Kenworth VS Western Star

HEY SWISHY...re the oil company short wheel base S2....you are not thinking about the ones Mobil had are you ?? They had a handling problem resulting in a few jack-knife jobs way back. They all had 903's in them and fitted with Jake Brakes....but they weren't fitted with the selector switch so you could cut a few cylinders out....it was all or nothing back then. This resulted in the driver losing control when they were empty and using the Jake Brake... they would lose drive wheel traction and skip and slide all over the place.

Grumpy M80
dont recall th@
me twaz more like a mushroom n get the info only 5th hand or more
Spose with the tanks B n very light when MT anything iz possable
LOL
did hear a KW COE Esso tanker driver may have been killed on Sth Gippsland hwy @ the twin bridges sth of Tooradin where the airport is now
Twaz it ........ He hit a desent bump ...............n bumped the driver up hard n into the roof
Cya
[ch9786]

My very vague recallection was a story on 60 minutes or one of those programs, I thought it was Volvo or Ford? I didn't think it was KW, whatever brand it was and someone asked me about the same thing the other day and said Ford, it was handling problems caused by extending wheelbases, and I think there was an accident or near miss down south that frightened the drivers, but really it was that long ago I couldn't be sure of anything.

I remember the 60 minutes program covering an LTL9000 which had problems with its steering from day one, it ended up having a head on with an on coming bus due to the steering problem if I remember correctly.

The impression I'm getting now is that it was individual vehichles which had problems rather than a particular model.

Yeah Swishy...those Esso COE KW's were a mongrel of a thing. Most of the ones Esso had were slim-lines, 250 Cummins, 4X4 Spicer trans, air assist on the steering and had them Sure-glide steering spring thingys fitted too. They had a couple of COE sleepers that used to do the long fuel hauls and I vaguely remember one coming to grief on the South Gippsland highway way back when.

Bigcam & Standen - I think you might be recalling the ACA story on the bloke who bought the wrong Louisville for the job? He was sooking to ACA about how Ford sold him a dud truck, but it came back to the fact he'd specced the truck for single trailer work and was pulling road trains with it. There's a post on the V8forums by Big Trev that goes some way to explain the media beat-up. The problem was in the truck owner, not the truck.

www.v8central.com/snitz3403/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=31799

A lot of truck "problems" are due to drivers not having enough awareness of what happens under various circumstances, such as light arse ends, heavy braking, poor road surfaces, etc etc.
We've all been caught by arse-ends breaking away unexpectedly, you have to be alert when you're behind the wheel.

I owned a '77 SWB 4WD F100 that was a right bastard of a thing when empty, and you hit wide-pitch corrugations on gravel at speed (100-110kmh).
It would go sideways in 2 seconds, because the front axle radius rods on these models were long, and were mounted on the chassis near the middle of the cab.
As result, any impact on a front wheel is transferred to the back end with great leverage, and they just get sideways in an instant when you hit deep and wide corrugations.
I could have claimed that Ford made "Killer F-100's" and went to ACA or 60 Minutes, too .. but I didn't, I just got very alert to the F-100's handling quirks and kept my reflexes sharp.
Later F-100's have much shorter radius rods, and they impart less impact effect to an empty back end, thus giving a more gentle handling response to hitting corrugations at speed.

Most vehicles have some quirks in steering and handling, you have to learn to live with them.

St
Gudday M8
vaguely remember a KW rig parked outside KW Bayswater factory with (Lemon) or sumthing like th@ painted on a sign on trailer parked there for a few days me didn't kno or remember wot the deal twaz

and many more moons ago may B KW S2 short wheelbase (Golden Fleece ?) oil company truck had truble controll n truck when turning me thinks

ButEyeDoSt&2BCorrected
Cya
[ch9786]

Rigs N Roads or Truckin Life had a story on the K100 parked at Bayswater 30 odd years ago.
Can remember the accompanying photo..
Full gated and tarped trailer with " THIS KENWORTH IS A LEMON " painted in FB letters down the whole length of the trailer.
Can't remember much else except it was an owner driver with a bit of a greivance.

I guess this thread is a fair enough one to ask this question. Going back maybe 10 or 15 years ago, was there a particular model of Kenworth which had an inherent design flaw which KW wiped their hands of? Can

the K100Es had sqaure headlights with the option for round ones then they went back to rounds as standard

was a ethnic dude here in newcastle painted on his own truck (isuzu)with spraycans "this truck is a lemon and they wont fix it" he had it parked outside a isuzu dealership for a long time ...then later on he broke a hayman-reece towbar (obviously overloaded the towbar being on a truck) and once again he had it parked outside the auto place where he bought the towbar from ... lets face it some people if they spend money on something they want their money back! or alternativly they dont accept reality that they themselves are to blame ?