Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire

[cumbria0902150]

RE: Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire

(10/11/2012 23:42)gilbert Wrote:  I haven't heard of them being ''so much trouble ''anywhere else. There seem to be one or two posters who've just got it into their heads that they don't like them. Or maybe there's other reasons?

Plenty of places having problems with them, just Manchester don't get as many problems with them being used on city work, which they're designed and built for. I don't know if Manchester just aren't having the problems with them, if the MANs in storage have had issues, or if they do have issues but just aren't picked up by people outside of Stagecoach Manchester from the large amount of buses there, but it is certainly noticable outside of Manchester where fleets are much smaller.
Cumbria's 22104 and 22140 had to have major engine work done after having problems, Carlisle currently have 22137 and 22160 off the road waiting to have new engines fitted, and 22142 burst into flames last week from mechanical issues. Other MAN ALX300's in Cumbria have had plenty of reliability issues, and I'm told Lillyhall's 22108 constantly has problems with its gears.
Preston's 22257 is off service waiting for a new engine, then it is transferring to Chorley. The rest of the batch they had have had plenty of mechanical issues.
Glasgow's S/T reg's from Manchester are in awful condition, and despite having extra ones to cover for breakdowns they constantly have to use the spare allocation of coaches for X25 because the MAN's break down so much. They were due to be replaced by 55reg's from Bluebird but they've been diverted to Wigan instead.
East Scotland have had numerous problems, to the extent some were re-engined with a brand new Cummins engine rather than MAN engine, to try improve reliability as well as replace the blown engine.
A small number of MAN ALX300's in North East have had to be re-engined, namely 2 S/T reg's at Stockton, after suffering from engine failure.

The MAN thing can go further than older ALX300's too. One of Carlisle's MAN engined Solo's blew an oil piston in its first week of service back in 2010, and had to be re-engined earlier this year. At least one of Preston's MAN engined 08reg Versa's has been off service in recent months to be re-engined, 3 or 4 of Carlisle's 9 59reg MAN Enviro300's have had brand new engines fitted, along with 2 or 3 of Lillyhall's 11 08reg's. All of Lillyhall's 11 had to return to MAN in 2009/2010 for modifications to solve constant overheating issues. Just now, Stockton have had a MAN Enviro300 re-engined. West Scotland have had some of their MAN engined Solo's fitted with brand new Cummins engines after the MAN engines had blown. Versa's in Wales have had the same issues with MAN engined Versa's and Solo's, and some have been re-engined with either a MAN engine or a brand new Cummins engine. Right now, East Scotland have a 56reg East Lancs MAN off service to be re-engined after the MAN engine had blown, they could still have some other vehicles VOR too waiting to have broken MAN engines replaced.