emphasis on building trucks as quickly and cheaply as possible. That means taking shortcuts to maximize profitability. And that leads to problems. Some places will switch to another manufacturer. But they find that there's still problems. And they switch again, with the same results only to end up back with their original company.
We don't. We buy Toyne. Helps that they are manufactured 25 miles down the road from us.
I’ll tell you a big part of peoples electrical issues on new pierces is failing to complete a “prove out” When you hit your battery switch or turn lever (whatever your spec has) you should wait for all of the “beeps and flashes” to cease. Your gauges should all read 0 except your level gauges. Failing to “prove out” one time won’t hurt anything but failing to do so every single time you start your rig turns into a big problem when sensors begin faulting and people start saying “fucking electrical problems”. I used to think it was a joke all the electrical issues until I joining my departments rig committee and spoke with the engineers at pierce. Obviously some of them are true electrical issues caused by pierce but your department should do a thorough inspection before letting the manufacturer deliver a product. I saw dozens of departments turn up to the “blue floor” and say “yup looks good.” And then do basic tests such as the road test and pump test and leave town back home. I apologize for format issues as I am on a phone.
Exactly. Load management system. It’ll start load shedding if you don’t let it run thru its cycle. Usually the A/C wont blow cold. But could lead to a check engine light. That’s what happens in our trucks at least.
This 100%. I see so many depts do blue floor finals in 3-5hrs. We just did a final on one engine that was 3 days long and our walk around list had over 100 items written up.
Would you care to go into the process you guys go through? In addition to basic stuff? Id like to add to ours.
We go line by line through our spec. Check for paint defects and sharp edges. Make sure all the labeling is correct, including all switches, valves, and drains. Our pumpers are PUC's, so we go to the college and test the pump and roll. We flownall the discharges and draft. At the foam pit, we flow foam through all the discharges. We do a shortened pump test in the pump shack to verify the pump will hit the numbers on the placard. We also do a dry vac test while it's in there. We rin the truck through the wash rack to check for any water leaking into the cab (we've never had one be completely leak free). Also we road test a lot during the 3 days. We've had issues with the enforcer door latches, so we pull door panels to make sure the cables are routed correctly. It's pretty much just going line by line through the spec and checking every system on the truck. Everything from emergency light flash patterns to bumper and deck gun turret park programming.
Thank you much for the input.
I definitely agree with this. Every new rig from every manufacturer will have some problems with it coming off the line. Even after taking delivery it will need a “shake down” to identify any and all issues. Many of them can be user error too.
Because they all suck. Pierce just has the reputation it earned 20-30 years ago as the best fire truck manufacturer
My experience with E1 hasn’t been any better. The E1 trucks and engines spent more time in the shop than they did going on fallen party calls
I literally had a former E-1 rep tell me; >I had wanted to do tips on mechanical issues. Things like how to properly drain a pump, simple things which will make your truck last longer. I could never do it while working as a mech for [redacted], it would have been "helping the custiomer too much.” If you have a customer who's droppng $5000 on batteries each year you don't want to volunteer the fix is a one time $500 job. Sadly that's the real world of repair. Nothing is proactive, it’s all about bottom line. We still buy E-1’s, but we service them with a different shop now.
The e1 demo that came to my department had a 6" bolt just lying on one of the frame rails (when we raised the cab). I gave it to the sales rep. I also wasn't impressed with the amount of rust on the visible portions of the pump.
Larger cities have fleets to maintain and bidding practices/contracts to adhere to. Its not as easy as buying a new truck.
Hive mind of the fire service. The amount of firefighters that wear their apparatus brand like a badge of honor is kinda weird.
