Rich Iowa

Member
Have seen a few of the CAT heavy duty trucks over the past year or so and each time I get to thinking. Are these designed and built from the ground up by CAT, or do they have an agreement with another manufacturer to re-label their product? Why did CAT decide to get into the market, and why wait so long to do so?
 

I heard, or read, awhile back that because of the EPA restrictions, Cat was going to stop building engines for highway use, and then the next thing I see is these "Cat" over-the-road trucks. I don't know what the deal is.
 
CAT got out of the truck engine market due to the expense of coming up with a new engine that would meet the EPA regs for the truck. As Sean says, IH took over where they left off on the engine. I believe the truck itself was designed and built by CAT, but the engine is all IH.
 
Cat got out of the on road truck engines.
They only build off road motors.

To keep a market share they started building heavy duty trucks for such things as logging.
Like any truck you can get it with eaton and dana components.
The motor is a Cat branded motor built by Navistar (IH) based on their EGR system.

Now Navistar is dumping their EGR system that does not require Def and starting to partner with Cummins and use their (SCR) clean-air technology that uses DEF.

So while Cummins and Cat have been competitors in the past you can now buy a Cat truck with a IH motor that uses Cummins technology to meet EPA standards.
 
My understanding, at least when the truck was originally released.... is that one of the engines is labeled Navistar but the bottom guts of it were based on a Cat design with the addition of a Navistar top end, fuel management and emissions system. The truck itself would be hard to label as much of anything else other than a binder save the fact it's as ugly as the last GMC's.
That said... it is quite possible that the engine technology has evolved a lot in the last 4-5 years that those trucks are on the market. I have not looked at specs in quite some time.

Rod
 
The ones I have seen were basically a C15 cat engine with all the externals being internationals doing.
 
They are just catsh#tspreaders, not a real truck by any means....considered a POS around here. Buy a paccar product and have something nice to drive.
 
I haven't heard much about them, as far as quality and reliability. With so many other proven manufacturers to select from, I would imagine CAT would have a hard sale.
 
The engine isn't Cat or Navistar. It is made by Mann of Germany the 11&13 Liter. The 15 liter was the Cat C15 with EGR and common rail fuel system retrofitted by Navistar. CAT was forced out of the truck engine business due to truck manufacturers having there own engines. Freightliner has Detroit and Mercedes, while PACCAR has there own engines. Volvo and Mack have their's. So who is left to want a Cat engine? Once PACCAR has there own big bore engine and Freightliner has their's, Cummins will be forced out of the truck engine business too... CAT will have there own truck in the near future that is built by CAT entirely. As far a the SCR systems go - everyone uses the bosch system Cummins uses. CAT does have a C-15 engine that does meet todays emissions in off highway haul trucks. It meet current EPA regs that are the same on or off highway currently. Yes the C-15 does have SCR and EGR system. The expense to retrofit the engine and emission system in each truck manufacturer chassis and get EPA certification is big bucks. Think of how many different configurations would have to be approved. That's the main reason truck manufacturers are going this route.
 
Released today these trucks will be designed and built by Cat. Design is immediate because they are already were designing. Built by Cat starting early next year.
 
It actually is Navistar. The 11 and 13 liter engines were new pieces designed in a joint venture with MAN.

The truck is currently built in the Navistar plant in Mexico that until recently also built the ford f-650 and 750 trucks. Ford moved production of those models to their plant outside Cleveland.
Navistar put a cat hood of their paystar truck for Cat. Part of the deal was that Cat would supply C15 short blocks for Navistar to finish out, to avoid the costs of designing a big bore engine from the ground up.

They just announced they are going to build them at their own plant I believe in Texas. They are in talks to work with GM on rejuvenating their medium-duty line of conventionals. GM just announced they will start reselling Isuzu cab-overs.

The Paccar engine is built by Cummins. They won't be forced out of the truck engine business. Cat was not forced out, they left the market because their ACERT could not meet upcoming standards and the truck engine division was losing money.
 

I know a small excavation contractor that has one that he got 2-3 years ago. I noticed that he has two Macks that are newer, while two years ago he had told me that the Cat was great. When I asked him about it he said that the Cat was spending so much time in the shop that he had to get another truck to cover for it. He also told me that Caterpillar's small contractor of the year winner who is here in NH, who had bought three of them and owns plenty of other Cat equipment, turned the Cats back in to the dealer and got Macks.
 

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