Boston Fire Department

[chief60]

My reply had nothing to do with administration. It has to do with the tax payer that all administrations work for. I do not live in Boston but if my department wanted to buy all new trucks to replace less than 5 year old trucks because of bad motors I would not approve. To sell a $800,000.00 ladder 5 years old or less for $400,000.00 because you don't want to put in a $50,000.00 motor is not good money sense. I get you like how it was and want to get back to that with all purchases from this point forward, but to do a dis service to the tax payers is not warranted.

 

Also I get Boston likes E-one but im still confused as to why the KME and others dont work if you have posted it i missed it but when they say they dont work for us id like to know how.   

 

 

What does Boston hope to get with the class action law suite. If they win Navistar may just have to replace all the motors. But I dont think they will have to pay Boston the purchase price of the trucks. After all Boston had a choice in motors and they choose poorly.

 

Im glad that Boston has an administration that wants to work with the guys and get them what they need and want. If a KME breaks and it makes headline news its KME problem but also thats why you dont always buy low bidder. If you want low price thats what you get Id rather pay a little more and get a quality truck. My department was an all pierce fleet and i bet it will be a cold day in hell before we ever get another pierce. When a manufacture builds junk and wont stand behind the product we went esle where with our $$.    

$50,000 won't touch it even if they wanted to replace them. It isn't just pot it out and stick a new one in. You have to consider the other items that he mentioned in the list above. Including bolt patterns not matching up to mount the engines. Not sure how the weight compares to the Cummins engines but will there be enough extra rating to meet nfpa with a new engine? How do the newest EPA changes effect the area to mount the engine underneath the cab as it currently is built. The new engines we just received have just enough clearance for the motors specified. Now if the lawsuit is successful, how much will Boston get out of it? Hopefully enough to cover the added expense. Also, I know KME was pushing the International engines, similar to ALF pushing Caterpillars in 2007 due to the emissions that were coming. My previous department has had a ton of issues with the Caterpillars and ALF but they have (3) 2007 aerials in reserve now and only 5 frontline aerials. They had to replace the units to ensure reliability and public safety. The units were not specced with Caterpillars. it is what was bid and met the spec since we didn't have a standardized fleet of anything at the time and some dump trucks had Caterpillars that were good trucks.