(13/05/2013 18:14)Ultralow Wrote: [ -> ]I would be interested to see where ultralow got his information from that drivers are furious !!! at the depot getting a few of them.
I have been told by drivers about the DLA's being the talk of the depot on how much they want them gone.
Speke were the first depot to recieve the DLA's in 2006 or 7 and they had been nothing but trouble for Speke and some time last year i was told by a driver that one of the managers at Speke went to London to have a look at Castades deckers which were infact DLAs He turned around and said no due to all the trouble Speke had with them.
The same goes with the Ex Laird St Myllenniums they didnt go down to well either but with the retern of the DLA's has just made things worse.
Ok the DLAs arnt the worst buses and at the end of the day its part of there job i know and i dont care that the drivers dont like them all I was really saying was they may not be here for long without it being to much of a problem on here!
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I Think that Speke drivers have gotten used to driving better vehicles such as the commanders and the decent deckers that speke have and they are not fans at driving something not as good, anyway the DLA's probably won't be around much more than a year anyway as they are all 1998/1999 vehicles.
According to the drivers, the DLAs are draughty, the window rubbers leak- letting in rainwater (a common ALX400 body problem) and the fuel consumption is very high, mainly due to the fact you've got to floor the accelerator before the damn thing picks up any speed!
I was speaking to a driver who actually had sore thighs, such was the effect of constantly flooring the gas!
One of Bootle's drivers couldn't wait to get rid of them! "These are the worst buses I've ever driven!"
Enough said.
The problem with the speed is in london they had to play around with the fuel pump to reduce emmisions due to emmission limits there and the most emmissions come when pulling away so thats the reason they pull away slowly but are not in the posistion to adapt them to increase the speed due to them coming up to retirement age.
(14/05/2013 15:36)mathias Wrote: [ -> ]According to the drivers, the DLAs are draughty, the window rubbers leak- letting in rainwater (a common ALX400 body problem) and the fuel consumption is very high, mainly due to the fact you've got to floor the accelerator before the damn thing picks up any speed!
I was speaking to a driver who actually had sore thighs, such was the effect of constantly flooring the gas!
One of Bootle's drivers couldn't wait to get rid of them! "These are the worst buses I've ever driven!"
Enough said.
I knew that the fuel consumption was high, but then they are big heavy buses, a driver that I know at Bootle was not very complimentary about them either. But like I said in my previous post, that's life.
God knows what they would have said if they ever had to drive some of the old Atlanteans & Olympians!
I use to like having a drive of them atlanteans and olympians before i had my pcv licence as before a driver i was a fitter and could drive them round the depot with out a pcv licence,made my day getting to drive them and the national 2 as well.
was on 699s Monday and is on 82s today
The TAX runs out the end of the month so it will be used until then.