Blown Engine Help

LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Before you pay the attorney $2500 you might want to wait long enough to see what, if anything, the attorney general's office does. They may not do anything but if they get your money back for you without any attorney expenses that would be good. Good luck to you and for future reference Cummins Mid States in Normal, IL is a good shop.

Leo
truck 4958

Support the entire Constitution, not just the parts you like.
 

Crazynuff

Veteran Expediter
I'd send copies of everything to Blue Bird and let them know what type people are servicing and maybe selling their buses . May ot help your case but it'll show the shop you're serious in exposing their attitude .
 

woodman5455

Expert Expediter
Thank's guys for the support and advice. As I may have said before I work woodworking trade shows and our season is over the first week of May. I will wait until then to get an attorney. I will have more time then to dedicate to this situation. This will also give WTAE TV in Pittsburgh, The Attorney General of PA, and the local BBB a chance to get things done.
It was also a good idea to send it to Blue Bird Bus Corp. office to expose these people as well. I will get everything to them next week.
Cummins Bridgeway where the truck was fixed is owned 51% by Cummins Corp. so they are getting exposed their as we speak. They are listed as a Cummins Service Center on the Cummins Web Site. Hope that all this will lose their right to be a service center for Cummins.
 

NEVERHOME247

Veteran Expediter
Charter Member
What a disaster. You should not have to pay for that damage. I worked as a diesel mechanic for many years. I can tell you for fact, that they did not clean out the charge air cooler properly. It still had oil in it. Causing the engine to run away. We always sent the charge air cooler out to a local radiator shop to have it cleaned out. I remember a incident at a shop I worked at. Where one of the guys in the shop replaced a turbo. Cleaned out the charge air cooler. Or at least he thought he did. Started up the truck. Engine ran away and busted a couple of pistons. The shop ate the job and the customer got just about a complete inframe out of it for free. Any mechanic will tell you that they did not get all the oil out of the charge air cooler. It will happen every time. I hope you get the issue resolved. Call the Cummins rep for your area.
 

woodman5455

Expert Expediter
Just to let you all know I finally went to court yesterday in PA. I won the full amount of compensation. This has been a long hard strugle ( over 3 1/2 years ) that still my not be over yet. Bluebird now has 30 days to apeal the case.

Jerry who is now retired and was the customer service manager for Cummins Bridgeway came to court for me even though he was now retired. I owe him a lot.

As I said I will keep you all posted on what happens next.

Thanks for your support.
 

Jack_Berry

Moderator Emeritus
congratulatins!! glad to see you persisted even though this thread pre dated me.

hope justice continues to be in your corner. it was real stand up of jerry to come in for you after retiring. i have a hrad time quantifying how to show thanks to folks like that. now i just send them a bottle of cranberry salsa. takes them by surprise and no one has compalined. some had said how tasty it was.
 

moose

Veteran Expediter
Good job Dale.
It is Determinations like this ,that open the Doors for all of us to demand a quality and responsible service.
hope you get all your money back , and then some.
are you an Expediter now , Dale ?

Thanks.



Moose.
 

Bruno

Veteran Expediter
Fleet Owner
US Marines
Just to let you all know I finally went to court yesterday in PA. I won the full amount of compensation. This has been a long hard strugle ( over 3 1/2 years ) that still my not be over yet. Bluebird now has 30 days to apeal the case.

Jerry who is now retired and was the customer service manager for Cummins Bridgeway came to court for me even though he was now retired. I owe him a lot.

As I said I will keep you all posted on what happens next.

Thanks for your support.

Dale

Glad to hear you won. I know I will never let one of our truck go to that place in Pittsburg because of this. We had something happen like this to our one truck in NH but it was the key way on the cam gear. The cam gear is suppose to be put in a oven to get hot so they can press the gear on. Well the engine blew 18,000 miles later because the cam wasn't put on right. I had the shop send me pictures of the key way and the cam and it had the burn marks where they heated it up with a blow torch. I sent the pictures to Cummins and Cummins told me it was the shops fault. At 1st they didn't want to pay the bill but I told them I would take them to court with a man that was a retired service manager that worked at Cummins for 30 plus years and then open his own shop.

He called them and talked to the service manager and they went ahead and paid the bill and the rental charges for our drivers to get to and from the truck. Thank God that service manager from Cummins was my uncle.
 

RLENT

Veteran Expediter
Could someone explain the processes which oil causes an overspeed?
Dunno ..... just a guess ...... oil gets sucked into the motor and burns as though it were fuel ..... since the amount that is going in isn't controlled like diesel would be, through the injectors, the motor is over-fueled ..... even if the engine is governed I would think it might over-rev under the these circumstances ..... particularly when it was not under load ..... like say when ya pushed the clutch in to shift gears ........ ?
 

piper1

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Dunno ..... just a guess ...... oil gets sucked into the motor and burns as though it were fuel ..... since the amount that is going in isn't controlled like diesel would be, through the injectors, the motor is over-fueled ..... even if the engine is governed I would think it might over-rev under the these circumstances ..... particularly when it was not under load ..... like say when ya pushed the clutch in to shift gears ........ ?

Dead on! Failure to clean out aftercoolers after a turbo failure is the leading cause of "ventilated" engine blocks. Once saw a N14 hit about 5500 rpm, flywheel explosion lifted the floor about 8 inches, never found one of the clutch discs. It did sound cool, too bad the guy got fired.
 

P51bombay

Expert Expediter
ok, now for dumb question #37 - some say after cooler, some charge air cooler, I say intercooler..............all the same thing is it not?
 

piper1

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Not dumb at all! Technically speaking they all do the same thing, cool down hot turbo/super charged air. The intercooler name is most commonly applied to a unit that uses engine coolant to cool the air (think mid 80's Cummins, big wedge shaped deal on the top left of engine). However, there was a truck brand that started to use intercooler to describe an air to air aftercooler, I think it was Volvo, because intercooler sounded sexier and looked better on the grille badge. So, all the names kind got mixed up. Use any of them at the shop and the tech will know what you mean.

Unless you have a c-13/15 ACERT Cat......they have both an intercooler and an aftercooler:rolleyes:.
 

truckerlife

Rookie Expediter
I have a very similar story. Had a mechanic in CA rebuild & replace a turbo & it went out on me after only 4 days on the road. Same mechanic sent a new turbo out to a different mobile mechanic out in AZ to replace the turbo. After mobile mech finish replace the turbo the engine turned on & it "ran away" and stalled. Had the ruck towed back to mobile mechanic shop to have it further looked at. Called them for 2 days then final got a response saying they dont work on Detroit engines. Had the truck towed back to CA & got a repair bill for over $12,000 for a inframe engine overhaul. CA mechanic is telling me a injector tip caused the engine to "run" on me. Who is responsible for the damages? The CA mechanic or the AZ mechanic?
 

EASYTRADER

Expert Expediter
BBB is a waste of time. They are mainly just a mrketting outfit of blue stickers that say BBB on them. In tdays world best bet is Yelp, Google maps reviews, and RipoffReport.com. For this amount of money I would do all three.

Most states have "Mechanics Licensing" or "Automotive Repair Bureau" they are worth complaining to. Calling BlueBird I a good idea to.
 
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