VWL119, you're kind of not getting my point.  I am a driver, I drive all of these vehicles, albeit for private oeprators, and I can confidently say that yes on a long prolonged hill a B10M (245hp) or K93/94/310 (310hp) will lag a little by the top but over the journey I would venture to say that passengers don't notice, arrival times are not adversely affected and these engines have proven to be reliable.  Yes, I would love to have the new Scania R730 truck engine adapted for a coach but putting on my practical hat we have to tighten the purse strings and try and maximise what we get for our money.  I'd happily agree to a K310 with a higher spec Century body which passengers enjoy travelling on rather than subject them to a stuck together Berkhoff with seats that were designed by some kind of masochist.  Yes as the Celtic Tiger roared it was great to see huge batches of PB's but they are way over specced for the work they're doing.  What BE need is reliable, durable, fuel efficient, comfortable value for money vehicles not high end tour spec flagships.

3 weeks ago last Friday, I travelled from Dublin to Derry on a Bus Eireann service to take over a tour from another driver, it's service 32/33 (Letterkenny is one, Derry is the other, I can never remember which is which).  I travelled for the first time on an LC and it was shockingly bad.  The seats are terrible, the ride comfort was terrible, I wouldn't like to be paying for shocks/bushings as the bangs coming from the running gear off every cats eye/stone were unmerciful and more so, it rattled like a pig around the front, at least as bad as any PB I've ever driven or been on but certainly worse than most.  Anyone with a bit of knowledge of the history of Berkhoff will tell you that prior to VDL involvement Jonckheere owned Berkhoff and it always sold the Berkhoff as the poor mans Jonck, the bodies looked similar but the Jonck was always built and finished to a higher spec.

Yes the Century too had problems but we can't ignore the biggest unique factor here which is BE.  While most BE drivers are professional in how they approach their work within the company, the fact is the drivers in general have no respect for their vehicles and there is no effective form of sanction for anyone who damages/abuses a vehicle.  In most private situations a driver will get a couple of chances but will either then pay for damage themselves or ultimately lose their job, this doesn't happen with BE.  The maintenance is dire.  You point out Seats not adjusting (shoddy maintenance), Holes for speakers (shoddy maintenance), bodies needing TLC (shoddy maintenance).  It wouldn't matter what body they had it would have a hard life.  The Plaxton Premiere/Excalibur range had very soft seats in terms of durability and I know that BE couldn't carry armrests in particular to them but also know that they had a full time job fixing strained seats, broken recliners etc.  The difference seems to have been that as the fleet profile went up with the SI's, VC's, VG's, SC's, SP's etc it seems that basic maintenance has gone out the window maybe because shorter working lives were envisioned I don't know why other than that but definitely the state of some BE vehicles is nothing short of a debacle, bear in mind me and you are paying our taxes/fares to run this company, we should expect that they do at least the basics right.

Plaxton Paramounts (PL/PD etc), Premiere's/Excalibur's (VP etc) all suffer from a major fault.  They are great driving/handling coaches but they all fall foul of rust.  They primarily rust in the underbody steel but are also prone to rusting the steel work behind the stretch panels and then rotting the stretches from the inside out.  It costs a fortune to sort this out and is reason that after they are 8-10 years they're resale price plummets, buyers must budget for these inevitable repairs.  The newer Paragon/Panther suffered from launch with serious electrical issues and poor inital build quality, they seem to have sorted these out and since it's launch in 2000 they don't seem to have displayed the same propensity to rust as their predecessors.  The Premiere/Excalibur seats were also prone to damage/failure as I've mentioned but when BE had them I think maintenance procedures were better.

My argument for the Scania Irizar Century is simple (and I'm a PB/VanHool fan) the price is right, they don't rot, the engine is proven to be reliable and with proper maintenance they will go forever.  As I said I had cause to drive a 1998 ex BE SI recently and the owner freely admits he bought it cheap as it came to him in poor condition from BE (via a UK dealer), the bus required alot of basic day to day repairs, front axle fully rebushed, air con filters changed (yes filters changed - he reckons they were never changed prior to him buying the vehicle!), speakers replaced, bodywork tidied up etc and it has never looked back. 1000000km on an original engine and no sign of stopping and it works every day doing a minmum of 120km daily but I drove it to Glasgow and back (533km round trip) and it did me proud.  Incidently it was covering a job that a 2007 DAF VanHool was to do but it dropped it's injectors the day before (a common Daf problem!).  He changes oil every 15000km, full service every 30000km (as he does with all his vehicles) and it get's a full once over body wise every 6-8weeks.  Simple stuff, but the point is BE would have said the vehicle was essentially obsolete whereas there is a lot of life in the auld dog yet and I think they need a kick in the a**e maintenace wise.

In summary a driver will always want more power in my opinion but it's not a primary requirement operationally for BE so it shouldn't become a major issue.  There is no perfect body and EVERY body has some downside, it's all about striking a balance.  Any vehicle 300hp+ is easily capable of doing what Bus Eireann require and that's my firm opinion based on 12 years professional coach driving experience.  Yes it'd be great to get more PB's into our national fleet but I would say if they had a choice of 20 k340 PB's or 30 k310 Century's to buy with MY tax money, I'd go for the Century's and that way bring more newer vehicles into the fleet.

Edited 1 time by PB Jim 16/09/2010 11:32:39.