Agree; trucks are cheaper to maintain, use fewer parts than the old ones. Hardly disposable. The C500s that are around are hardly running 3000 hours a year any longer, most are in cream puff operations doing low hours. And if you do find me a C500 running 3000 hours per year, lets look at maintenance costs after 12 months vs a truck built in last 5 years. Even a truck built in last 5 years with 10,000 hours on it. Continental/Waukesha vs Toyota 4Y or Mazda FE?

Well IDK about being better or worse but newer forklifts lasting longer is an absolute BUT when I started in this business in the 1970.s we had 95% manufacturers as customers and the machines were really abused. Fast forward to 2014 and 75% are warehousing and truck docks mostly Ideal conditions so who knows? It is also interesting to note back then to now in 1979 I'd say 5% of the machines serviced were electric now a days closer to 60%.
After all is said and done though I still have several C500's and even a couple old 462 towmotors and an AC or two hanging around and getting use daily. You young guys let me know in a few years if you still have any FG Komatsu's around in 2030. :)

What I've seen of extended warrantees is that they are typically covering only what would be considered catastrophic failures and they also don't include travel time or milage.

We sold quite a few trucks with extended warrantees and not once did we use the warranty but that doesn't mean that there were no repairs needed. What it does mean is that the repairs needed were not covered by the extended warranty.

Warranties are usually attached or in the package box when you buy a product. It explains everything about warranties.

We must have a good quality of propane in my area because I have very few regulator problems. The Toyotas go over 10,000 hours without touching the fuel system. One has 32,500 hours and the regulator was done once. The VX Yales with Mazda engines and electronic type Cobra Impcos and a CA type mixer went 15,000 before regulator trouble, but the diaphrams in the mixers do fail after about 5000 hours. Two of the Yales have over 20,000 hours and very few problems, except for the first month they put in service, when new :-)

I look after some 5 year old Linde gas IC counter balance's, H20 392 & H40 394 models.

Apart from routine service parts ( service kit including engine oil change every 1k hours ) the only bit's I've replaced due to failures since the trucks where new are:

1 x brake micro switch
1 x gas shut off valve
1 x handbrake lever operating rod
1 x catalytic converter
1 x inner rear wheel bearing
3 x coolant reservoir's

Linde have also upgraded & modified the gas shut of valve, coolant reservoir, catalytic converter & handbrake operating rod since my trucks where manufactured & the replacement parts haven't since failed.

I've never had any wiring issues. no distributor fitted either, German built, VAG group engines, easy to look after & a delight to operate.

First of all- thanks for all the responses. The reason for the original question was to see if there was a general universal standard for our industry. It seems there is, with the extended warranty being a very good marketing strategy that benefits both the dealer & the end user.

As far as the electronics issue- all's I can use for my point of reference is the few newer trucks I service. Being an independent, most of my clientle have lifts 10+ years old. I do service a few newer lifts, a 2004 7 series Toyota, 2006 Hyster, 2010 Yale & 2011 Nissan.

The Toyota (around 4000 hrs) runs good, has no leaks, doesn't smoke & is easy to operate. The customer wants to shi* can the unit for 1 reason- the electronics- period. Between wiring issues, sensors & electronic hard parts ( distributors, throttle body motors, etc.) this is one expensive lift to maintain.

The Hyster (4521 hrs) is again- a great unit to operate, doesn't smoke or leak- but the customer is extremely dissasatified with the costs with maintaining this truck. Customer runs HD-5 LPG- but still chews threw a regulator on average about 9 months- when I take them apart to rebuild, the propane has eaten the white metal it's made of to the point that it's junk. The LPG injectors last about 2 years, can't seem to find anyone in my area who cleans them ( dealer says "we just replace 'em"), so as of now it's on it's 3rd set ( at around $600 per set). It's been thru multiple sensors & now has a cannbus issue that the dealer can't seem to track down- all the while the $$$ keeps flowing

The Yale (1800 hrs) is the Hyster's twin, already thu a couple regualtors & on 2nd set of injectors & a couple sensors.

The 2 year old Nissan (2800 hrs) already had to have the radiator serviced- unit started overheating for no aparent reason- radiator coolant flow was restricted.

In my 25 years of servicing lifts, if older lifts were kept on top of- oil changes, tune-ups, etc, they were much less espensive to own. Sure they were clunky, the driver had to think, but with common sense, quite usable none the less.

