dieseldoctor1
Expert Expediter
I would just like to make some observations on your problems. I understand your frustration. I was service manager for a large truck and farm equipment dealership for years and then advanced through sales into sales management and part owner. We were authorized dealers for International, Cummins, Cat, Detroit, Case, and Perkins diesel engines. I was factory trained on all these engines and handled many warranty claims on all of them.
All of those manufacturers had models of engines that used “wet†sleeves like your DT 466 engine. The “O†ring that failed on your engine seals the bottom of the sleeve (cylinder liner) to the block to keep the coolant from leaking down into the oil pan. Failure of these “O†rings at the mileage on your engine is very rare but it does happen occasionally on all the above mentioned engines. It is definitely a premature failure! I would say that 90% of the time it is not a defective “O†ring but a result of the “O†ring “rolling†during installation of the sleeve. Doesn’t make any difference it still fails and creates problems, which unfortunately you found out the hard way. I will also say that I am 100% convinced that the way you take care of your truck and operate your truck had no bearing on the failure. There was nothing you could have done differently to prevent the failure.
Now I am making the assumption that your truck was out warranty. If I am wrong I stand corrected. I also am assuming, from your statements, that International offered, up front (after being appraised of the situation by Westrux) to cover the cost of the parts needed to effectively build your engine back to new specs effectively giving you a new engine. This is typical International and doesn’t surprise me a bit. From my experience of many years in the business, if it had been a Cummins engine, the dealer, after much wrangling, might have gotten Cummins to help just on the parts that were needed to make the engine operational again not a total in frame overhaul. Cat probably wouldn’t have paid anything. Detroit was always hard to get to pay for failures that were in the warranty period and almost never paid anything out of warranty and believe me with the 92 series and 8.2 series engines they had plenty they should have helped on. Case would help if we fussed enough and it was a good customer meaning had several pieces of Case equipment. I never got any out of warranty help from Perkins.
Now if this situation had happened in my dealership this would have been the sequence and I feel sure it was handled about the same way with Westrux. When I called my district service rep. and briefed him on the situation he would have told me. “I will pay for all parts. You do what you want about the labor and incidentals (oil, antifreeze, filters, etc).†If I had sold you the truck then I would have offered to pay half the labor. But if I had not sold you the truck then I couldn’t make that offer. I think you can understand that.
Now why does International offer to pay for the parts and not the labor? Simple! You got 219,000 miles of use out of that engine. Now your engine is back to new specs. They feel that you got the use of the engine for 219,000 miles and should pay for that use. I think any reasonable person can understand that concept if they think about it.
Now you state, correctly, that there has been extensive testing done on “O†rings by all manufacturers and some government agencies to find “O’ rings that will handle low sulfur fuel. And yes a DT 466 was used in some of those tests! But you are wrong in using this as a point in this discussion because the “O†rings that were tested are entirely different “O†rings from the one that failed in your engine. The “O†rings being tested were the ones used in the fuel system (injectors’ etc) and are sealing fuel. Totally different deal. Those “O†rings had nothing to do with your failure. Only relationship there is that they are both called “O†rings. But I do know that the composition of the sleeve “O’ rings (like failed on your engine) have been changed several time through the years as new and better materials become available but they can fail or be damaged during installation.
Talking about new and better materials made me think of another concern of yours on which I think you misunderstood what the deal was. That was the new software that was loaded to your ECM. Just like engineers are always looking for new and better materials to do certain jobs, software engineers are designing new and better software parameters. During research for engines and software to meet new emission standards the software engineers came up with a new software program that that would not only work on the new engines but also could be used on certain older engines to give better performance and emission control. Partly out of wanting to help their customers and partially to keep the EPA off their backs they made it available to you and other customers at no charge. Happens all the time by all the engine manufacturers even for farm and industrial equipment. Software upgrade had nothing to do with the “O†ring failure.
Your other concerns. Tires. International doesn’t manufacture tires and uses tire manufacturer specs to determine if a tire is suited for a certain application. International offers a base truck with base specs. Then it is up to the customer and their dealer to change specs to fit the application that the truck will be used for. International did not install the body and sleeper on the truck. Alumibunk did and when finished it is their responsibility to make sure every component of that truck including axles and tires are sufficient to do the job the truck is equipped for and to put a new certification certificate on the doorjamb to that effect. There should be a yellow sticker on the drivers’ doorjamb signed by someone at Alumibunk. If not the DOT could give you much grief. International determined (probably after notification from the tire manufacturer or from your complaint) that there was a problem with your tires and they were changed. They didn’t have to. It was Alumibunk responsibility after finishing the vehicle.
