NEW Cat 150 AWD

[20/80]

Update, well a new ECM worked, the problem is resolved, finally! the machine passed all its test and is now regening properly, so I am good to go after 9 days of trouble shooting my new machine, will this be the last problem? NEW CAT 150 AWD RUNNING.

 

[Welder Dave]

Hoping it's trouble free for thousands of hours. Cat should be giving a parts credit or something for all the down time.

 

[Nige]

Wait until you get a new $2+m haul truck with 125 hours on the clock sh1ts a $100k final drive.
Diagnosis wasn't hard, the big crack in the casing and the pool of oil on the floor was kind of a giveaway.
Problem was that the nearest available wheel group was in Melbourne Australia where the machine was on the North Coast of S America. Not too many air cargo flights to & from I can tell you.

Low hour component failure like that is known in the trade as "infant mortality".

 

[N140MM]

It got bad when Hewitt took Atlantic's autonomy, and worse when Toromont took over Hewitt. It's publicly held as opposed to privately owned, and has to show a profit. Very little kept in stock.

 

[20/80]

Well i'm glad the dam thing is running, Dartmouth Cat in NS Canada is the main hub for all of NS, their warehouse has limited stock, alot of their parts are shipped out of Quebec 2-3 day wait, this ECM that was put on my machine today was robbed from one of our other new Cat graders sitting at our depot out side Dartmouth NS, would have had to wait another day or two for the new one to come out of Quebec, funny on the back of the ECU said made in Poland, I was also told today that my machine when it came of the lot has to go through a systems tests to make sure everything is working as it should before handing it over to their customer, apparently my machine failed one of the tests, Cat simply canceled the code and sold us the machine without fixing it first, it took 11 hrs for the code to reappear, pretty sleezy move, just like that Rep told me, Cats motto sell the machine fix it in the field, I couldn't imagine a private contractor buying this machine with confidence counting on it to do a job he had to have done in a certain time frame without being penalized.

 

[Welder Dave]

Sleezy? It should be illegal for an OEM to erase an error code on a brand new machine without fixing the problem and now another of your new graders is down. Hopefully you can renegotiate your deal with Cat. I'd sure be leery buying anymore machines from Cat.

 

[20/80]

They say a honest man would starve to death in NS.

 

[20/80]

Had my machine out today, everything seemed to work good, no red warning lights which is nice, the engine seem to have a little more snort today where it wasn't derated which was also welcomed, hopefully that will be its only bugs.

 

[Nige]

funny on the back of the ECU said made in Poland,

That's a step up IMHO. The last one I looked at was stamped "Made in Mexico". Having worked around Poles before I know which one I'd rather have.

 

[20/80]

That's good to know Nige, the Mexico stuff seem to have glitches for sure. wonder why Cat can't build there own in the good ole USA.

 

[Tones]

That's good to know Nige, the Mexico stuff seem to have glitches for sure. wonder why Cat can't build there own in the good ole USA.

One word, cost

 

[Welder Dave]

Like most products, it's made overseas or in a different country but they still it for the same price as if it were made in the USA. No such thing as passing the savings on to the customer. It's all about higher margins.

 

[Nige]

One word, cost

I have another word - taxes.

How often do you hear in the media of high-profile multinationals such as Amazon paying no tax on their operations in Europe or elsewhere.? All done by accounting. I’m sure Cat is just the same, you just don’t hear about it.

In the way of balanced comment let me point out that the truck final drive I mentioned above was made in the USA, and it failed just the same as your Polish ECM. Sh1t happens, it’s just unfortunate that it happened on your machine.

 

[Welder Dave]

Oh yes, country of manufacture is no guarantee of quality. There's always talk of not to buy things made on Monday or Friday. Some little step is missed or someone's in a hurry and the customer is the one that suffers.