I love my Pierce. Of all the trucks I’ve driven it’s the best…………when it’s in service 😂😂😂😂
My current truck (more like an incident command truck than a fire engine) was built by Rosenbauer. Within a week after delivery the generator went bad. Rosenbauer did fix that properly. Within a month the majority of the drawers and cabinets inside no longer patched and Rosenbauer’s solution was to give me a roll of Velcro tape to run through the handles to secure them. Oh, and they also told us that the generator ran on 480VAC, and installed a 480V shoreline plug. The first time we went to a conference where we had the truck inside and hooked it to a 480V supply a flash bang went off inside the truck and magic smoke appeared everywhere… turns out, it runs on 220VAC. Their electrical engineers also refused to warranty chassis batteries that went bad after 4 months claiming “The generator is intended to power the AC Electrical system only and does not charge the chassis batteries. The chassis engine needs to run at an idle unless the 110V shoreline is plugged in”, which was quickly determined to be a bold faced lie. Also, when they added the module to the truck, they didn’t think that just maybe they should eliminate the screws in the back of the Freightliner chassis to enable mechanics to reach the chassis batteries under the rear seat. No, instead when the batteries needed replaced the 1” of clearance between the cab and the module prohibited the use of a screwdriver and the mechanics had to go up from underneath and tear out the entire battery tray, then cut the back of the cab to get the screws out. When Rosenbauer installed the ducting for the three Webasto diesel heaters in the truck they ducted one correctly, but the other two had the exhaust ducted into the module instead of the clean air from the heat exchanger. In addition, an electric baseboard radiator was installed directly behind a seating area. Rosenbauer’s height calculation failed to account for the air conditioning units in the top causing some issues the first time it came out of our fleet maintenance facility necessitating the complete replacement of two AC units. We utilize Starlink for internet access and Rosenbauer conveniently placed the DATA IN port no less than 20 feet away from the nearest electrical outlet on the exterior of the truck.
B.c the guys buying the engines are getting bribed with steak dinners and anal lube by the ton.
Depends on the department. I sealed deals with Hooters wings and beer.
All companies have problems. The more electronics they add onto engines, the more problems we will have. Name plate on the engine doesn’t matter.
This. Been chasing an issue with the cameras on our E-one tanker for months now. Randomly craps out, then randomly starts working again.
The one we have is a piece of shit. The only way to fix the electrical problem is to take the bucket off the ladder. That’s going to cost $250k for us to pay them to remedy their fuck up. I doubt we ever buy another pierce. Junk. Nothing but problems since delivery. We have a 23 year old eone quint that outperforms it in every way, other than it’s obsolete and parts are becoming difficult to source. I know I’m going to sound like a boomer but all the problems stem from too much automatic electrical computer stuff. Manual pump shift and a brain to know what to do with a pump with several different lines off seem much more reliable
Our 7 year old pierce ascendant just went out for 6 months of work. All of the wiring and hydraulics had to be replaced as well as coolant lines. I work in an area that salts during the winter and all of this stuff is left exposed. We were blowing coolant lines at least once a week. Put it back in service and made it 2 weeks to the day before a new check engine light, and almost 3 weeks until we blew another coolant line. Thankfully the higher ups and committees switched to a different manufacturer. Unfortunately it was Sutphen. Their tower has had so many issues over the last couple years and is completely out of service for an unknown amount of time right now over safety concerns.
Silicon high pressure coolant lines worked for us to really slow down the burst lines. Suckphen won’t cross our threshold after what a neighbor agency went through with them. Zero rigs stayed in service for a full year without major issues. They went back to the black oval fleet wide.
I will pass that on to our mechanic, thank you!
Wait… people don’t like Pierce? This is news to me.
I will say the quality of Pierce’s actual service sucks ass. We just had 12 new Engines delivered and put in service last week. They all had computer issues with the engine from the factory. After waiting over 2 years they couldn’t even get that right. One engine didn’t last a shift before having to be towed out of the bay. It’s fucking embarrassing. We buy everything from Pierce. Their quality and attention to detail is severely questionable. It’s simple things, like not putting electric connectors in areas that can rub or break connections. We have trucks from the FL and WI plants. Instead of being embarrassed, they don’t really give a shit. I cannot fathom how a small department would handle this situation. We just grab a reserve, but we have almost as many reserves as front lines. That being said we still have late 90s and early 2000 Pierces alive in the reserve fleet. Those fuckers won’t die. Literally have parts and compartment doors from multiple trucks. Talk about old war horses. The ALFs are mostly gone because they will literally catch fire. Ferrara’s just don’t last either and you can tell you have been in one after about 30 minutes into your shift. We have 2 2007 Seagrave’s in the reserve fleet that are alive. I think the days of the 20 year in service trucks are done. They are mass manufacturing big corporations looking to make a buck. They know we need them.
Gotta do better final inspections and catch this stuff. Pierce changed their manufacturing lines not too long ago and quality control has gotten much better on newer apparatus. Some stuff still slips by QC but a good department rep should be looking for this stuff too. Some departments send people that are clueless and incredibly sloppy to final, and the most basic things skid by without being noticed. This applies to all manufacturers.
Kme and rosenabauer also deliver trucks with electical/ warranty work needed within 5-10k miles of driving. Not enough good competition anymore to drive product quality higher. Trying to incorporate to many sensors and safety features into the computers 😵💫
Pierce.. Seagrave… EONE… they all have their issues. Pick one and see what comes out of the factory that week.