Rode2rouen mentioned about dealers selling a truck to a reseller or body company and the warranty being almost gone before the end customer takes delivery of the truck. He is right but the body company or reseller should bring the truck to a dealer with the bill of sell to the customer showing the date and mileage. The service manager should make copies of all that and certify the mileage reading and serial numbers then the district service manager can give the end user the full warranty both time and mileage. Done that many times. This could have extended the time part of your warranty.
Batteries? As some other people on here have already pointed out the truck probably sat on either the dealer or AlumiBunks’ lot through heat or cold and the batteries were damaged. Batteries are purchased from different suppliers and once they are shipped out in a truck what could International have done differently to have prevented your problem? Weren’t your batteries replaced free of charge?
Microbes in the fuel tanks? You stated that when you picked up the truck new the fuel tanks were empty. It is common knowledge that condensation forms in empty fuel tanks, and condensation leads to algae and microbes. Again I ask. What would you have had International do differently?
Now as for the mileage discrepancy. I have ran a lot of engines, both truck and farm tractors, on a dyno and feel pretty sure your engine wasn’t ran 2000 hrs on a dyno. Like someone else mentioned it would have to run almost a year. Also am sure that your engine wasn’t swapped with a used engine, but there is a possibility that the ECM was. Why do I say that? Sold a new truck we had had in stock for several months. Shop was predelivering it and service manager asked me to come back to the shop. He showed me the ECM and I could see right off that it was dirty and paint was faded. Make a long story short the best we could figure someone had a 195 HP engine (what the ECM then on the truck was set for) and wanted more HP. New truck was a 245 HP. So he stopped in one night and swapped his ECM for the new one. Was laughing about this (what else could I do) to my district service rep and he said he had another dealer that had a truck that was giving problems and a mechanic swapped the ECM with one off a new truck. Didn’t fix the problem but he didn’t bother to swap them back. First warranty claim, you can figure out what happened. Did this happen to your truck? Don’t know but a possibility. Also a possibility that somebody got a new scan tool and was using that truck to learn how to use it and entered some bad data. Truth is you will probably never know for sure what happened there. I can understand you being upset about that and I would be also but feel positive that what ever happened was after the truck was shipped to the dealer and out of Internationals’ control. AlumiBunk welding on the chassis could have screwed up the readings. That could be where the 2000 hrs came from. A voltage spike can make computers do weird things. Many possibilities.
Now I’m probably going to upset you. That’s ok because you have ranted and raved about International when all evidence shows International has been more than fair with you! You haven’t said how much your part of the bill was but you mentioned $7000.00. There is no way your part should have been that much, but lets just use that figure. That is $.0319 per mile for the 219,000 miles of use you got out of the engine before failure. Do you feel that you should have gotten those 219,000 miles free? I’ve talked to three different people that own another popular brand of truck that had engine failures in less than 150,000 miles (one the ripe old age of 118,000). One was a Cat and the other two M/B. They required a complete new engine at around $12,000.00. That’s $.1016 per mile. Guess what kind of help they got. None! Zip! Well unless you count the lunch one service manager bought for one of them. Instead of ranting and raving about how bad International is you should thank them.
Last but not least you’ve shown that you are not very well informed about trucks. Anybody that knows much about trucks knows that International trucks are one of the “lowest costs of Ownership†trucks on the market. In plain terms that means that from the time you buy it until you trade it in it will cost you less to own than most trucks out there. And anybody that knows much about diesel engines in the truck, farm equipment and construction fields knows that the DT 466 is the one of best, if not the best, medium duty diesel engines ever built. Period!!!! Even the competition will tell you the International is a super good engine. They even use words like “bulletproofâ€, “indestructibleâ€. Now I know that they are not because no matter how good a product a company builds they are going to have failures but I defy you to find a company that stands behind their product any better than International does. In my 48 years (first mechanics job part time at 15 years old) I’ve never seen any company better. Now I will admit they didn’t stand behind their manure spreaders. Not too close behind anyway. LOL.
I’m sorry if I got rough on you and I feel your pain, but I feel your anger is unwarranted. I’ve been there. About 1971 I bought the first two Cat D7F bulldozers that came to NC. Those two made a total of 7 Cat dozers I owned. New design engine and new design power shift transmission. At approximately 300 hrs transmission went out on both. Cat rebuilt with redesigned parts. Little over 400 hrs later both failed again. Another rebuild with more design changes. At 1065 hrs on hourmeter, same parts that had failed both times before failed again on one dozer. Warranty was 1000 hrs. Guess who paid for this repair? Other transmission failed about 1400 hrs. Still no help. By then they had sold several D7Fs and all were having problems. About the seventh redesign they got it right. Still no help. Jury decided warranty had expired so sorry. Point is I rebuilt my first diesel engine in 1958. In the years since then I have seen, heard or experienced horror stories on every manufacturer out there in the truck, farm equipment and construction industry as well as cars and other equipment. Mechanical stuff built by human beings. Anything can and will happen sometime, somewhere.
