Have You Hugged Your Cummins Today?

[Matt42]

What a long, strange trip it's been. I just returned today from a three week trip towing a 3 ton equipment trailer with my employer's 1998 Chevy K-20 with manual transmission and 6.5 diesel. It's a low bid truck that was supposed to be a Ford. As is normal for this truck, we had problems along the way. The Chevy dealer in Grass Valley, CA had the truck three days ironing out these and other problems. (And they did an excellent job.)

The horn "pad" would make contact just before dawn as temperatures cooled, and make the horns blat until they burned out or we tapped the steering wheel. This, we discovered at 0400 in a rural motel. The home town dealer had previously "fixed" the problem by replacing the burned out horns six times. (This may also explain why adjacent apartment dwellers were shooting BB guns at the motor pool.)

While slowly descending an 8% or 9% grade, towing of course, and downshifting into second, the engine would die. What a feeling THAT is! The problem would intermittently manifest itself, usually at the worst possible moment. It turned out to be a bad (again) fuel injection pump. At 34,000, this truck is now on its THIRD $1500 injector pump. The warranty on the fuel system expires, fittingly, on Hallowe'en.

I asked the dealer if we should carry a spare. "Nah," came the reply. "So many of these are bad that GM has a program through which they can overnight ship a raplacement pump to any dealer in North America." Swell. So what do I do on a tight schedule in Osceola, Nevada; Atlanta, Idaho; or Bodie, California?

In 34,000 miles, the truck has had two new injector pumps (as mentioned), a new transmission (in itself a story), been hauled 100 miles back to town on a flatbed due to a defective oil hose, a new pitman arm, a new tie rod set, fuel filler line, two new sets of rear axle seals, other stuff I can't remember (or have intentionally blanked from my memory) and a continually unalignable front end. Oh, yeah. And the hood won't open without beating on it.

Hug your Cummins. I did, when I got home.