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FMC BRAINS TRUST:
Page 82
Page 84
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VEHICLE DESIGN AND VEHICLE DESIGN AND MAINTENANCE
A S can be seen from the pictures and captions above, " the four members of the brains trust panel invited to answer questions on vehicle design and maintenance were representative of manufaCturers, operators and the authorities.
The first question put to the brains trust was by J. E. Kirby (Federated Road Transport Services). Did the panel feel that vehicle maintenance was set at an adequate standard? If they thought not, which single item did they consider required the most attention by operators?
Chairman James Amos swiftly passed this to .1. A. T. Hanlon. In a detailed reply, Mr. Hanlon emphasized that he was not satisfied at present with maintenance standards, but he appreciated there were many pressures on hauliers to keep vehicles on the move. He also appreciated that delivery dates on new vehicles were getting longer and that some new vehicles received prohibitions within a few weeks of going on the road.
Mr. Hanlon believed the real cause of poor maintenance was wasteful competition, which showed even in some municipal bus undertakings. Once one started to cut rates, something had to go—and it was usually maintenance. lithe industry wanted to eliminate bad operators it had to eliminate excuses. As a Licensing Authority he often heard that an operator could not get spares. The real need was for adequate inspection, he said. One could not leave it to the driver.
On the panel J. E. Johnson supported Mr. Hanlon and called for rigid, short-period inspections. Although there was a reluctance at certain times of the year to release a vehicle to the engineer, regular examinations were essential. A normal vehicle running 500-600 miles a week should be examined monthly and a vehicle covering more than 1,000 miles weekly should be checked every three weeks.
F. M. Fieldhouse (British Ropes) posed two questions. Drivers generally were held responsible for "dipping oil and topping up ", he said. Would the panel agree, he asked, that with certain tilt cabs this now became a major operation, particularly in inclement weather? He also asked whether tilt cabs were necessary to good maintenance.
In reply, G. J. Ibbitson said that manufacturers were working towards oil-level indicators in the cab, and " noloss " water systems which would require attention but once a year. Tilt cabs as such could be most useful, although his company considered the difference between a twominute tilt and a 10-minute tilt was not great.
A. Prentice (St. Cuthbert's Co-op Assn.) felt that maintenance for the twoor three-vehicle operator was particularly serious. The problem for the small operator was in the lack of centres and facilities to carry out his routine and preventive maintenance requirements. He considered that on diesel vehicles the cleanliness of filters was of prime importance, whilst on petrol-engined vehicles ignition systems were the main problem. Mr. Prentice was not in favour of tilt cabs.
Mr. Johnson spoke up for engineers when he said that faster vehicle turn-rounds meant the hour that the maintenance man used to have between journeys had now been lost. He felt the tilt cab was going through a teething period but its virtues were such that it no longer took four hours to change a starter motor; nor was it necessary to cut up a cab to change the dynamo as he had to do on one particular 1964 model.
A. S. Mansfield (John Harris (Cartage) Ltd.) asked whether sufficient attention was being given by commercial vehicle designers to such items as handbrake release cables, built-in provision for anti-theft devices and exposed fuel-line filters. Vehicles were being turned out on which it-was almost impossible to remove the fuel pump, whilst anti-theft devices ought to be more seriously considered.
The manufacturers' representative, Mr. Ibbitson, agreed there was a lot of truth in Mr. Mansfield's complaint. So far, the production side of the road transport industry had been given too much attention, whilst not enough consideration had been given to the operating side. Regarding anti-theft devices, he suggested that if insurance companies offered lower premiums for vehicles so fitted, the resulting demand would compel manufacturers to act. To some extent in defence of the manufacturer, Mr. Prentice reminded delegates that the variety of models and corresponding number of spare parts presented a serious problem for manufacturers. The industry was such a complex organization that operators had never been able to project their requirements positively as a group to manufacturers. In contrast manufacturers were able to produce a good taxi or public service vehicle because they were asked to meet a specific need.
In reply to a question from J. P. Young (BRS) as to what the maintenance cost should be for a vehicle with a 12/14-ton carrying capacity, the majority view of the panel was that varying conditions made a specific answer difficult to give. Mr. Johnson emphasized the effect on costs of the regularity with which the engineering department were allowed to ,maintain a vehicle. Only by such regular visits could the engineer keep on top of his job.
