Problems with E-One

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Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on July 16, 2009 at 11:27pm

I hope you get all of your issues worked out

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Permalink Reply by Jason Gennaro on July 17, 2009 at 7:47am

E-One is notorious for having electrical issues! We have several of their units in service and had our share of problems.

I have a few questions for you.

What year is the unit and how many miles/hours does it have?

Have you weighed it? That might sound like a silly question but I believe it's the responsibility of the FD to get a "footprint" weight of each wheel with the vehicle loaded. As an example, we have a squad that had to get additional springs on the right rear side because of the added weight of the cascade system. If you did not do this you may be accountable for the suspension issues.

Lastly, what do you mean by poor quality? I had thought that our trucks were poor quality also unit I visited E-One 10 years ago. I had problems with door handles, window cranks, ripping seats, and broken pump gauges. When I was at E-One I saw units that were the same as ours but in much better shape! I talked to an engineer there and he compared our truck specs to this FD's truck specs. I found out that the problems with our vehicles was due to low spec not low quality. I have since then encouraged our truck committee to get heavy duty window cranks, door handles, and seats without any problems.

Good luck with your issues and if you think I can help send me a message and I'll help however I can.

Jason

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Permalink Reply by Scott Freitag on July 20, 2009 at 11:30am

Jason,

We have weighed the trucks and found them to be within limits. Our suspension problems are two fold. E-One put a drivetrain in that is too big for their chassis. In an effort to make the drivetrain work, they shimmed the U-Bolts and put them at an angle. From a practical stand point, you cannot keep the front suspension tight and in place. From an engineering standpoint, U-bolts are not designed to be shimmed and installed at an angle. The rear suspensions have failed due to the failure of a hollow spacer pad that was used between the frame and U-bolt. This issue is currently with the NHTSA as E-One is blaming us for the failure of the inferior part that they used. There are 7 trucks in the St. Louis Metro area that have the same spacers; 6 of 7 have had failures.

We have had many other issues with electrical systems, drive train, etc. Unfortunately, the E-One dealer in our area as well as E-One have been very unresponsive. In a 12 month period we had nearly $40,000 in warranty work on the four trucks; this does not include non-warranty items. At this rate, we will not be able to afford to keep our five year old trucks when they are out of warranty in August of this year. They are Cyclone II chassis.

Jason Gennaro said:

E-One is notorious for having electrical issues! We have several of their units in service and had our share of problems.

I have a few questions for you.

What year is the unit and how many miles/hours does it have?

Have you weighed it? That might sound like a silly question but I believe it's the responsibility of the FD to get a "footprint" weight of each wheel with the vehicle loaded. As an example, we have a squad that had to get additional springs on the right rear side because of the added weight of the cascade system. If you did not do this you may be accountable for the suspension issues.

Lastly, what do you mean by poor quality? I had thought that our trucks were poor quality also unit I visited E-One 10 years ago. I had problems with door handles, window cranks, ripping seats, and broken pump gauges. When I was at E-One I saw units that were the same as ours but in much better shape! I talked to an engineer there and he compared our truck specs to this FD's truck specs. I found out that the problems with our vehicles was due to low spec not low quality. I have since then encouraged our truck committee to get heavy duty window cranks, door handles, and seats without any problems.

Good luck with your issues and if you think I can help send me a message and I'll help however I can.

Jason

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Permalink Reply by Scott Freitag on July 20, 2009 at 11:32am

George, I am glad to hear that your dealer is working well with you. We have had to deal with problems from our dealer for the past five years, and have been unsuccessful in getting any of it corrected. Part of our request to E-One is to work with a different maintenance facility. Unfortunately, some of the design flaws i.e. front suspension, cannot be fixed.

GEORGE B. WIGGINS said:

Scott, i am sorry to hear about your problems with E-ONE, my dept. also has a few of them. They have been problematic with electrical issues and some wear on the paint and metal. Thankfully our dealer has been more than helpful, I would contact a neighboring E-ONE dealeship to see if they will be able to support their product better than your current dealer.

Stay Safe.

George Wiggins

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Permalink Reply by Mark Emert on July 20, 2009 at 7:49pm

Scott,
At Affton, we have two E-One's that are constantly being worked on for electrical problems. We are also having problems with front tire wear. We have not had them weighed but will take a serious look at that. Paint has not been a problem for us....yet! Please let me know what you find out with your issues. Thanks!!

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Permalink Reply by Scott Freitag on July 20, 2009 at 8:26pm

Mark,

Sounds like we are working with a similar dealer and some similar issues. We'll keep you informed as to our progress with E-One. Just as an FYI, we had to follow the same path as Kansas City and get our attorney involved.

Scott

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Permalink Reply by Ron Burkhardt Jr on July 20, 2009 at 10:39pm

I once seen a bumpersticker at my local Pierce vendor. It read " I would rather tow my Pierce than drive an E-one"

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Permalink Reply by Scott Freitag on July 24, 2009 at 9:20am

I have some similar pictures of our trucks.

Erik Pettaway said:

You got to love it

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Permalink Reply by Bradford James Terry on August 8, 2009 at 12:22pm

Sounds like everyone including us has electrical problems with E-One. Our city shop performs our repair and maintenance on our apparatus. They hate our 91 E-One Quint and our 2006 E-one engine. Pierce provides electrical schematics, E-one provides an apparatus that 2-3 different people run wire through and never document the progress IMHO. Our dealer did all they could and in the end I think the dealer took it in the shorts cause E-One wouldnt back their product. I hear some departments like their E-one. TRADE YOU????

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