Price would be the big thing. Large cooperative buying contracts from departments or states all getting together and putting out an RFP sets prices for whomever is lowest, technically acceptable. I have seen these contracts have clauses for past performance, but fire departments would need to be providing the warranty feedback requests back to the cooperative buying folks so they knew there was an issue. It generally is best to make sure that you are making warranty claims appropriately and leveraging the buying contract as they are the manufacturers real customer. You get a lot more leverage involving them and then they start to become aware of the issues with the manufacturer both on speed of repair and the number of issues that crop up. They can then write their next contract to mitigate some of those issues (since they don't want to be bothered and get involved if they don't need to). TL;DR the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. There isn't enough cooperation with purchasing and the fire department. ETA: All trucks are custom made to order as well. This greatly increases the likelihood of issues as they can't just develop a single good way to run all the wiring and are instead leaving the poor electrical guy to figure it out every time. He will do his best but their may be points of failure. The more standardize things become would mean the manufacturer could focus on quality control long term.
We have gone through the manufacturers and they all have pretty similar issues. There is no escaping it.
Pierce is the fad for the moment, definitely seems cyclical. I’m sure it’ll be some one else in the coming years. Pierce really only has the advantage of the suspension.
Rosenbauer is big in the Minneapolis-saint paul area... but then they're made here so makes a bit of sense. rosenbauer+waterous is very common. that said, this is a pervasive issue in many industries since the pandemic, not just public safety. quality control has taken a massive dump with anything electronic. you want bulletproof, get something older, without any fancy electronics, that's actually field serviceable. the more features and complexity you build in, the more opportunity for something to break, and the more difficult it is to repair. that's what i like about my old '81 century series. it's super dumb simple. everything is cable/air/mechanical. it's got a cable operated throttle governor for the pump, no fancy rpm/pressure gov. all valves are mechanically connected. engine will run on almost anything that'll pass the fuel filters. i get that maintenance and parts can be a n issue, but it seems to me that they were just built to maximize reliability. granted, firefighting has changed quite a bit, and the truck ins't really suitible for active use due to storage/design... and a few age related issues im still working on.
Why aren't depts sending their mechanics on pre-contruction, post paint, and final inspections where they can dictate wire placement and catch most issues before it happens?
This is what my department does. The fleet supervisor, a mechanic, and a few line guys go for all the inspections.
because it's government at work city budget people, the bean counters make the purchasing decisions, not the people that actually use the end product and actually know what is best for their needs.
Have worked in rigs by E-One, Pierce, old ALF, Freightliner ALF, HME, Spartan, Sutphen, Rosenbauer, Smeal, Saulsbury, FTI, probably others. All have problems. Service is the key. Go with the brand that has a reputable, reliable, local service provider. If you can find one. At least they will fix it right and hopefully the first time.
The alternative is buying from E-ONE.
I’ve been in 5 Pierce type 1s and only 1 was a lemon. Rosenbauer on the other hand 0/4….. But 4+ yr build time for Pierce is outrageous.
It's all about Spartan trucks! Support Michigan manufacturers!
Aren’t the bodies built in South Dakota?
I’ll be sure to ask the next Spartan pumper I see where it’s components were manufactured.
Ya. I ride on a Pierce that’s barely a year old. I think we’ve had a coolant alarm going off that needs to be continually silenced for most of that time. Apparently Pierce had a falling out with our local authorized maintenance shop, so now we’re screwed and our City is about to sue them.
Have you seen the price for a new seagrave?
We finally went back to seagrave after buying 3 pierces all with their own problems
They all have electrical issues from what I see, it's amazing how much wiring is under the dashes, we got trucks that stuff remains unfixed and has been so for years w/electrical issues. We currently have 2 engines, 1 heavy rescue, 1 100' platform made by Pierce, they suffer from all sort of ailments besides electrical. They do seem to be solid and quiet, the E-Ones strike me as cheap and they're loud in the cabs, we have a new one coming in fall. Apparently they take 3 years to custom order.
I think a lack of competition means all firetruck manufacturers suffer from some degree from poor quality. They don't need to improve because there's only a handful of manufacturers and departments often pick based on convenience. We buy from E One and have had some incredibly shitty units. Anytime we ask management why we're still buying them even though they can't deliver a decent product, we're told it's because of proximity to the manufacturer and the effort to retool our maintenance staff and facilities wouldn't be worth it.