Supplementing this comment, Mr. Ibbitson questioned whether the trend towards automatic chassis lubrication was advisable. It encouraged operators to keep vehicles on the road although other aspects of the vehicle required examination. More attention was needed, not less.
Mr. Prentice's comment was that, inevitably, maintenance costs were relative to work done.. Thus, large vehicles on long distance might return lower maintenance costs than smaller vehicles on multiple-delivery work. A point that needed emphasizing was that new vehicles required skilled attention in their early days to enable them to settle down to a useful and long life. It was wrong to ignore them because they were new.
Brakes and their inadequacy was the subject of a question put to the panel. Mr. L. Green (Leonard Green (Haulage) Ltd.) asked the panel what steps could be taken, particularly as regards articulated outfits; At the outset, Mr. Prentice agreed that brake design in the past had been very bad. Not enough engineering skill was being devoted to this problem as it affected articulation: new thinking was needed on the whole principle of articulation—including further drives from the vehicle. So far we had run away from this problem. Mr. Johnson, however, considered that some vehicles had more braking than we knew what to do with. In fairness to the manufacturers, heavy goods vehicle operators had got through extremely hard winters with relatively few accidents.
Mr. Hanlon reminded delegates that a defective handbrake was sufficient to require an immediate GV9. He wondered if manufacturers, when designing brakes, always assumed that vehicles were never going to exceed the speed limit or be overloaded.
Forthrightly, Mr. Ibbitson admitted that braking was inadequate, but the proposed figure of 60 per cent braking efficiency in all conditions was, he said, extremely difficult to achieve on existing vehicles. Taking up Mr. Hanlon's point, even if one designed brakes to be adequate on vehicles travelling at high speeds even when overloaded, then when' they were lightly loaded such brakes would be very sensitive.
A question by F. H. Woodward (Montague Burton)
which met with considerable approval was: "When can the purchaser of a new modern vehicle, be it car or commercial, take delivery with confidence that no extensive, personal workshop check is necessary after the manufacturer's and the supplier's pre-delivery checks have been carried out?"
Mr. Johnson agreed that it would be nice to have someone finally to wander round a new vehicle before it was delivered. It was a shame that a vehicle which basically was a good machine should have something go wrong with it in the first week of delivery—which so very often happened. No one seemed to be taking "that last technical look " at a vehicle.
It was suggested by Mr. Prentice that this was where the brains of the industry was needed—on the finished machine. Even if it meant an increase in the selling price of the vehicle it would still be cheaper, in essence, if it meant that vehicles would be properly finished. This was a matter which, in any case, had a profound effect on safety.
Often it was the operator who was penalized when it was someone else's fault altogether. Something should be done to vet vehicles, Mr. Prentice said, amid applause, even to giving them certificates of fitness before bodies were put on them.
Mr. Hanlon reminded delegates that once the haulier put the vehicle on the road he was the person responsible for it as the owner—even if a fault was discovered within a week of delivery. But whether the operator had an action for damages against someone else if this happened was questionable.
The situation would soon arise, said Mr. Ibbitson, when the manufacturers would need inspectors to inspect the inspectors. This, unfortunately, was something which would have to come sooner or later.
Responding to a question by J. Paul (South of Scotland Electricity Board), who asked the panel whether they considered it to be prudent for manufacturers to apply sealing compounds below the whole of the cab and wing area to reduce the high rate of corrosion and eliminate claims for warranty replacement, at the same time reducing noise level in cabs, Mr. Ibbitson felt that cabs were already adequately protected. Sealing, as such, was a rather expensive process. If operators wished this to be carried out at the cost which it entailed, it was merely a basic question of two-way communication. Certain manufacturers already made arrangements for this to be done as a supplementary operation. The basic problem was the increased specification of vehicles which had taken place over the past few years: such things as windscreen washers and sun visors had come to be regarded as standard equipment. This was a trend which would continue.
Mr. Johnson said that his company (BRS) had carried out experiments with undersealing some years ago. The vehicles had virtually caused no trouble since.
There was applause for the last questioner, W. M. Little (Scottish Omnibuses), who suggested that everyone present would agree that the reliability of components nothing like matched the reliability of the basic units. Everyone had experienced immense trouble with components, he suggested, which apparently were bought in a highly competitive market, with the manufacturer "screwing the component manufacturer down" to the absolute limit. This statement met with the agreement of the whole panel, although Mr. Ibbitson felt that there were certain factors which affected the question. such as overloading. This• factor would possibly be reduced. by the Ministry's new proposals, he said.