International DID HELP YOU! Appreciate it! You have a good truck with a good engine! Enjoy it!
Dieseldoctor
.
All of those manufacturers had models of engines that used “wet†sleeves like your DT 466 engine. The “O†ring that failed on your engine seals the bottom of the sleeve (cylinder liner) to the block to keep the coolant from leaking down into the oil pan. Failure of these “O†rings at the mileage on your engine is very rare but it does happen occasionally on all the above mentioned engines. It is definitely a premature failure! I would say that 90% of the time it is not a defective “O†ring but a result of the “O†ring “rolling†during installation of the sleeve. Doesn’t make any difference it still fails and creates problems, which unfortunately you found out the hard way. I will also say that I am 100% convinced that the way you take care of your truck and operate your truck had no bearing on the failure. There was nothing you could have done differently to prevent the failure.
Now I am making the assumption that your truck was out warranty. If I am wrong I stand corrected. I also am assuming, from your statements, that International offered, up front (after being appraised of the situation by Westrux) to cover the cost of the parts needed to effectively build your engine back to new specs effectively giving you a new engine. This is typical International and doesn’t surprise me a bit. From my experience of many years in the business, if it had been a Cummins engine, the dealer, after much wrangling, might have gotten Cummins to help just on the parts that were needed to make the engine operational again not a total in frame overhaul. Cat probably wouldn’t have paid anything. Detroit was always hard to get to pay for failures that were in the warranty period and almost never paid anything out of warranty and believe me with the 92 series and 8.2 series engines they had plenty they should have helped on. Case would help if we fussed enough and it was a good customer meaning had several pieces of Case equipment. I never got any out of warranty help from Perkins.
Now if this situation had happened in my dealership this would have been the sequence and I feel sure it was handled about the same way with Westrux. When I called my district service rep. and briefed him on the situation he would have told me. “I will pay for all parts. You do what you want about the labor and incidentals (oil, antifreeze, filters, etc).†If I had sold you the truck then I would have offered to pay half the labor. But if I had not sold you the truck then I couldn’t make that offer. I think you can understand that.
Now why does International offer to pay for the parts and not the labor? Simple! You got 219,000 miles of use out of that engine. Now your engine is back to new specs. They feel that you got the use of the engine for 219,000 miles and should pay for that use. I think any reasonable person can understand that concept if they think about it.
Now you state, correctly, that there has been extensive testing done on “O†rings by all manufacturers and some government agencies to find “O’ rings that will handle low sulfur fuel. And yes a DT 466 was used in some of those tests! But you are wrong in using this as a point in this discussion because the “O†rings that were tested are entirely different “O†rings from the one that failed in your engine. The “O†rings being tested were the ones used in the fuel system (injectors’ etc) and are sealing fuel. Totally different deal. Those “O†rings had nothing to do with your failure. Only relationship there is that they are both called “O†rings. But I do know that the composition of the sleeve “O’ rings (like failed on your engine) have been changed several time through the years as new and better materials become available but they can fail or be damaged during installation.
Talking about new and better materials made me think of another concern of yours on which I think you misunderstood what the deal was. That was the new software that was loaded to your ECM. Just like engineers are always looking for new and better materials to do certain jobs, software engineers are designing new and better software parameters. During research for engines and software to meet new emission standards the software engineers came up with a new software program that that would not only work on the new engines but also could be used on certain older engines to give better performance and emission control. Partly out of wanting to help their customers and partially to keep the EPA off their backs they made it available to you and other customers at no charge. Happens all the time by all the engine manufacturers even for farm and industrial equipment. Software upgrade had nothing to do with the “O†ring failure.
Your other concerns. Tires. International doesn’t manufacture tires and uses tire manufacturer specs to determine if a tire is suited for a certain application. International offers a base truck with base specs. Then it is up to the customer and their dealer to change specs to fit the application that the truck will be used for. International did not install the body and sleeper on the truck. Alumibunk did and when finished it is their responsibility to make sure every component of that truck including axles and tires are sufficient to do the job the truck is equipped for and to put a new certification certificate on the doorjamb to that effect. There should be a yellow sticker on the drivers’ doorjamb signed by someone at Alumibunk. If not the DOT could give you much grief. International determined (probably after notification from the tire manufacturer or from your complaint) that there was a problem with your tires and they were changed. They didn’t have to. It was Alumibunk responsibility after finishing the vehicle.
Rode2rouen mentioned about dealers selling a truck to a reseller or body company and the warranty being almost gone before the end customer takes delivery of the truck. He is right but the body company or reseller should bring the truck to a dealer with the bill of sell to the customer showing the date and mileage. The service manager should make copies of all that and certify the mileage reading and serial numbers then the district service manager can give the end user the full warranty both time and mileage. Done that many times. This could have extended the time part of your warranty.
