New CAT truck

seen one today

Looked inside and it was so basic didn't impress me anyway...........

WOW... now i know what it would look like if a sterling and a iveco crashed into a peterbilt at high speed

Geez, look where the turntable is!! almost over the front drive axle

Looks fairly standard I think it is just the camera angle looking across on that funny diagonal
The air foil looks out of place without the tautliner that is in the ads for it
Is that your vision that I spy back there old dog hope that if it is yours that it's only getting serviced

I wouldn't like to be amongst the first owners of these new "Cat" trucks. This whole deal hinges around a Joint Venture between Cat and Navistar, that may, or may not, work.
The whole sales pitch hinges around the "aura" of a Cat badge. The truck is supposed to sell like hot scones, because it has the name on the front, and you can pull into any Cat dealer, and get servicing/repair/overhaul done.

The more likely story is, that you'll pull your new Cat highway prime mover into a Cat dealer .. and they'll all troop out, and say .. "Geez! .. so, this is what they look like? Never seen one before! Anyway, wheel her in the shop, and we'll have a look at it!".

This will immediately expose you to workshop charges and stuff-ups, like you've never encountered. Cat workshops are notorious for hiding their major blunders, and making sure you pay an extortionate amount, while they go about learning on your rig.

This truck looks like a company truck to me .. designed specifically for highways, 19 metre lengths, and B-doubles. The whole design effort is around streamlining and fuel saving .. but not about operator comfort, noise reduction, or dealing with the hidden nasties of Australian operation, in the great outdoors .. where 'roos, steers and even camels lurk on a nightly basis.

Any attempt to install a bullbar will immediately wreck the carefully-designed, aircraft-smooth lines. Any attempt to travel East-West without a bullbar, will see your journey cut short, before you even make the expanses of Western S.A.

The road tests I've read, claim the noise levels make talking to a passenger difficult when the engine is under load. Despite all the careful air-flow design, the cab is reputed to generate large amounts of wind noise.
Neither of these factors should be included as part of the deal, in a "new" truck design.

The air-cleaner is mounted under the bonnet. How the designers could design an air-cleaner of the required size for Australian operation, and place it under a hood that is 3/4's the size of any other truck on the road, is a mystery to me.
The conclusion I come to, is that the truck is a city/suburban Coles and Woolies distribution centre, trailer-dragger .. and not fit for much else.

It will be interesting to see if the brand makes any decent sort of impression, on the already-crowded truck market.
History shows that Cat just wades into a great new idea and venture .. trumpets the new product like it's the greatest thing on Earth .. then when it fails to live up to "marketing projections", they just walk away from it.

Cat have done this at least three times, with agricultural products .. waded into the market with agricultural products, claiming they are a new force in the ag field .. then 5 yrs later, they have walked away from their new foray into the ag market .. claiming it never met their projections or profitability, or they have decided on a different direction.

I notice they are taking the easy, low cost route .. procuring the standard components from suppliers, including a fully-built cab from Navistar in the U.S. .. then just whacking the truck together in a hastily-organised assembly line amongst the other Cat stuff being produced at Tullamarine.
This is real toe-in-the-water stuff, that Cat can walk away from, any time they like .. just as they walked away from millions of loyal Cat truck-engine owners, when they made the decision not to produce any more on-road truck engines.
There was more than meets the eye, in that decision .. and this truck shows that Cat's decision to axe their on-road engines, leaving other manufacturers out in the cold, was quite a devious decision.
Only history will show whether this truck gains good overall acceptance, or just a limited acceptance. My money is on the last scenario.

The "new" Cat truck .. www.powertorque.com.au/_webapp_749836/CAT_Acclaim

DISCLAIMER: This post is not about denigrating any one item in particular, of Cat's fine products; nor of denigrating the Caterpillar name; it is a personal opinion and projections, based on my experiences over at least 4 decades, of owning Cats, and dealing with Cat dealers and their employees; along with considerable general experience in the field of machinery, trucks, engines, vehicles, and being a proprietor of a sizeable business involving the ownership and useage of same. (this should keep the Rottweiler lawyers off my back, or least keep them busy looking for loopholes in my post .. )

Well said, Ron and i dont think anyone will question your past experiences with Cat products.
I have driven one of the trucks ( a CT610) and dont agree regarding the noise levels, was talking away on road without any problems. The dealer we visited (William Adams Laverton ) had about a dozen new ones in stock and numerous other makes of trucks being worked on in a very well equipped workshop. The CT610 had good visibility and an excellent turning circle but no auto transmission option so not ideal for supermarket work.

Juan Trak
Gudday M8

RE: DISCLAIMER:
Laywers, Guns n Money (aka) Grabit n Runn
Will soon B onto U
LOL

Good Call tho

My drive-by investigation revealed this in Feb 2011



Cat shoulda got into Mack n tossed volvo outa bed
LOL
the new C@ truck will B a gimick for the inexperienced
with the nice big shiny grille surround n sleek lines
hope they do well
but it would B a few years B 4 any new truck maker get all the bugs outa beast
Cya
[ch9787]

Swishy - WOW! That's a serious number of new trucks to have stacked up in one storage yard (a rough estimate says around 300 trucks) and it shows three things ..

1. Cat & Navistar are serious about their attack on the truck market. Salesmen and dealers will almost certainly be offered major incentives to get all this stock into owners hands, and out on the road.
I smell major discounting. Add in a very good USD/AUD exchange rate, and the offers to buyers will be very attractive, to trade their "old clunkers" in.
My workshop neighbour hauls a single trailer for Coles with an old, Cummins-powered, K100, K-Whoppa. I'll wager he'll be driving a new Cat truck before the year is out, and he'll be telling me, how he couldn't knock back the deal that Cat truck salesmen offered him. The old K-Whoppa will be sent to China for sure, if he does what I expect him to do.

2. If the trucks don't sell like Cat expect them to (and someone in NC2 Global marketing has done some optimistic sales projections), then a lot of truck buyers will be getting good deals on 2011 model trucks, in 2012 ..

3. Judging by the number of trucks, pre-built, without buyer orders .. there isn't much by way of options in your new Cat truck. You buy the "one-size-fits-all" Cat truck, or you don't buy it at all.
This goes against the grain of most Aussie truck owners (except fleet buyers, of course - see first post above .. :) .. who like to "personalise" their trucks with various drivetrain options, accessories, and other items, to build the truck that suits their application and particular job.
Your options appear to be pretty limited with this truck .. and this is a trend that the truck and car manufacturers are trying to enforce, and have been aiming at for years. "You can get any colour as long as it's black" (although in this case, it's white! ). An attitude that is still worshipped by the bean counters in large corporations .. who see Henry Ford as their guru, and the master of making billions .. by providing a mass-produced vehicle by the millions, virtually every single one of them, identical to the next one.

As far as "bugs" go .. yes, you are spot-on in that respect. One of my mantras when I was in business, was never to buy the first model of ANY machine, vehicle or truck, until it had been in production for at least 2 years, and it had all the bugs sorted out.

However, Cat obviously know this well, and the potential for bugs in the new Cat truck is fairly low. They are using proven motors and proven drivetrain components .. so the only potential area for "bugs" is really only in the assembly, or in the design of the cab.

As always, the amount of electronic components, and how they're built and arranged is the major source of component problems nowadays.
Cat seem to have a fairly good handle on electronic component location, build quality, and construction of wiring harness and connectors, that will hopefully reduce electronic problems to a minimum in the new Cat truck.