New CAT on-highway truck!

[NIsaacs]

CAT will unveil their new class 8 on-highway truck today in Vegas!



Nick

 

[mwilson]

Anxious to see them, has been a well kept secret.



The ones in Australia are a smokescreen to keep everyone guessing as they are just a Navistar cab and frame with Cat Power.



Cat told me that the US one is not going to be like that. .



Should be interesting.



Mike.

 

[2Rowdy]

I don't know how true it is but a cat salesman was telling me the other day that it was pretty much an International.

 

[HBarlow]

I thought Caterpillar decided back in '07 to get out of the on-highway engine business for good. What happened?

 

[NIsaacs]

I don't think it is CAT powered. The little article was not very informative but it is probably powered by Cummins or Detroit or maybe even IHC.



Nick

 

[RustyJC]

Cat is hedging their bets. They're supplying C-15 (15 liter) engines to Navistar who will private label them as a MaxxForce engine. See HERE.



Rusty

 

[rscurtis]

AFAIK, these will be vocational trucks only, not OTR trucks. In the same venue, what ever happened to IH's "Lonestar"? I don't think I've seen more than 4 or 5 of them in my travels.

 

[HBarlow]

How is Caterpillar going to meet '10 federal emissions standards now with their engines when they could not meet '07 or '07. 5 standards three years ago and announced they were leaving the OTR engine business?

Rebadging their 15 liter engine a Navistar is not going to make it meet emissions regulations. I don't know anything about big trucks or big truck markets but it doesn't sound realistic that Caterpillar, which is and always has been an engine and off road equipment manufacturer, is suddenly going to produce an OTR tractor capable of competing with Peterbuilt, Freightliner, Navistar, Western Star, Mack, etc. and without an emissions certified engine of their own.

I don't understand the announcement.

 

[Mikey-KE7LBB]

They might be going the same route as the DD15 Detroit that uses a slightly larger CP3, commonrail direct injection (Bosch Piezo injectors), and... (drum roll please) A Holset VGT turbo!!



Looks VERY similar to a commonrail Cummins... Just 2. 5x the size!! Even has the BlueTec sticker near the tank that holds the synthetic pee!! :-laf

 

[RustyJC]

How is Caterpillar going to meet '10 federal emissions standards now with their engines when they could not meet '07 or '07. 5 standards three years ago and announced they were leaving the OTR engine business?



Rebadging their 15 liter engine a Navistar is not going to make it meet emissions regulations. I don't know anything about big trucks or big truck markets but it doesn't sound realistic that Caterpillar, which is and always has been an engine and off road equipment manufacturer, is suddenly going to produce an OTR tractor capable of competing with Peterbuilt, Freightliner, Navistar, Western Star, Mack, etc. and without an emissions certified engine of their own.



I don't understand the announcement.

Speculation is that Navistar is selling the rebadged C-15s under emissions credits from prior years that it's holding and, once these credits are used up, will be responsible for adding a SCR/urea system with this and their other engines to bring them into conformance. As I understand it, Navistar's "enhanced EGR" approach they utilize today won't cut it in the long term.



From the source I quoted above:

Navistar's all Selective Catalyst Reduction (SCR) approach is continuing by extending the life of the Cat C-15 in the US - but as a private brand. This makes sense for Navistar and not a real costly one to implement - but with a potentially very good short-term payback and time to integrate the option for the future. The C-15 engine is currently engineered into the Navistar applications - and emission credits will be utilized as with the other models offered in 2010.

In effect, CAT will be selling Navistar a 15L long block (I'm assuming cylinder heads are included), and it will be up to Navistar to design and hang on the bits to make it conform to emissions standards.



Rusty

 

[mwilson]

How is Caterpillar going to meet '10 federal emissions standards now with their engines when they could not meet '07 or '07. 5 standards three years ago and announced they were leaving the OTR engine business?



Rebadging their 15 liter engine a Navistar is not going to make it meet emissions regulations. I don't know anything about big trucks or big truck markets but it doesn't sound realistic that Caterpillar, which is and always has been an engine and off road equipment manufacturer, is suddenly going to produce an OTR tractor capable of competing with Peterbuilt, Freightliner, Navistar, Western Star, Mack, etc. and without an emissions certified engine of their own.



I don't understand the announcement.

That is what I don't understand either, the ACERT engine fiasco has cost Cat a fortune in warranty claims and customer loyalty in the truck world.



I would suspect that they would return to a single turbo set-up with Urea treatment, the only thing that would make sense to me.



I have had a few calls from insiders at Cat wondering about the workings of a complete truck and it's components.

I was asked for my opinion and I told them that the current crop of CAT counter and service personnel were totally unprepared for truck repairs that are unrelated to the engine.



It will turn the CAT distributors into competitors for drivetrain, transmission, brakes and suspension repair which could get interesting.



There are still Daimler truck dealers that do not get along with Detroit Diesel dealers and vice versa since Daimler purchased all involved.