Batteries? As some other people on here have already pointed out the truck probably sat on either the dealer or AlumiBunks’ lot through heat or cold and the batteries were damaged. Batteries are purchased from different suppliers and once they are shipped out in a truck what could International have done differently to have prevented your problem? Weren’t your batteries replaced free of charge?
Microbes in the fuel tanks? You stated that when you picked up the truck new the fuel tanks were empty. It is common knowledge that condensation forms in empty fuel tanks, and condensation leads to algae and microbes. Again I ask. What would you have had International do differently?
Now as for the mileage discrepancy. I have ran a lot of engines, both truck and farm tractors, on a dyno and feel pretty sure your engine wasn’t ran 2000 hrs on a dyno. Like someone else mentioned it would have to run almost a year. Also am sure that your engine wasn’t swapped with a used engine, but there is a possibility that the ECM was. Why do I say that? Sold a new truck we had had in stock for several months. Shop was predelivering it and service manager asked me to come back to the shop. He showed me the ECM and I could see right off that it was dirty and paint was faded. Make a long story short the best we could figure someone had a 195 HP engine (what the ECM then on the truck was set for) and wanted more HP. New truck was a 245 HP. So he stopped in one night and swapped his ECM for the new one. Was laughing about this (what else could I do) to my district service rep and he said he had another dealer that had a truck that was giving problems and a mechanic swapped the ECM with one off a new truck. Didn’t fix the problem but he didn’t bother to swap them back. First warranty claim, you can figure out what happened. Did this happen to your truck? Don’t know but a possibility. Also a possibility that somebody got a new scan tool and was using that truck to learn how to use it and entered some bad data. Truth is you will probably never know for sure what happened there. I can understand you being upset about that and I would be also but feel positive that what ever happened was after the truck was shipped to the dealer and out of Internationals’ control. AlumiBunk welding on the chassis could have screwed up the readings. That could be where the 2000 hrs came from. A voltage spike can make computers do weird things. Many possibilities.
Now I’m probably going to upset you. That’s ok because you have ranted and raved about International when all evidence shows International has been more than fair with you! You haven’t said how much your part of the bill was but you mentioned $7000.00. There is no way your part should have been that much, but lets just use that figure. That is $.0319 per mile for the 219,000 miles of use you got out of the engine before failure. Do you feel that you should have gotten those 219,000 miles free? I’ve talked to three different people that own another popular brand of truck that had engine failures in less than 150,000 miles (one the ripe old age of 118,000). One was a Cat and the other two M/B. They required a complete new engine at around $12,000.00. That’s $.1016 per mile. Guess what kind of help they got. None! Zip! Well unless you count the lunch one service manager bought for one of them. Instead of ranting and raving about how bad International is you should thank them.
Last but not least you’ve shown that you are not very well informed about trucks. Anybody that knows much about trucks knows that International trucks are one of the “lowest costs of Ownership†trucks on the market. In plain terms that means that from the time you buy it until you trade it in it will cost you less to own than most trucks out there. And anybody that knows much about diesel engines in the truck, farm equipment and construction fields knows that the DT 466 is the one of best, if not the best, medium duty diesel engines ever built. Period!!!! Even the competition will tell you the International is a super good engine. They even use words like “bulletproofâ€, “indestructibleâ€. Now I know that they are not because no matter how good a product a company builds they are going to have failures but I defy you to find a company that stands behind their product any better than International does. In my 48 years (first mechanics job part time at 15 years old) I’ve never seen any company better. Now I will admit they didn’t stand behind their manure spreaders. Not too close behind anyway. LOL.
I’m sorry if I got rough on you and I feel your pain, but I feel your anger is unwarranted. I’ve been there. About 1971 I bought the first two Cat D7F bulldozers that came to NC. Those two made a total of 7 Cat dozers I owned. New design engine and new design power shift transmission. At approximately 300 hrs transmission went out on both. Cat rebuilt with redesigned parts. Little over 400 hrs later both failed again. Another rebuild with more design changes. At 1065 hrs on hourmeter, same parts that had failed both times before failed again on one dozer. Warranty was 1000 hrs. Guess who paid for this repair? Other transmission failed about 1400 hrs. Still no help. By then they had sold several D7Fs and all were having problems. About the seventh redesign they got it right. Still no help. Jury decided warranty had expired so sorry. Point is I rebuilt my first diesel engine in 1958. In the years since then I have seen, heard or experienced horror stories on every manufacturer out there in the truck, farm equipment and construction industry as well as cars and other equipment. Mechanical stuff built by human beings. Anything can and will happen sometime, somewhere.
International DID HELP YOU! Appreciate it! You have a good truck with a good engine! Enjoy it!
Dieseldoctor
.
