All said and done $11,675.55. Two techs off and on and 1 week.
Don't you love the price of progress?
More than you know. I have a bucket truck with an Altec bed and an Allison transmission. Best I can tell the transmission module (TCM) has gone stupid and now the outriggers are down and the boom is partial up. So now I need to pull the module and take it to Clark Power for reflash or replace. Hope it fixes the problem.
A friend of mine in the sign business fought a altec for over a year. Altec guys said it was a chassis problem. Freightliner said it was a alllison or altec problem, allison said the transmission is fine- the problem was somewhere else. The solution was the snap on man. He hit the boom of the truck leaving their yard and his insurance paid for a different truck. So pray for a wayward snap on driver.
Don't confuse progress with manufacturers covering thedutts.
Wow, that seems a little excessive for a ECM diagnosis. Not cool.
I will be having a discussion with the CAT service manager.
Two different people and I wonder how much time was spent on the phone with someone in Peoria trying to figure out the issue. It is one of my pet peeves about the Cat service system. They don't want their wrenches to think for themselves. Whenever something becomes difficult, they grab the cell phone and start calling around asking for someone else to fill in the blanks. In my experience the idea of some engineer sitting at a desk in nice clothes in front of a computer screen has about the same chance of troubleshooting a problem as a pilot at altitude when an engine has just failed. Sometimes you get lucky and the engine restarts. Most of the time you have to look for a place to make a hard landing. In either case, everyone looks bad.
That is excessive. How much does a new ECM cost?
The new ECM was $3800.00 + $100 + or _ air freight.
Wow! How does that happen?
Its a high repair bill, on the other hand, I don't imagine they just want to throw $3,800 ecm's at problems willy nilly, so I'm going to say they ran down all the other possibilities, before deciding they needed a ECM? Either way, $11,000 bills don't need to come in every week.
After the FIRST tech eliminated all fuel related possibilities the SECOND tech just happened to have a ECM for test purposes and it fixed the problem. So then the new ECM was ordered in and installed. The tech is on the clock portal to portal plus mileage for the service truck. The machine was about 45 min away from the CAT house so 1 1/2 hours per trip.
Not unusual for a dealer service department to have a "Test ECM". The same Part Number usually fits everything, only have to flash the correct software into it for the specific application. If the first tech had run down all other fuel-related options then IMO it wouldn't be so strange for the second one to grab the Test ECM from the dealer Tool Store and bring it with him. The Test ECM can be flashed ad infinitum with any P/N of software without requiring factory passwords. "A test ECM is now available to improve troubleshooting. The test ECM is NOT available through the Caterpillar Parts System. The test ECM must be ordered directly by the dealer from E&ES Commercial Electronic Systems. To place an order for a Test ECM contact your dealer Technical Communicator (TC)."
This reminds me about a problem I had years ago with a 988H. It was turning on a light for plugged transmission filter and sounding warning horn. I could write a book on all I did trying to fix that problem! As it was the main production machine for the quarry they didn't want to sideline it for any more time than absolutely needed. Hate to say it but did take ten months to finally figure it out. In the end found the problem was actually caused by a failed temperature sensor mounted on top of transmission! Between the intermittent nature of the problem and the fact that the warning light had me chasing filter warning indication it was a pain.
Most of the CAT compact equipment uses Kubota engines,