Slow Response; High Winds crashed our disc.
A wealth of good information and many great points made. In regards to my own comments I believe G Model summed it up best, it’ll be 5-10 years before the jury comes back on this one. In regards to the HiDrive; Caterpillar let the patent lapse just a short time ago, it was protected and still is under another patent involving the transmission if memory serves me right. We can discuss in another thread.
Richard/Ovrsd is also correct, these machines are mass produced and the market is THE major factor in how they’re designed and manufactured. If all I did was finish crushed rock for a paving crew with our 160H; I could get away with 2 gears, a 4 cylinder engine and a set of blade beams that were 10mm thick. I personally know contractors who use their graders for just that; finishing crushed rock and nothing else. They don’t believe in roading motor graders, they load it on a lowboy and haul it. Then on the other hand there’s our 160H & 14H. Neither machine had ever seen one ounce of dirt until we bought them. Both were governmental snow removal machines and were on guaranteed buy back programs. There was still some paint on the front of the moldboard of our 14H and it had close to 5000 hrs on it when we bought it. We removed the snow equipment (wing & nose plow) and installed a ripper, push block, 16 ft moldboard, Huber reversible fan, automatic blade control, warm air/cold air intake system, alcohol sniffers, multi-piece out board rims and wide base tires, quilted covers, additional lights, synthetic oils etc. etc.. We set the machines up for the market that we work in. There is ABSULUTELY no way that a manufacture can mass produce a motor grader, which fits in to all markets PERFECTLY. One of the points being; cold weather is still some what of a niche market and I can guarantee that the majority of the machines never see conditions like we operate in up here in Alaska. I ran into this constantly when I was working at Caterpillar on the H Series, one week we were in the Andes Mts. in Peru at 14,500 ft elevation dealing with low power complaints and trying to explain to a customer that you just can’t keep injecting more fuel into an engine when there’s not enough oxygen available at these elevations. Yeah we can solve the problems with series turbo charging, different Mani folding, a larger ATTAAC system, plus hood and cowling modifications to keep it all covered. They wanted to know why it wasn’t built that way in the first place. So we had to explain that it’s not required when these machines are running at lower elevation and all these additions are going to increase costs and the size of the rear engine enclosure, which will block visibility to the rear of the machine. One week later we’re dealing with an angry customer in Florida over accelerated circle & side shift wear strip material. The machine was running in beach sand right at sea level. Low power was the last thing on this guys mind. Every customer thinks they’re the only one who knows when, where and how to properly use a motor grader and they’re all right. I met the best “Blade Operator” in the world several times.
Roadrunners right on the money also, this certainly didn’t just start with the M Series. I personally saw and dealt with list similar to what Alberta posted when I worked on the H Series. I was on that Galion back in the 70s because my Grandfather was upset with Caterpillar from back in the 60s. This Dell computer that I’m typing on right now has had its moments; they sure didn’t finish all the field follow work on it, but I still think it’s amazing. When I was at Caterpillar I was constantly reading about problems that the other manufactures were having with their motor graders and trust me, there was plenty of reading material available on this subject.
I would agree with Art also on some things, but not on others. Yeah maybe they could have done more testing and field follow work, but here’s the other side of this story. You are never going to learn everything you need to know buy continually testing at the proving grounds, you have got to have a field follow program where the customers will put the machine through it’s paces. It’s no different in the construction industry and you said it yourself, the time comes when the grader has to get out of the way and you’ve got to start laying asphalt. Was the grade perfect? Did it really meet the specs listed in the Bluebook? Could it have been better? You bet it could have, but someone made the tough decision and next phase of the project got started. During the H Series they had over 20 units spread out all over North America. Sometimes it’s very difficult to find a good field follow customer who will go the extra mile to give you good accurate reporting. To often the operators just want to park it at the end of shift and go home. Simply saying, “it’s a piece of @#!$ or calling someone’s baby ugly just doesn’t get it. Many people don’t realize how much work goes into a good Field follow program. I had the first 14H Tier II Field follow machine here in Alaska for one year. After spending nearly three years living in Decatur and at the Proving Grounds, helping with the development I then returned to Alaska. I plowed snow with it all winter, did gravel road maintenance with it in the spring, and then used it to finish on several construction projects here in Alaska throughout the summer and fall. Caterpillar paid to ship the machine all the way up here, they insured it, they paid N.C. Machinery to do all the major mechanic work on it, they had engineers fly up here and visit me on a regular basis (about every 2 weeks), I sent over 100 reports and over 200 emails went back and forth between Decatur and Myself during this period. It was a lot of additional work after I was done operating it all day and sometimes all night. I was glad when it was over. They shipped it back to Decatur where it was torn down and analyzed. It had problems over that 1 year period and a lot people worked really hard to solve the problems and make it into a great machine before that design went into production. Twice during the year the machine went back to N.C. and went through a major tear down to study some problems we were having. All new wiring harnesses were installed twice with some different routing to eliminate problems, all new ATAAC and cooling system installed twice to check different designs, all new hydraulic lines installed from front to back entire differential internals and tandems had to be removed to inspect weldments inside the doghouse/frame case, engine & trans had be removed for wiring and frame inspection work. Every part that came off that machine was shipped back to Decatur to be analyzed. Many times the work was done at night so that the machine was available to go in the morning and I could keep finishing in front of the pavers. Even after all that, there was still updates they had to make. Was it because I made a mistake? Did I not beat the machine hard enough?
In regards to Alberta’s problems, I couldn’t agree more, that’s unacceptable and costing him. We just aren’t seeing as many problems, but then again we don’t have as many M’s as he has. If that was my situation I’ll probably drive them all down to the dealer’s lot, block the driveways, set off the steering alarms, pop the little clips off the door linkage rods and walk away.
Teddy Roosevelt once said that it was better to try and win glorious triumphs even though you may be checkered by failure and fait than it was to rank with those poor spirits who know neither victory nor defeat because they are afraid to try anything. :usa
Great discussion Gentlemen…Randy
