thinking about buying a stralis use to drive one a few years back ,can anyone who operates one give me any feed back good or bad on reliability fuel consumption ect
I bought an 04 plate Stralis 540 6x2 last November to run with my 53 plate Volvo FH12. Initial feeling is I did the right thing 
The main reason for going for it was the price It was considerably cheaper than the equivalent FH12.
As far as reliability goes I have had a few small problems mainly with electrics but nothing serious.
The inside of the cab is on the “plastic” side but is fine for me. Big plus points in my opinion are the room in the cab and the extremely comfortable seating.
Fuel consumption is average on our job (containers). Averages around the 8mpg depending on the driver 
Gearbox is similar to Volvo i-shift but not quite as good.
Mechanical reliability is supposed to be very good but we will see in the fullness of time if that is the case.
Would I buy another one - yes it does exactly the same job as the FH12, cost less to buy and no more to run and is a damned site more comfortable to sit in all day
Hope this helps. Any other questions just ask and I will try to help.
Proudscot:
I bought an 04 plate Stralis 540 6x2 last November to run with my 53 plate Volvo FH12. Initial feeling is I did the right thing
The main reason for going for it was the price
As far as reliability goes I have had a few small problems mainly with electrics but nothing serious.
The inside of the cab is on the “plastic” side but is fine for me. Big plus points in my opinion are the room in the cab and the extremely comfortable seating.
Fuel consumption is average on our job (containers). Averages around the 8mpg depending on the driver
Gearbox is similar to Volvo i-shift but not quite as good.
Mechanical reliability is supposed to be very good but we will see in the fullness of time if that is the case.
Would I buy another one - yes it does exactly the same job as the FH12, cost less to buy and no more to run and is a damned site more comfortable to sit in all day
Hope this helps. Any other questions just ask and I will try to help.
I lived in one for two weeks late last year, very spacious / comfortable, pulled like a dream [430 version], very good truck IMO.
They are a lot cheaper than the equivilant swede, and the back up seems to be good, the dealership I went into @ Junc 28 M1, was very good. [back lense smashed, not an engine fault]
There is a big Stralis dealer near you IIRC.
Had 5 of them, all 540s, bloody good lorries, BUT & you’ll notice that’s a BIG BUT, the dealer network is diabolical, my local dealer didn’t even stock fuel filters 
A lot of the Iveco dealers are mainly van & 7.5t specialists & they’re as much use as mudflaps on a tortoise 
If you have a good home dealer then go for it.
Mine were double shifted & worked hard, I had a turbo go on one but it was done under warranty & as I had another on order at the time I got a hire motor to replace it while it was off the road.
As has been said above you can expect at least 8mpg from them, they’re nice to drive & they have plenty of room, but the best thing is overtaking all them big Volvos & Scanias 
To be honest, the stralis is the only make of truck I would not buy again. The point about the Dealers is very true, they are too busy with vans and 7.5’s to deal with the HGV’s, a lot of them aren’t even open at night.
The electrics are absolute pants and are so complicated that a small problem can end up vor’ing the motor. They pull well enough and the mechanics are ok as well as the newer ones having decent interiors, all be it still a bit plastic and not the best build quility. But those electrics, you’ll end up taking a hammer to the fuse box. I’ve had 2 dash boards pack up on the one I own and one I hired.
The dash is also lit up with error codes and yellow and red warning lights no matter how tip top it is, just seems par for the course. There is a reason they are cheaper than the rest. Also a lot of 6x2’s don’t come with lift axles, they do steer but can be a handful, solo in the wet.
I had no real problems with the electrics, the warning lights on the dash are a bit of a pain, for instance you get told that you have a light out & you check & all is well, but within a day or two a bulb will fail, it must have a 6th sense!
Intermittent wipe buggers up the wiper brain so don’t use it & they eat headlight bulbs if you are lazy & don’t turn the lights off when you turn the engine on & off, apart from that the only thing was rear tyres, all that power & a good engine brake added to a non lifting mid axle means that they won’t last long 
Mine all had the table against the back wall of the cab, which was great for the 1st few weeks, after the novelty had worn off it stayed stowed away, so if you have a choice don’t bother with it, you then get two useable bunks.
Had lots of tec cab ivecos in past and eurotecs and stars electrics crap and back up poor but in saying this just got a 57 plate 500 which goes on road tomorrow so i will keep you posted
We bought 4 x 480 Stralis’s 4 years ago. We run high cube, low weight & have had good fuel consumption but dealer back up is non existant.
We are now going through a nightmare experience, one of them started making loud tappet noises so our local dealer in Calais took the rocker cover off to find that one of the tappets was worn out. After four weeks they received the part but couldn’t fit us in to replace it. Since we are only running at about 20t gross took the risk of running & it dropped a valve the following day.
Having seen the 'photos of the piston, valves, cam etc & having had my son call into the gargage in F-13 Aubagne, it needs a new piston but the liner is O.K. it needs a new cam-shaft, two new valves/guides+springs but IVECO are refusing to touch it unless we pay 30,000 Euro for a new engine.
The liners still have the honing marks on them so actual cylinder wear is negligable. It has been in their workshop now for three weeks & they are working on the assumption that either we pay for a new engine or nothing moves. IVECO Turin refuse to take action.
Be carefull, if you need any assistance from IVECO you may need to pay the value of the truck just to get a minor repair actioned.
I forgot to mention that out of our 4 Stralises we have had gearbox problems with 2 of them.