I know some of you will disagree with me- that's why there's chocolate & vanilla ice cream- not everyone has the same needs/wants. All's I know is that as technology takes over every part of our lives, us ( the consumer) will have to - in the end- spend more of our hard earned dollars. Every dollar we ( as material handling technicians ) charge our customers in repairs ( or charge up front in the form on an extended warranty) is another dollar our customer has to charge for their product, which we, as consumers, then pay when we buy their product. As the childrens song says " The wheels on the bus go round & round".

To be honest I've had very few problems with electronics failing, per se, on my 100+ electrics, LPs and diesels. My biggest problems come in with intermittent system glitches in the software especially on my Clarks and now my newest 2 Toyotas. Did you know on the newest line of Toyotas you can no longer jumper pins 1 and 4 to read the codes? You only get a heart beat. I had to have a tech come out with a lap top...he ended up updating the software! The truck was only a month old!

i believe the point i made in my post was that electronics were not made very well these days. I said nothing about the longivity of the life of engines. Of course i see engines running 12K hours and more, they have done wonders with oils etc to help engines run longer and for that i applaud the engineers on that aspect. But when 90% of your calls are for some failure due to a bad wiring harness or a failed electrical component like bad relays or broken shunts in a fuse box that shuts the truck down? These are just some of the most common issues i have dealt with and this is the largest complaint i hear from my customers.
Its just pitiful how much downtime they have to suffer at their expense because of a bad sensor or broken wire. Sure warranty may cover some of this sometimes but the customer still suffers the downtime and in some cases has to pay for a rental lift to cover thier out of service lift.

So on that point alone maybe you guys should backup and regroup before you start defending the issue.
How do you think a customer feels when he buys a fleet of trucks only to have the tech have to come out repeatedly for the same issues right after they buy the trucks, constantly repairing them while waiting for the manufacturer to come up with a permanent fix and in some cases not doing so?

bbforks,
Long time ago the first owner 60-70's the first owner kept the new lift truck an average of 10 years then sold in the used market. Many of these lifts were fitted with a Continential engine which at best an 8000 hour engine w/lots of TLC. Today end users are opting for a FMV lease contract with the most popular being a 5 year. It is no secrete todays engines can go 12K+. iIwas with Mitsubishi and we sold lifts to ABF for use at their break bulk terminals. Their in house program was to rebuild the engines at 12K hours, when they started tearing the engines (4G53) down they found that the original cross hatch was still was very visible in the cylinder walls, they just put the head back on & kept running them. The GM engines (4 & 6 cylinder) are a 8000 hr engine, the Nissan is a 12K +engine as well as the Toyota engiens.
Think you missed the point or I didn't make it clear - the electronic on trucks today are primarily there to reduce tail pipe emissions not to enhance the life of the engine - although a more complete combustion of the fuel will add somewhat to extending engine life as well as regular maintenance.
In my personal, situation I do change engine oil every 3K & trans fluid once per year, diff. lube every two years - oil is always cheaper than metal. Certainly there are other factors tht play into life of an engine - cooling, bearing, structual integrity, materials, vibration, tighter tolerances & toleerance control, etc. But years ago a car with 80K miles was thought to be almost wore out - not today.

I have to agree with swoop- the products of today are not designed to last. Either the product will just fail or it becomes outdated to the point that it's useless. In either senario- the result is the same- more products going to landfills & more money being spent by consumers for more products.

As far as electronics making equipment & cars last longer- I think a deeper look may have some insight. I understand that the old point style ignitions & carburetors of past had their limitations, but kept in tune & working correctly, engines ran well & could deliver good gas milage & good emmisions (especially if LP equipped). The problem was that the engine could still run in a poor state of tune & because of $- most people let the engine run that way until it wouldn't run any more- all the while doing damage to the enviroment & to the engine itself. Jumping forward to the present, the computerized systems of today throw a code & depending on what's faulty- won't run at all. So problems which were detrimental are now handled much more quickly, but , in the end, still cost money. Valve jobs, engine jobs, etc are not nearly as prevolent as they once were, but replacing fuel injectors, throttle bodies, etc is quite an expensive undertaking. It may appear that the equipment lasts longer, but more money in repairs is spent along the way.

