Looking for some help and advice,one of our MAN TGA 6X2 Tractor units broke down and was recovered the truck is an automatic model. the recovery driver failed to remove half shaft or propshaft then towed the truck 15 miles or so at a speed range between 50 to 55 miles an hour, motorway recovery. Also the breakdown was a blown turbo the recovery driver had the engine running for the duration of the journey. Insurance company are involved MAN have told us a new engine and gearbox will be needed though no atempt to run the truck has been made, any helpfull advice thank you
The recovery company was one covering a roadworks situation on the motorway so was free and organised by the highways agency.
Sounds like he hadn’t a clue - and has left himself totally open a liable
Auto / or not every recovered HGV must have either prop of half shaft removed - its not just autos that drive the gearbox lube through the engine some manuals do too
In addition if its a blown turbo the engine shouldn’t have been running - draggin broken bits into the inlet manifold and engine - what if an oil seal had blown - it could well have run away with itself
Bloke wants sacking -
cheers
Steve
I agree with all you say but feel its going to be uphill all the way with this one,just looking for some advice or other channels possible i could go down. Looking like january is going to be fun for me- thanks steve
carnt realy answer that one but in the drivers defence the company that towed him took over the situation lifted the lorry and where on there way with it before he new what was what. maybe we should make drivers aware of this for future reference, its going to be costly thats forsure.
the driver called it in saying the turbo had blown and yes shut the truck down straight away, the only reason i can think why it all went so very wrong, 1 early morning 2 very cold snowy weather 3 roadworks 4 free recovery so not that interested 5 just lazy and one more thing this truck was fully loaded 44 ton suspened tow speeds of 55 miles an hour has recorded on the taco and no brake wonderfull or what.there are so many questions need answers,so what a january i am heading for
I doubt you’ll have much joy Kenna its a free tow to you & keeping the traffic flowing is all they’ll care about. Just unfortunate where it happened really, if it was mine I’d wipe my eye of it. I would’nt however take it that it needs a new engine & box I’d get someone in the know to have a peep, its always easy for the main agent to harp on what it will need but them shower live in cloud cuckoo land. Get it stripped you may be lucky. I hope you are anyway. Good luck.
I doubt you’ll have much joy Kenna its a free tow to you & keeping the traffic flowing is all they’ll care about. Just unfortunate where it happened really, if it was mine I’d wipe my eye of it. I would’nt however take it that it needs a new engine & box I’d get someone in the know to have a peep, its always easy for the main agent to harp on what it will need but them shower live in cloud cuckoo land. Get it stripped you may be lucky. I hope you are anyway. Good luck.
Kenna, i wasn’t having a go or blaming the driver in any way, i was just trying to find out a little more info
free tow or not, they should still take the blame for the damage caused to the truck as they were negligent in their duty, time of day, weather conditions, roadworks or all of the afore mentioned sould not come into it, they did not do their job properly and resulted in damage to a vehicle that they were in charge of, once that vehicle is coupled to their recovery truck, it becomes their responsibility, you have the evidence of the speed it was towed at on your side too
personally, i would seek proper legal advice instead of dodgy advice from members on here, we can only state what we would like in an ideal world.
oh, and as fly sheet suggested, take it to another garage to get it inspected
not at all shuttle not for one minute thought you where having a go, and yes i understand your questions, has things can get a little distorted along the way if you get my drift, i will proceed down the legal side of things. thanks for your help though
Hi. I think Fly Sheet is correct in saying get someone in the know to have a butchers.
I run quite a few MAN’s and although their prices are normally off the Richter Scale, about a year or so ago I saw
a really nice 6x2 TGA XXL on a 55 plate for sale on ebay and as it was clearly parked at my local MAN dealer I made
enquiries - it was up for offers around £10 Grand but for ‘spares or repair’.
As I’m quite friendly with the MAN Service Manager he told me it was cheap as it was a ‘write off’.
When I asked why he told me a turbo had blown, sucked some bits in and it needed a piston and liner, turbo and a
head. The official bill, made out according to MAN schedules was £13 Grand - he told me if I bought it I could have
it done for £5 Grand - somewhere other than a MAN dealer would therefore have done it for £4 Grand, possibly less.
So my advice is try the recovery company on and lay it at their doorstep, possibly see a solicitor for advice, but at the end of the day get it repaired and dont think for a minute a total engine and gearbox is required - although check what you can replace the truck for as they are cheap.
Hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction, a blown turbo should not result in a new engine & gearbox. Not the best place to post this but does anyone else think MAN’s are cracking value for money? There always fifteen grand less than equivalent Volvo’s, Scania’s or Merc’s. All dealers and spare parts are expensive but if you can save on the intial outlay that’s a lot of spare parts. All the TGA’s i’ve run have been decent motors apart from one aging XXL that ate starter motors.
i know the prop was left on and halfshaft left in but if engine was left running as you say the gearbox should be ok as input shaft will av been turning through engine running. if man av not started engine how do they know gearbox us, but all in all shaft or prop should have been removed and having engine running with blown turbo
As Mattaid says, if the engine was running then provided the auto clutch was engaged then the gearbox oil pump will have been running, this is probably why the recca driver left it running, obviously any consequential damage through running the engine is at the feet of the recovery driver.
Silver_Surfer:
Hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction, a blown turbo should not result in a new engine & gearbox. Not the best place to post this but does anyone else think MAN’s are cracking value for money? There always fifteen grand less than equivalent Volvo’s, Scania’s or Merc’s. All dealers and spare parts are expensive but if you can save on the intial outlay that’s a lot of spare parts. All the TGA’s i’ve run have been decent motors apart from one aging XXL that ate starter motors.
i,m on my second MAN after a topline scania and a megaspace merc and cant fault it really {apart from the random fault codes they seem to throw up}
It must depend on how the turbo blew.If you you have an air to air aftercooler which a MAN has I doubt that many bits would get into the inlet manifold. If it just siezed on the shaft I cant see that ticking over is going to do much damage either. I think I would be inclined to strip off as much of the inlet tract as possible and see whats in there,if its pretty clear of scrapnel get a new turbo on it and see if the transmission is ok. If it runs ok change your oils and filters and start praying. I have seen a few injector tips break off in the old Leyland 401s and we didnt lift the head off, just hoped it went out or got embedded in the piston. Mark
