Plow Trucks

catfishblues

catfishblues

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Location
Pfafftown, NC
Why won't the city drop the money on locking diffs and basic maintenance? Every year, it seems that a plow truck gets stuck in my friggin' neighborhood. This year, it was two! It's not a bad hill, but it's a steady grade that gets icy early. It used to never get plowed, but this dude just wanted to do a good deed apparently and backed up the road to plow a little on his way back to the station. He must have crested the hill and started sliding back. He wound up in my neighbor's front yard, one set of duals stuck in the mud. His buddy came down to try and help. Also open rear, so he was useless. First, a neighbor with a lifted Duramax tried. No dice. Called his brother with a lifted OBS. Still slipping. Their friend with an F-150 hooked up to the other two. Still just spinning tires. They all packed it in and left him for the wrecker to get in the morning. Turns out his buddy ended up stuck in reverse in the middle of the road. I checked. Seriously could not get the plow back in gear, so we backed him off into another neighbor's yard so we could get around him.

Sad part is that out of five trucks, there wasn't a locked diff or front pull points among the lot of them. My stock Denali was probably better equipped to pull, but their truck nuts were bigger, so I laid back, offered my strap, and tried to make sure everyone was clear if a chain broke. I haven't been wheeling in so long that this brought back those fun feelings, but I was really wishing I had something built for this event. It was just sad watching those boys spin two tires.

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I would think a limited slip or open would be better/easier to keep from spinning out on an icy turn than an auto locker unless chains or studs were on both tires?
 
catfishblues said:
And in what world does that make sense?!?
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in the real world it doesn't, but then again, the folks that BUY these trucks don't have to drive them, just pay the repair and maintenance bills. 4WD costs money, used or not, and if it isn't needed in a daily routine, they aren't buying it.
 
Just seems to me that a selectable locker would add $4 or 5G to the truck, which already costs what, $75-100G? I know every penny counts, but seems like the man hours it would save sending wreckers, seeding destroyed yards, etc would offset the cost. Wait...they never came back to fix my yard out of the multiple times the municipality has screwed it up.
 
Most of the plow trucks here are used year round. They just attach the blade and set in the salt spreader. The weight of the spreader and salt in it is what's suppose to help with the traction.
 
catfishblues said:
Just seems to me that a selectable locker would add $4 or 5G to the truck, which already costs what, $75-100G? I know every penny counts, but seems like the man hours it would save sending wreckers, seeding destroyed yards, etc would offset the cost. Wait...they never came back to fix my yard out of the multiple times the municipality has screwed it up.
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A selectable locker would be a cost nightmare, cuz LOCKER and it's on all the time, right up until it frags find a municipal mower that has a diff lock that still works.
 
catfishblues said:
And in what world does that make sense?!?
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I've thought the same thing but the 2wd trucks do exceptionally well as plow trucks. No need for 4wd.

Lower initial costs and maintenance adds to the decision as well. If 2wd works 99% of the time, the 1% it doesn't it makes sense to call for help.

My uncle lives in Long Island and had a grading company and plowed county roads and Islip airport. All he and anyone else ran was 2wd trucks. After talking with him through the years, it makes sense. When he moved on to hwy superintendent for east Hampton for 15 years, same thing. All 2wd plow trucks in the fleet.
 
a Limited slip would get fragged as well, a lot of the small general utility trucks municipalities use have limited slip, and a lot of warranty claims and after warranty repairs ( GM G80 Gov Loc is a favorite )
 
Growing up all my family had 2wd Chevy plow trucks. They were just cheaper to buy, and with them rusting out as bad as they did in PA, it was cheaper to just keep buying 2wd plow trucks when the frames rusted in half. :lol:
 
Chains? None of them had chains? I know my 2wd ZJ would go a lot of places with a good set of chains on the drive tires...
 
Locked also would mean sliding sideways a lot when the road is banked.
 
By when I worked in a shop.for somebody else,we serviced a fleet of trucks for a HVAC comp and they refused to buy 4wd trucks.The guy over the trucks they would stay tore up if they had any.I know when it came time for new trucks to be bought we would have a bunch of tore up trucks sittin on the lot.
 
catfishblues said:
Sad part is that out of five trucks, there wasn't a locked diff or front pull points among the lot of them.
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Along with what everyone has said about a maint nightmare, it's been my experience, that above a dana 70 there isn't many choices FOR a locked diff.

I've got a Dana 80 in my dually, and I have a choice of Detroit trutrac, Detroit locker, spool, and lockright. I know ARB HAD a locker... but I've not found anyone who would stand behind it's installation (if they could GET it)
 
1-tonmudder said:
By when I worked in a shop.for somebody else,we serviced a fleet of trucks for a HVAC comp and they refused to buy 4wd trucks.The guy over the trucks they would stay tore up if they had any.I know when it came time for new trucks to be bought we would have a bunch of tore up trucks sittin on the lot.
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There are several large-ish grading contractors I know that don't buy 4x4 crew trucks for that same reason. I guess if you own hundreds of pieces of equipment, it's easy to use a loader on site to extract a stuck vehicle. I imagine municipalities have the same reasoning.
 
77GreenMachine said:
Looks like a nice job site, I sell construction materials, where is this at?
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Directly across from Vulcan Materials on Farmington Rd in Davie county. Construction trailers at entrance. New Atlantic is the GC.
 
CasterTroy said:
Directly across from Vulcan Materials on Farmington Rd in Davie county. Construction trailers at entrance. New Atlantic is the GC.
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Oh ok. That's outside of my territory. Looks like we have a sales rep from our W-Salem location working with them.

Sold a $75k order worth of materials on that site so far!
 
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