Spot on Iceman,
One of the main issues with the electronics in lift truck, construction equipment, automobiles that are installed is having access to the training, manual and diagnostic software to more accurately & timely trouble shoot the issues. Without these essential tools random parts replacement is common.
The engineers don't sit around and think of new was to "trick up" the 'ride". All those littel black boxes are added to finer controls the tail pipe emissions to met those mandatory EPA standards - like Tier I, II, II, etc. etc. This adds cost to the forklift. A primary responsibility of any engineer is to reduce the costs of products through "value engineering" (aka cost reduction - thrudesign changes, implementing ne technology, materials, etc. to meet end user needs, improve safety, increase productivity, resolve custome issues at a target cost to meet a given market price that produces a profit for the company.
I grew up in DownRiver Detroit and I recall the the US side ofthe Detroit River was a chocolate brown but the Canadian side was a nice blue and lake Erie was near dead and all the US side beaches were closed. I was jealous oforu Canadian friends as they had good fishing & swam in there blue waters Today that river is blue on both sides Lake Erie is alive for great fishing, walleye, steelhead, lake perch, people can swim in the water once again etc. No need to be jealous of our friends from Canada any more (except for their Labatts' Blue).

PS: I have 1998 Ford Explorer w/270K miles (uses 1/2 quart of oil every 3K mils, still running, replaced the heater blower once otherwise all original - it is now my "Town Car" (jsut drive it around town & to Home Depot an trailer my boat to the lake). Sure beats the heck out of my first car a 1951 Ford w/a flat head V-8.

Swoop,

You are the eternal pessimist. You perception of durable is jaded. You mean durable like the forklifts of old that needed tune-ups every 500 hours because of all the moving parts? Cap, rotor, plugs, wires, points, and condensers are the way of the dinosaur, I am glad to say. I know of new units 2010 that have 12,000 hours on them. How much more durable do you want? Warranty for some manufacturers can be straight up! The dealer implementing that warranty has direct cause and effect on the validity of a warranty. If a dealer has just a data entry person submitting warranties and taking the first answer back from the factory as applied law, then you are right the warranty is a marketing plan. If you have a dealer like us, who has a 30 year service specialist who does warranty for our customers and nothing else, then it is not a marketing plan. A warranty supported by a dealer correctly can be intensely beneficial and will carry a financial benefit for the customer and the dealer. I do however agree with you about what we leave behind us for our children. I think forklifts that put out fewer emissions, and manufacturing plant that produces zero waste is great. I can live with a reduced machine life for those gains.

in a nutshell bbforks,
we live in a throw away society
they design everything now with a predetermined lifespan just for the sake of insuring future sales at OUR expense.
i hate to say it but its all about the money, engineers dont seem to be as concerned for durability anymore as they are with innovation and technology advancement. And i use that term advancement lightly due to the fact that most of what iv'e seen on the market may look more advanced but durability is crap.
As you said, electronics are not very durable nor are they designed to withstand harsh environments. I suppose you can thank the government and EPA for that because they are forcing the manufacturer's of these components to make them from non-hazardous materials now. They just dont seem to hold up near as well as past components. Not to mention the engineers do not consider things such as voltage spikes in thier designs so of course the consumer has to deal with the headache of replacement and/or repair. Just another way of insuring the future sales of parts i guess, or maybe they are just banking on the consumer just throwing up thier hands and buying another unit. Its frustrating to say the least.
I'm like you, i'm from the old school era back when they built stuff to last and what i'm seeing happening today has me very concerned as to the way our society is heading. We want to save the planet but yet we are moving towards designing things that are more 'throw away' type things? More concerned with making money instead of making things to last?
Seems to me we're going backwards instead of moving forward. In the long run i think we will all regret the mess we are creating for our kids in the future, but then again we will not be here so who cares, let them fix it? This seems to be the mentality of alot of folks i encounter these days and it makes me sad. I feel sorry for whomever has to deal with this when we're gone.

Sorry for the off topic negative observation guys but its just an observation i've made over the past few years in response to bbforks comments.

@RayTech

Well, I don't know what are the standards prescribed in your contract with the customer, but for me it's hard to imagine how to make a proper inspection in accordance to manufacturer requirements within such rate.
In 6000 hours you must replace at least 12 times engine oil, fuel (ev LPG) filters, 3 times hydraulics filters (usually expensive)+ oil, on some trucks transmission filters, 6 times air filters, belts, etc.
Plus a lot of checking, lubricating, testing.
For an average IC truck, properly made inspection takes 2 to 6 hours of labour.
For electric trucks it takes less time, but it's pretty much work to do either.
I can only imagine such rates for the simple pedestrian controlled trucks.