 

[ovrszd]

Well i'm glad the dam thing is running, Dartmouth Cat in NS Canada is the main hub for all of NS, their warehouse has limited stock, alot of their parts are shipped out of Quebec 2-3 day wait, this ECM that was put on my machine today was robbed from one of our other new Cat graders sitting at our depot out side Dartmouth NS, would have had to wait another day or two for the new one to come out of Quebec, funny on the back of the ECU said made in Poland, I was also told today that my machine when it came of the lot has to go through a systems tests to make sure everything is working as it should before handing it over to their customer, apparently my machine failed one of the tests, Cat simply canceled the code and sold us the machine without fixing it first, it took 11 hrs for the code to reappear, pretty sleezy move, just like that Rep told me, Cats motto sell the machine fix it in the field, I couldn't imagine a private contractor buying this machine with confidence counting on it to do a job he had to have done in a certain time frame without being penalized.

Ours was a similar experience with Deere. It left the assembly plant with four oil leaks and two active codes in the computer.

Then the worst part. It left the dealership with the same issues and the "caution" light on. When I crawled in the cab it was broke down. That rubbed me raw. I expect my dealership to protect me from poor quality control at the assembly plant. Everyone simply passed it on......

Glad you are running. Hope this is the end of problems. Will take you awhile to build confidence in the machine but hopefully it will come.

 

[Nige]

Oh yes, country of manufacture is no guarantee of quality. There's always talk of not to buy things made on Monday or Friday. Some little step is missed or someone's in a hurry and the customer is the one that suffers.

With all due respect I think it's more the law of averages. If X thousand identical components are manufactured it's logical to expect that, despite all the quality control in the world, a small percentage of them will turn out bad at low hours (the aforementioned "infant mortality") despite passing all relevant QC controls during manufacture. IMO that's what happened here. Let's face it the machine was working right when it was originally delivered to the customer.

 

[20/80]

If what was told to me is true about Cat just erasing the code and sold us the machine, this was 1 in ten machines we bought, I just happen to get that one in our area, but two wrongs don't make it right, this ECM issue should have been addressed when Cat found it while doing the systems check BEFORE it comes to the customer, and yes we do have a 5 year bumper to bumper Warranty from Cat on our new 150 but that Warranty does not cover down time costs as far as I know, 9 days downtime for a private small contractor on a new machine he's counting on for a job without a loaner replacement machine, the small contractor would have a hard time recovering and absorbing those losses each day, its very important that buyers have it in writing that where ever you buy your equipment that a loaner machine is made available to you if that new machine you bought is down for more than a day while under warranty.

 

[ovrszd]

With all due respect I think it's more the law of averages. If X thousand identical components are manufactured it's logical to expect that, despite all the quality control in the world, a small percentage of them will turn out bad at low hours (the aforementioned "infant mortality") despite passing all relevant QC controls during manufacture. IMO that's what happened here. Let's face it the machine was working right when it was originally delivered to the customer.

I agree. Unlike mine which was delivered with problems.

 

[ovrszd]

If what was told to me is true about Cat just erasing the code and sold us the machine, this was 1 in ten machines we bought, I just happen to get that one in our area, but two wrongs don't make it right, this ECM issue should have been addressed when Cat found it while doing the systems check BEFORE it comes to the customer, and yes we do have a 5 year bumper to bumper Warranty from Cat on our new 150 but that Warranty does not cover down time costs as far as I know, 9 days downtime for a private small contractor on a new machine he's counting on for a job without a loaner replacement machine, the small contractor would have a hard time recovering and absorbing those losses each day, its very important that buyers have it in writing that where ever you buy your equipment that a loaner machine is made available to you if that new machine you bought is down for more than a day while under warranty.

On our JD machine I can find every code it's ever thrown, how many times, hr meter reading first time and last time. As owner/operator I can't delete those. I can't confirm or deny that a JD tech can or cannot erase those. My Tech has told me he can find all of them. I guess if you go high enough up the food chain you'll get to someone that can truly erase the codes. A computer geek once told me the memory is seven layers deep.

I agree with you that deception doesn't correct this. If it coded before it left the assembly plant or dealership and a coverup was initiated it's wrong.

My guys were too lazy to deceive anyone so they just delivered it with codes active.....

 

[20/80]

Ovrszd, its hard to believe these actions go on by big name dealerships, just sell the machine fix it in the field, you lay a half a million bucks down on a machine you want it to work trouble free for more then 12 hours, that's when my warning light come on, your salesman for your new machine must of had dark sunglass and a white cane to miss those problems, unbelievable.