Excerpts from the City of St Charles council meeting:
During last fiscal year’s budget process, the fire department proposed combining the funding for two pieces of fire apparatus and purchasing one replacement vehicle. This would result in the fire department fleet total being reduced by one vehicle. The two vehicles considered were a 2006 engine company and a 2003 heavy rescue. Advantages to implementing this plan include the following:
• Immediate savings of $83,893 from the total budgeted for the replacement of the 2006 and 2003 apparatus
• Long term savings in monies allocated annually for vehicle replacement: One vehicle to replace instead of two
• Both current vehicles will be sold and the monies placed back into the replacement schedule
• Annual operational savings in the form of repair costs, fuel, tires and other consumables
We have conferred with the fleet maintenance group and the City Vehicle Replacement Committee. Both have agreed that the identified plan is advantageous to the city. The city is a member of the Houston Galveston Purchasing Cooperative (HGAC Buy) and the fire department desires to use this organization to complete the purchase utilizing their bidding agreement with Global Emergency Products for a Pierce Dash CF PUC pumper. The item is brought before committee at this time in order to avoid a 3% price increase and save the city approximately $22,750. Additional savings will be made through the utilization of HGAC Buy ($40,000) and from prepaying for the apparatus ($21,032). While the order will be placed before the beginning of the fiscal year, the construction time of approximately 10 months will result in the delivery of the vehicle well into the budgeted year. This is a budgeted expense.
thanks Ron
#1 by anthony R on February 6, 2019 - 10:31 PM
@Mike C thats an opinion
#2 by Mike C on February 6, 2019 - 10:14 PM
For the record Seagrave built 12 engines and 1 Aerialscope for DC over the past few months. Pierce also built 12 engines. DC is not strictly buying Seagrave engines.
In terms of FDNY…their rigs don’t rust because they’re all stainless steel. Stainless body and cab. They also have the undercarriage undercoated. Some of the earlier FDNY rigs were galvaneal and rusted out like no other.
If memory serves me right, St. Charles Pierce ladder had substantial corrosion on the torque box just like most other Pierce aerials in the midwest. If I’m not mistaken Pierce and Global jacked them around on warranty until they found out St. Charles was going to buy 3 new rigs over the next 3 or 4 years. Pierce is like the Cadillac of fire apparatus. High price, nice features, and total crap.
#3 by harry on February 6, 2019 - 8:39 PM
Austin also I believe dc is buying seagrave for engines too but quite honestly the towns having these issues are just of percentage as for new York city there rigs seem to hold up great while they are not pierce except 1 but nyc puts down a lot of salt on roads
#4 by Crabbymilton on February 6, 2019 - 8:18 PM
I’m 54 and am too just a buff and have been since I was about your age.
I can only imagine the type of rigs that’ll be around in about 35 years.
But we can apply the dissatisfied customer to any product not just fire apparatus.
It does fall on the builder to get after the bad sales people and dealers.
They represent the builder and can either make them look great, bad, or just very stupid.
Besides, at some point they may consider just cutting out the dealer and the department could just spec online.
Just a thought anyway.
#5 by anthony R on February 6, 2019 - 5:45 PM
@ Crabbymilton Yeah i know its just weird to me because our whole dept is pierce and we have been gettin 20 years out of em. I’m 18 btw just a firebuff, but we just replaced wigs that were older me with enforcers. I Really think its a matter of how you spec your rigs. Of course it also depends on the dealer with pierce. I haven’t heard any problems with our area’s pierce dealer. Yet you go to the midwest dealers and their horrible. Only problems we had is we spec’ed our qauntams to big for the streets and they keep getting in accidents(they just got replaced). Never heard of our rigs having corrosion problems maybe they did and we didn’t know?
#6 by Crabbymilton on February 6, 2019 - 5:22 PM
Well Anthony, we all get a bit spirited on here but hopefully not crossing the line of childishness or even nasty or vile.
When a dept buys a rig, they should expect that the thing is going to last about 20+ years without the frame flaking away after 10 years or less even with proper care.
It’s one thing for problems to come up since even the best equipment in the world can have unexpected problems.
But it’s how the problem is handled by the builder is what makes or breaks confidence.
If you jerk customers around then don’t expect them to come back anytime soon.