The first one would not stop, I had the pleasure of lurching onto a level crossing as the barriers were coming down, lurching onto a roundabout full of traffic & then almost running over the controller at the MOT station 'cos I had to stand on the brake pedal to stall the engine. The driver after me has written off 2 cars because it would not stop.
The other one would not start unless “hot wired” It then had to run for about an hour before it would get a gear.
On both of them the IVECO computer could not find any fault. On the latter I decided to swap the gearbox top with one of our good ones & it cured the problem. When I told IVECO they refused to give any warranty on either of them even though it appears to have happened before. The cost for the part is about 3,000 GBP.
When we see T.V. coverage of trucks that can’t be stopped, don’t think that it can’t happen 'cos it can.
jonb2610:
I forgot to mention that out of our 4 Stralises we have had gearbox problems with 2 of them.
The first one would not stop, I had the pleasure of lurching onto a level crossing as the barriers were coming down, lurching onto a roundabout full of traffic & then almost running over the controller at the MOT station 'cos I had to stand on the brake pedal to stall the engine. The driver after me has written off 2 cars because it would not stop.
The other one would not start unless “hot wired” It then had to run for about an hour before it would get a gear.
On both of them the IVECO computer could not find any fault. On the latter I decided to swap the gearbox top with one of our good ones & it cured the problem. When I told IVECO they refused to give any warranty on either of them even though it appears to have happened before. The cost for the part is about 3,000 GBP.
When we see T.V. coverage of trucks that can’t be stopped, don’t think that it can’t happen 'cos it can.
A mate of mine has around 12 in his rental fleet, and he wishes he had never clapped eyes on them, the computer is the problem, it keeps flashing up problems that do not exist.
But, as they are “rental” motors, he has to send out his own fitters or call in Iveco Rescue every time a customer has a problem, eitherway, its expensive for all concerned 
The one I had last year was 6 months old, and it gave strange warnings out via the dash board, but I ignored them or shut the engine down, and restarted it, I think “microsoft” had some input in the design stages.
But, saying all this, it was a nice truck to drive / live in 
Oh yeah, and my windscreen wipers packed up a couple of times which was great fun in the rain. Scania’s might be ten grand extra but at least you know they’ll work.
Silver_Surfer:
Oh yeah, and my windscreen wipers packed up a couple of times which was great fun in the rain. Scania’s might be ten grand extra but at least you know they’ll work.
Scania are not what they were, the back up is getting worse. The local dealer in Nottingham gave a large customer of theirs and mine a very hard time service wise, a FULL R+M on the unit and trailer was not worth the paper it was written on.
They even sent a tractor / trailer in for test, with “shot” tyres, they forgot to ring the tyre man 
Even a blind man with a dodgy labrador would have spotted that SURELY
£10k for a set of wipers, thats steep even by Scania prices 
Just an update on our Stralis with a dropped valve. IVECO inform me that even though the engine has no obvious signs of wear, they need to change all six pistons & liners because the pistons used in 2003 are no longer available & it is not possible to put one of the new ones into an engine without changing the lot.
Anyone thinking about buying IVECO needs to read the Gov. Health Warning before seriously risking one’s finances. When will it all stop? Sorry guv but your headlight’s broken you need a new truck !!!
if someone else is paying you for driving a stralis then they are average but if a prospective o/d is asking i would say spend the money elsewhere. if the one im driving had a manual box i wouldnt have been in the garage half a dozen times in the last two months.got to tilt the cab to get to the dipstick to get a reliable reading of oil and thats a problem when the cab will only go up but needs the dealer to hotwire it to go down again.two of our trucks both suffer from this.
Ahh, the tilting of the cab just to put oil in gem, happy days. With the least resistance when you use the cab tilt, the fuse blows and causes much head scratching or the pump/elec motor fails completely and you can’t tilt the cab to put oil in. Another example of a small fault vor-ing the motor.
Get a Premium and have done with it.
peteandbrenda:
thinking about buying a stralis use to drive one a few years back ,can anyone who operates one give me any feed back good or bad on reliability fuel consumption ect
so are you still tempted 
thanks guys for all your feed back going to have to think long and hard about this. Think i might have to give them a miss!! once again thans for all the feed back
I agree with N2N Transport’s comment.
Get a Renault.
Our regional trainer is working away from base on a new contract we’ve won in Milton Keynes where all the motors are rented.
He rang me the other week and said he’d just rung up the hire company and had a go at them because they’d just had someone drop off a new-style Premium.
As far as our man’s concerned, there’s only one type of lorry in the world, and that’s a Volvo.
‘I said what the ■■■■■■■ hell’s this bag of ■■■■ doing here?’ he told me.
Anyway - to cut a long story short, I spoke to him Wednesday, and he’s now delighted with the Renault. It is achieving excellent economy, the drivers love it and it hasn’t been a scrap of trouble.
Total change of opinion. Now he says, ‘It’s just such a simple truck. Like a Volvo, but without all the complicated crap we don’t want. No frills, but no problems either. Really comfy and goes like stink.’
The one he has over there is a 450 dxi optidrive auto.
I’m hoping we may soon be getting one in on demo. 
I worked for a company once and they had a haulier that ran Iveco.
I’m not exaggerating when i say at least once a week he had a unit stranded in the yard.
I know Renault Premiums have been mentioned but i would avoid pre Volvo/Renault models.
If it was my money i’d go axor, any year. I have drove alot of them and they never gave any trouble. The first models lok a little plastic but they drive and pull well.