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Felly Magic

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yay 3rd change of operator on our local route.

 

http://andybodders.co.uk/2019/12/20/breaking-diamond-bus-get-contract-to-run-the-ludlow-to-kidderminster-service-from-january/

Apparently the current operator has to let the route go over serious irregularities around vehicle maintenance and drivers hours ?

He's right about the route fucking up busses, a few have caught fire on the inclines and the snow causes much hilarity ?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Guessing the alleged software updates over the last couple of years haven't made the iShift system any less appalling than the one I had a shot of back in 2013?

Even as a passenger it drives me nuts...never known a gearbox which spends more time in neutral between gears than actually providing propulsion...yet then also seeming to without fail be in the wrong gear at any given time.

To me an automatic gearbox only has any right to exist if it can do at least as good a job as a reasonably competent driver... otherwise just give me a year lever and a clutch please.

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Oh god... iShit. Not Volvo's finest hour by any stretch, worse even than some Voith 'boxes that I've driven. 

I drove a couple of ex-COMS B12B's with iShit gearboxes, you can tell instantly that they are designed for motorway work and fuck all else. Devon country lanes really aren't the best place for them, the gearbox brain gets hopelessly confused on country roads. Up, down, up, up a bit more, down 3, up 2, down 1, up 2....  all on a bit of road that I'd have just stuck a Spanish gearbox in 3rd or 4th and left it alone.  By the time the Mid Devon ones arrived they'd also had the manual control buttons removed, so all that could be done was stick it in 'D' and hope for the best. I ran out of gears once on the way up to Okehampton camp, on a hairpin bend going steep uphill I had to slow for a car and the brain couldn't shift quickly enough to catch up with what I wanted, the combination of hill, bend and brake then throttle totally confused it, causing me to come to a dead stop because it was trying to give me 5th for a 1st gear situation. Hand brake on, reselect 'D', try again. The fuel economy was also utterly horrific - on hilly roads they could sustain 2 GPM for significant lengths of time even lightly loaded - they were averaging 5mpg overall. I've got a pic somewhere of one driving up a gentle hill completely unladen, the dash is showing it returning 2.5mpg at 20mph in 7th.

IMG_9158.thumb.JPG.dda6c9814d3e0a474e30dbaa4714579c.JPG

In short, they were fucking awful. A far cry from the worlds best ever coach chassis, the B10M in either six-speed manual or ZF auto formats. 

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We have mostly Volvo coaches after a bad experience with Scania in the mid 90s so most of the coach fleet has the ishift gearbox, though we have gone back to Scania for the latest Levantes for NX work. Scania reliability has apparently massively improved and Volvos has plummeted. We have switched to ADL for the latest buses

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The main memory I have of the iShift was turning out of a junction onto a busy dual carriageway.  Was thinking "brand new bus, this will be easy!"

Cue my dismay when the thing decided to pause not once, not twice, but five times for gearchange - at the best part of a second apiece - before I made it to the far lane that I was aiming for...by that point looking an utter idiot. 

Note to self: Next time turning out of there in a B12R(I think...15M Panther body anyway) with that gearbox, aim for a gap I'd usually be looking to slot the 1929 Albion into!

 

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50 minutes ago, Eyersey1234 said:

@83C 2.5mpg is fucking awful, why the hell was it so bad? 

I suspect because it’s an electronic brain trying to select what it thinks is best out of a 12-speed manual gearbox, and most of the time getting it hopelessly wrong. 

As @Zelandeth says, the pauses between gearchanges are painfully slow. On flat ground gear progression will be something like 2nd-3rd-5th-7th-10th-12th, and each time it lets go of a gear you’re painfully aware of the amount of time it’s taking to select the next one, so you tend to keep right hoof welded to the floor in an attempt to keep the rate of acceleration going. They’re better at steaming along at 62mph on the motorway where the gearbox doesn’t get involved, they’ll get up to 7-8mpg. Country roads just flummox the thing so badly that the fuel economy goes straight down the toilet. 

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All the automated manuals were designed for wagons, hence their ability to do motorways and not a lot else. ArseTronic is further hampered by having been designed to work best with Iveco Tector engines and bodged to suit everything else. Apparently the worst of then all is Merc's PowerShift, which takes about a fortnight between changes. 

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13 hours ago, cms206 said:

i-Shift is a walk in the park compared to AS-Tronic.

 

Now THAT is a fucking pile of arse.

 

Then there's AS-Tronic Lite, for fleet managers who really really fucking hate their drivers. I can't complain though - I don't have to drive the fuckers and there's a months wage in rebuilt units on my workbench ready to post out.

1155189842_2019-12-2412_45_05.thumb.jpg.fefd413779ac25f26966f666dfd2fa5d.jpg

They're basically a slightly more industrial version of the fiat 500 auto gearbox setup, but with a lot less sensors.

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19 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

What's the oldest REVENUE earning bus you've seen lately? I'm in Bristol and saw W809PAE in use, a Volvo B7(?) with ALX400 bodywork in use with First and their motley fleet of newish and not so new stuff. Listed as a 9.6 litre engine. 

 

 RM871 WLT871 1962 AEC Routemaster saw it working Route 8 during one of my driving lessons, but normally works Route 15 :) 

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19 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

What's the oldest REVENUE earning bus you've seen lately? I'm in Bristol and saw W809PAE in use, a Volvo B7(?) with ALX400 bodywork in use with First and their motley fleet of newish and not so new stuff. Listed as a 9.6 litre engine. 

 

I was just thinking exactly this and came here to post. A few pages back I posted a Plaxton Supreme which is still doing a school contract past my house every day. It's old Y reg, I think!

When I'm looking through classic bus magazines/books I'm always calculating how old the vehicles were when they were taken out of service. I love seeing the survivors..

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6 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

Okay by revenue service I mean with a frontline company, not on a heritage route or on schools or for hire. 

 

ok this could probably be classed as special circumstance so does not exactly count

but pretty much any time there's a tube strike all the Routemasters and RTs and other vintage buses come out to play on frontline routes to provide extra capacity :) 

its always amusing to keep an eye on twitter/social media during these times as the commuters tweet their bewilderment as a 1940s RT pulls up to the bus stop to pick them up :) 

and I must be one of the few people who actually look forward to tube strikes for these reasons LOL

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