[quote name='Fl Ron' post='131589' date='Jul 21 2007, 07:32 ']Joel,
I to have no desire to see any manufacturer of apparatus go out of business, but when someone posted about the E\-One Quest and "claimed that the Quest was the final nail in E\-One's coffin, and doing cart wheels over this so called possibility, I didn't see a response from you, or others, about the lost of jobs and grief that this would have caused. I did comment on this negativity, and judging from an e-mail I received, I was told I was wrong for defending E\-One. The writer claimed that although he wasn't a firefighter, but a buff, he knew all about fire trucks, and that only Pierce was worthy of being sold. Funny, I've been involve with fire trucks for 40 years, and I don't presume to know everything about them.
But let's get back to the issue of manufacturers going out of business. The price of apparatus is not going down, but up rapidly. As this happens they, the manufacturers look at ways to reduce their overhead. One of my concerns is NAFTA. American auto manufacturers as well as many others, have moved some of their component plants to both Canada and Mexico. It would not surprise me if one or more apparatus companies do the same. I would hate to eventually see a "Made in Mexico" label on some rigs, or a % of components made elsewhere and an " Assembled in America" label applied.. These big ticket rigs are also exported by several manufactures . Our export market is shrinking, and although these rigs don't add up to billions of dollars each year, they are USA products going abroad. I like the "Made in USA" label on things. When someone says that only Pierce, E\-One, or Seagrave should dominate the market, this stifles competition, product reliability, innovations, and causes a myriad of other problems. Competition is good. For each manufacturing job, there are 3-1/2 other jobs ranging from suppliers to local economy jobs that would suffer. Fortunately, the bulk of fire trucks are made in the USA.
As to the Elite rig for Montgomery County, I see several good things about it, IE: The ladder to the top of the hose bed, rather then the little hinged folding steps, the lower hose beds, the color keyed gauges, etc. The remark I made was satirical. You and I know fully well that no manufacturer offers a 30 day money back guarantee. As I stated previously, I hope that any design and/or spec problems are caught on the first few rigs made, and over this 24 month program corrected on the others.
Ron[/quote]
Ron-
I probably didn't answer to the slam on the Quest cab because I see so much negativty on Firehouse forums that I usually ignore much of it, as I try to do there. I didn't get to look at the Quest all that much in Indy, as I feel a little weird climbing in competitor's products wearing my logo shirts from the company I rep for. Obviously, there's a market for that style or look - Spartan's Evolution cab and the Quantum sell. I suspect the Quest and Impel/Velocity will sell plenty despite the fact that personally I don't like the looks of either. My opinion matters little to folks that buy these things except at my department, and I'm well aware of that.
If it were just you and me, we'd be talking shop about Elite. They're based in Wisconsin and the company I work for runs up against them alot since we have much of Wisconsin in our sales territory. It always amazes me how their engineering allows to them to put 300 gallons more water on the same tanker chassis everyone else says will be overweight, etc. I could go on and on, but I'm already being naughty saying what I've said. Let's just say I'm a much bigger fan of E\-One than Elite, and would hate to see E\-One go under.
I to have no desire to see any manufacturer of apparatus go out of business, but when someone posted about the E\-One Quest and "claimed that the Quest was the final nail in E\-One's coffin, and doing cart wheels over this so called possibility, I didn't see a response from you, or others, about the lost of jobs and grief that this would have caused. I did comment on this negativity, and judging from an e-mail I received, I was told I was wrong for defending E\-One. The writer claimed that although he wasn't a firefighter, but a buff, he knew all about fire trucks, and that only Pierce was worthy of being sold. Funny, I've been involve with fire trucks for 40 years, and I don't presume to know everything about them.
But let's get back to the issue of manufacturers going out of business. The price of apparatus is not going down, but up rapidly. As this happens they, the manufacturers look at ways to reduce their overhead. One of my concerns is NAFTA. American auto manufacturers as well as many others, have moved some of their component plants to both Canada and Mexico. It would not surprise me if one or more apparatus companies do the same. I would hate to eventually see a "Made in Mexico" label on some rigs, or a % of components made elsewhere and an " Assembled in America" label applied.. These big ticket rigs are also exported by several manufactures . Our export market is shrinking, and although these rigs don't add up to billions of dollars each year, they are USA products going abroad. I like the "Made in USA" label on things. When someone says that only Pierce, E\-One, or Seagrave should dominate the market, this stifles competition, product reliability, innovations, and causes a myriad of other problems. Competition is good. For each manufacturing job, there are 3-1/2 other jobs ranging from suppliers to local economy jobs that would suffer. Fortunately, the bulk of fire trucks are made in the USA.
As to the Elite rig for Montgomery County, I see several good things about it, IE: The ladder to the top of the hose bed, rather then the little hinged folding steps, the lower hose beds, the color keyed gauges, etc. The remark I made was satirical. You and I know fully well that no manufacturer offers a 30 day money back guarantee. As I stated previously, I hope that any design and/or spec problems are caught on the first few rigs made, and over this 24 month program corrected on the others.
Ron[/quote]
Ron-
I probably didn't answer to the slam on the Quest cab because I see so much negativty on Firehouse forums that I usually ignore much of it, as I try to do there. I didn't get to look at the Quest all that much in Indy, as I feel a little weird climbing in competitor's products wearing my logo shirts from the company I rep for. Obviously, there's a market for that style or look - Spartan's Evolution cab and the Quantum sell. I suspect the Quest and Impel/Velocity will sell plenty despite the fact that personally I don't like the looks of either. My opinion matters little to folks that buy these things except at my department, and I'm well aware of that.
If it were just you and me, we'd be talking shop about Elite. They're based in Wisconsin and the company I work for runs up against them alot since we have much of Wisconsin in our sales territory. It always amazes me how their engineering allows to them to put 300 gallons more water on the same tanker chassis everyone else says will be overweight, etc. I could go on and on, but I'm already being naughty saying what I've said. Let's just say I'm a much bigger fan of E\-One than Elite, and would hate to see E\-One go under.
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