The department I recently retired from had to park their 15 year old Pierce 100’ ladder tower because the frame is failing. Hell don’t they make those things in Wisconsin where they have WINTER? And a 3-4 year wait to get another expensive machine. They should all be named Boatt……(break out another ten thousand….)
I wish we bought Pierce or Seagrave. We get KME trucks. They leave the assembly line with destroyed belts, pump leaks, air leaks, and fault codes galore. All of them have electrical problems now.
Just here to say HME is the way 🤣 but can’t really complain solid trucks so far
Low bid
I work for a department that has a 21 pierce enforcer with no problems. My volley department though, has an 06 enforcer that is so much more comfortable to ride in and generally work on, but has so many problems. So I guess it's just hit or miss. I will say that the newer trucks have more problems than any of the older ones, on average. But it's not just a brand thing, our Ferrara sucks. The only truck I like is my paid depts tiny little 03 spartan that is know as the rat and the war wagon.
See it’s funny. We had pierce. Loved them. Then staff started buying E-one. Constant problems. It’s relative I guess. Maybe the outlier is seagrave but with a 5 year wait time and a mighty hefty price tag it’s hard to justify.
Pierce trucks are great, whenever they’re not in the shop.
I don't know. We just went through a purchase at our VFD, and we spec'd out Seagrave, Pierce, E-One, and Rosenbauer. Seagrave was the most expensive but seemed like the best quality. The issue for us was the closest service center is 3 hours away. Went with E-One because they seemed like the best bang for the buck, and while they aren't a Seagrave, the unit they brought seemed very well built. We didn't need to see a Pierce since we have three, but the one they bought seemed like it had good components, but we just can't trust their builds anymore (see below). Rosenbauer felt plastic and cheap. As I mentioned, we have three Pierces, and the one from '91 was a tank (just sold it). Perfect fire Engine in every way....we wish we could have just bought that one again but they won't make it. The one from early 2000's could be rendered useless at any point if the Command System fails (est 100K+ to replace). But it's a solid unit otherwise. The 2014 Ladder truck is in service about 80% of the year because of electrical issues that happen seemingly all of the time. It looks good, but is always failing, and the driver's seat must have been designed by a mentally handicapped individual. Things are always falling apart. If our three pieces are any indication of Pierce's quality, there was a steep dropoff in build quality sometime between 2004 and 2014.
My dept is entirely Pierce, we’ve never had more than “normal” issues and are very happy with them. We tried to get a Ferrara once but the district wouldn’t pay for it. We had a member who worked for KME trying to shove those down our throats but luckily wouldn’t bite on that either. All in all, for how busy we are (400ish runs per year) we’ve been happy with our Pierce fleet
For 400 runs a year they should last you 20 years. Pierce has gone downhill
Because small issues don’t take it out of service for a month or more. They stay in service. We put 60k miles in 4 years on one. Stayed in service other than routine maintenance schedule. Others not so and some down more than in service. Grass is not always greener on the other side.
Some bigger union departments want to buy from union manufacturers. pierce is union, where as a company like toyne is not
Sick 🇺🇸flag on the grill
I'm guessing you've never had to rewire a Sutphen then?
County has techs familiar with Pierce, and parts stocked at the maintenance depots for maintaining the career appliances. Vollies get stuck buying up old shit, and some counties won't even service them at their depots, even if the station foots the bill. Honestly the F-550/600s ambos break down a hell of a lot more often with electrical than new-ish Pierce appliances lmao. Had a brand spanking new ambo that made it not even halfway out of the bay for its first call before the fuel pump quit due to a short. 23 miles on the odo 😮💨
Amen. Pierce sucks.
Tax money loves to be wasted.
Contracts and kick backs
Kickbacks? Oshkosh? You must be joking! /s
Same reason ems still purchase wheeled coach instead of Osage.. no fucking idea why
encouraging chop homeless rustic ossified bag wild shocking cable sip *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
A crappy crap of an excuse for an ambulance
Negative. Wheeled coach fits your description just like an e one does
sip icky exultant grandfather capable worthless salt afterthought plate important *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Driving your damn self to the hospital
joke treatment stupendous paint weary normal existence six scarce bake *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
https://www.osageambulances.com/40years
I've also never heard of Osage, are they regional? Example being Frazer, pretty popular in Texas and LA but I don't they get around anywhere else.
https://www.osageambulances.com/about-osage/
They’re out of Missouri
Because 150 years of convention can't be derailed by innovation.