(16 Mar 2014, 5:22 pm)Davey Bowyer wrote You mate have gone up in my estimation! The only thing the E400 is good for is your Wallsend to Chapel House or Killi to North Walbottle. GNE's B9TL's have had a bit of trouble with low gearing ratios on the TTX but other than that and one having to be sent back to Volvo out of 67 vehicles, they've been great. The only ANE route a B9TL would have slight trouble dealing with on a daily use basis due to constant high speeds would be the X15 but that could be reduced with the gear ratios being set higher. Any other route and they
would be a treat with very few reliability issues. The E400 with an ISBE is not a heavyweight powerful bus and it's only designed for town and city use. When it comes to endurance and trunk road routes, economy whilst important needs to be put aside to some extent in place of power and reliability. Could you imagine GNE using an E400 tearing up and down the A19 for up to 18 hours per day? They wouldn't even last 18 month.
Can you stop it with the constent 'E400s are c**p' bashing? The fact the original Ashington batch are going strong on the X18 as are 7505/6 (which were originally Blyth based) yet Redcar's 6 are knackered should point out where the issue lies - not in their engines more in the engineering department at Redcar depot.
These days, it's more economy that's the focus. Doesn't mean the more economic engines can't still have the power (Scania still offer a 320bhp engine for their range although all depends whether the UK opinions still have Scania engines rather than Cummins).