#7 by anthony R on February 6, 2019 - 4:53 PM
Plus the corrosion issue could be solved if the depts took more time in specing their rigs. You would be surprised on how many depts don’t put protective coating on their rigs yet focus on other shiny shit that doesn’t matter. Eone used to have problems (and still do to a smaller extent) but they are getting better. Kme rigs are fine as long as you buy the right engine and transmission.
#8 by anthony R on February 6, 2019 - 4:49 PM
Everytime a deot buy pierce y’all argue pierce and seagrave you guys are kids bothe make lemons and both make solid rigs get over it. ONCE AGIAN THIS SITE NEEDSS MODS.
#9 by Martin on February 6, 2019 - 11:07 AM
Philly started buying Pierce Tillers because they offered a customized cab that allows the tiller to go down tight streets. Pretty cool that pierce was able to solve that problem.
#10 by Austin on February 6, 2019 - 9:42 AM
Harry funny enough I now live in DC, so you are partially right about DC. For engines they are buying Pierce, for tillers and other apparatus they are buying from Spartan and others. We can go back and forth who has Pierce and who doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter. I was just using the largest cities as an example. Obviously there are lots of Pierces outside of the big cities, as well as E-Ones, KME, Seagrave and so on. I will tell you this though, DC will be the test for salt and corrosion. Never in my life have I seen a city put down as much salt as DC does. If they survive that, then they have fixed the corrosion issue.
#11 by CrabbyMilton on February 6, 2019 - 6:26 AM
Part of me hopes that PIERCE has corrected those rust problems but only time will tell.
SEAGRAVE is priced too high for some since stainless steel is worth it is salty areas. However, if a dept. wants to turn over the fleet constantly the perhaps a SEAGRAVE isn’t worth the extra cost.
A dept. shouldn’t take the union into consideration. Are they able build a good product is what counts and let the kindergarten behavior be handled at the corporate level.
There’s no time for that nonsense on behalf of a fire department.
#12 by harry on February 5, 2019 - 11:49 PM
Austin that’s true fdny has not had a pierce since 2007 boston since 2007 as well but dc has pierce and seagrave Portland ma is pierce Baltimore city is pierce Kennett square pa is pierce east coast is loaded with 1000s of pierces maybe not big cities but take for instance Arlington co va gets new pierce engine ladders ambos and cars every 5 years and Henrico va has had pierce for years and the city in Massachusetts I love is Framingham ma they love pierce and they told me that they have more problems with there kme then the pierces
#13 by austin on February 5, 2019 - 10:59 PM
Well Harry a lot of major departments on the east coast don’t have Pierce. NYC and Philly haven’t had a Pierce in who knows how long. Boston has been buying E-One’s instead of Pierce.
STC is right in getting rid of that squad. They didn’t use it that much, and just sits there.
#14 by Martin on February 5, 2019 - 9:56 PM
Last time I checked, New York doesnt buy Pierce. New York pays for quality not quantity. Seagrave is amazing.
#15 by harry on February 5, 2019 - 9:20 PM
it makes u wonder why the Midwest has this issues with some depts. and not others but the east coast has lots of pierces with no issues and the east coasts puts far more salt than the Midwest heck new York city put several 1000 tons of salt per storm and there rigs raryly have rust
#16 by Rusty on February 5, 2019 - 6:23 PM
Mike C there are multiple depts that continue to order trucks that have frame rail issues and send them up north to get fixed and order another truck. The funny thing is that they paid a premium to have the outside of the truck look nice and shiney but you look underneath and you go oh wait a 2007 pumper that was bought for 500k is worthless now due to frame rail and corrosion issues. Or you have a Tower Ladder that has less than 20k miles and needs a complete 100k fix to the frame rails. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid
#17 by Mike C on February 5, 2019 - 6:00 PM
After seeing the corrosion on Truck 101, I don’t get why St. Charles continues to buy Pierce. What a poor decision.
Also, the City of St. Charles is usually pretty adamant about supporting the unions. With that being the case, why are they buying apparatus made by a bunch of rats?
#18 by Michael m on February 5, 2019 - 2:58 PM
Sounds like this is going to be a rescue-pumper, my guess is it will be a little bigger than the current engines 102 and 103. I am guessing the rig will have coffin compartments on the top to store equipment that is not used as much.
#19 by Cmk420 on February 5, 2019 - 2:13 PM
Sounds like they are going to sell Squad 101 & either Engine 107 or Engine 101.