While I cannot speak as to Crowns engine powered lift trucks, I can comment on their electric units here in the states.

The electric units that Crown produces here are some of the best on the market. They are well designed, and relaible. Crowns in house designed drive and hydraulic motors controllers are rugged pieces, that are useable, functional and hold up well enough to have a 3 year warranty here in the states. Crowns do not normally suffer catastophic failures such as frame or structural failure. The frames are over-built, unlike some competitors who get by with the bare minumum, "get it out of warranty" building. Components are well laid out for potection and ease of access.

As far service goes, when it comes time for repairs, larger ticket items such as pumps, motors and cylinder can be rebuilt. Some other brands do not allow for major component rebuilding. Yes, thats right, when the brushes in say a hydraulic pump motor wear out on some of the "badge engineered" competitors out there, you cant buy brushes, you have to replace the motor. Oddly in some circumstances, Crown and its competitors buy electric motors from the same supplier, but the competition uses a much cheaper non-rebuildable version. This means higher costs to the customer in the long run. Crowns service manuals are well designed, and easy to decipher, once you know the simple system. The trouble shooting of their in house produced control systems is more of a rifle shot than the typical Ge Ev100 "shotgun blast". Pin point accuracy when it comes to trouble codes, or "wrench lite failures". The central distribution panels on these lifts contain test points making trouble shooting even easier. As far as the manuals go, of all the service manuals I have seen, none of them compares to Crowns. Instead of saying for a given condition, check here and hear and here, they will give you a list of possible places to begin trouble shooting, give you a wire diagram of the related area, and give you a step by step process for figuring out the problem. No need to flip around the book to look for a diagram. Also, the books have a glossary and componantry sections, telling you where a component is located, what wiring diagram to look at and what parts page you will wind it on.

All the people I have talked to, or sold to or worked for have been happy with the Crown product, the only noteable concern has been cost. Crowns are not in the same price catagory as some of the Chinese or Korean imports, but then again, these imports do not compare when it comes to quality and service. I have seen some people complain about Crowns service and treatment of dealers, but I feel on the whole, they are a minority.

Customers like Generals motors, Diamler Chrysler, Dell Computers and Walgreens cant be wrong. (just to name a few)