CAT has the worlds finest parts and service support system in place which works great when you have CAT serial number to go by, how's that gonna' work when a truck driver whips in there with a Peterbilt truck and can't even tell them what brand his fifth wheel is for example.

They will not know what questions to ask, and will not have the support system in place from the major vendors to help. Like it or not you need all vendors on board to help support a product be it Eaton transmission, Meritor Axle, etc. .



I understand that at least one and possibly a second CAT distributor has purchased a Navistar Dealership in it's entirety so as to combine forces which is a smart move as they get trained personnel right from day 1.



Could get some kind of interesting..... :-laf



Mike.

 

[rscurtis]

HB, AFAIK, these will be vocational trucks only, Cat is not going into the truck tractor business.

 

[HBarlow]

HB, AFAIK, these will be vocational trucks only, Cat is not going into the truck tractor business.

By "vocational trucks" do you mean medium duty trucks used a RV and horse trailer pullers?

 

[mwilson]

For vocational use only they can probably get by offering one powertrain only. Give it all Cat part numbers and sell it for twice as much money... ... ... :-laf



Choose any cab color you want as long as it's Yellow!!!!!



Mike.

 

[mwilson]

By "vocational trucks" do you mean medium duty trucks used a RV and horse trailer pullers?

Vocational trucks are tandem dumps, cement mixers, refuse trucks, etc.



Mike.



Just found a link...

Caterpillar Unveils New Cat Vocational Trucks -- LAS VEGAS, March 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --



They call it a CT660. I just read the statement that "All CAT distributors are fully trained", I think that is news to my distributor... ... ... Ha Ha

 

[Jim W]

Here is another Link for the new Cat Vocational trucks. My Cat Truck



These are mainly gear to the Construction and Mining industry. Cat will be offering as one of the engines in the trucks the C15. I have seen a photo of the engine and it is definitely a Cat engine.



Another style of the truck that will be offered. Will be a service truck for the dealers and large equipment users. This will enable them to use the vocational truck as a service vehicle. From what I have seen the trucks were designed in Lisle IL and to be manufactured in the US. Some have been tested in the US market and Australia with excellent results so far.



One of the reasons Cat. stop offering on highway engines for the tier IV emission requirements was due to no market to sell them in. Since most of their former end users such as, Freightliner, Auto Car, Western Star and Mack Trucks have been purchased by foreign manufactures who put their own diesel engines in them now.

Jim W.

 

[mwilson]

One of the reasons Cat. stop offering on highway engines for the tier IV emission requirements was due to no market to sell them in. Since most of their former end users such as, Freightliner, Auto Car, Western Star and Mack Trucks have been purchased by foreign manufactures who put their own diesel engines in them now.

Jim W.

I have to disagree with that, they (CAT) dropped out.



If that were the case and the Daimler Gang only wanted to sell the Detroit Diesel Engine then why is Daimler offering Cummins as a powerplant choice once again.

They will not drop something that sells well without a good reason. And if a fleet demands a certain powertrain then the OEM's will bust a nut to get it into a chassis.

Have even seen Freightliners factory equipped with Navistar/Spicer rears that a fleet customer demanded.

No joke.



I just went to the GM to confirm this and CAT did indeed step out. ACERT engines had a high failure rate and then when the '08's came out it got even worse.



I can assure you that PACCAR (Peterbilt and Kenworth) did not want CAT to get out of the game, they bought up every '08 CAT engine they could find and offered CAT power into '09 using the excess engines to get by.



We were distraught that CAT dropped out, had a huge market share up here.

Even with the ACERT issues they still have a loyal customer base.



CAT ACERT's do not hold up as well as the pre-emissions CAT engines in our vocational world. They can't even design an exhaust sleeve that wont fall apart and go thru both turbos. That makes for huge warranty claims.

They got tired of being on the hook for it and had way too much trouble meeting emissions.

I don't know how they plan to keep it up once the credits are used up.



JMHO.



Mike.

 

[n7gxz]

The cabs look like Mack to me.



Kevin

 

[Wingate]

Rusty is CLOSE... . REALLY close. .

I havent looked at the recent articles... are they listing the new 6 and 8 speed automatic trans... ... its a cat also. .

 

[HBarlow]

That marketing video link above doesn't pass the smell test for me but I know next to nothing about big trucks. The video spends 80% of its run time with the camera aimed at spectators expressing their off the wall opinions which are, of course, uniformly positive. The camera only briefly passes over the "CAT" truck, too quickly and with limited view angles which prevent a knowledgeable truck guy from recognizing the similarities with other major truck manufacturers.

My completely uninformed guess is that is a rebranded truck manufactured by someone else . . . like Mack as suggested above.

Isn't Lisle, IL the location of a newly relocated Navistar plant?

I find it very difficult to believe that CAT would make the huge investment in design, testing, land, buildings, equipment, labor, etc. to suddenly develop a new truck line to sell into a competitive market. Sorry, I'm an old skeptic but I'm not convinced.