• Thank you for visiting HeavyEquipmentForums.com! Our objective is to provide industry professionals a place to gather to exchange questions, answers and ideas. We welcome you to register using the "Register" icon at the top of the page. We'd appreciate any help you can offer in spreading the word of our new site. The more members that join, the bigger resource for all to enjoy. Thank you!

Pacific trucks in the logging industy

J

Jumbo

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
763
Location
Black Diamond WA
Occupation
retired
Hank R said:
View attachment 356704
Click to expand...
I've actually never see this photo. But, I recognize the truck, they were unloading a barge in Savannah about 10 years ago wile I was down there doing RR heavy lift work.. It appeared to be a very sketchy unload as the barge wanted to list to the side as they came off the barge. All was well, but we all stopped and watched the complete process until the truck was on solid ground.
 
Welder Dave

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
17,932
Location
Canada
What's sad is Pacific was owned by IH and built way better/heavier duty trucks! Why didn't IH use at least some of the Pacific technology and engineering? They'd probably have a lot more trucks on the road than they do and a better reputation.
 
Welder Dave

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
17,932
Location
Canada
If they were marketed better could have been very profitable for IH. There is a restored Pacific listed for $475,000. That gives an idea how desirable they are. Quite a few have had or are going through complete restorations. They are truly made for long life service.
 
J

Jumbo

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
763
Location
Black Diamond WA
Occupation
retired
Welder Dave said:
If they were marketed better could have been very profitable for IH. There is a restored Pacific listed for $475,000. That gives an idea how desirable they are. Quite a few have had or are going through complete restorations. They are truly made for long life service.
Click to expand...
But the bean counters said they were losing money on them.....
 
J

Jumbo

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
763
Location
Black Diamond WA
Occupation
retired
Too good a product isn't profitable.... It needs to break regularly so they can sell parts. Preferably having expensive parts break.
You and I are probably both too old and still rely on reliability....

If whatever supreme being that designed the human life form had worked for a large corporation we all would be needing new body parts for an inflated price by the time we were 20.:(
 
Welder Dave

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
17,932
Location
Canada
Just think maybe Pacific could have been offered through IH dealers or a larger dealer network. Some bean counters just aren't happy even if they are making a profit.

Thomas skid steers are a good example. They were owned by McCain foods and even won Canada export awards. Sometime I think when the McCain brothers were fighting over who should take over the reigns they decided Thomas wasn't making enough money and sold off the company. They were pretty popular in Canada in the 90's and into the 2000's. What was an absolute horrible mistake and probably one of the worst in Canadian history was changing the name to Protough, which nobody had ever heard of and putting multiple machines in auctions in the US to try to get into the US market. They were selling for peanuts because everybody thought they were overseas machines. They were selling for half price or less. This gave them a bad reputation that wasn't deserved. People associated the low auction prices with low quality. They used all top brand name components.

About the only worse business deal in Canada was Target trying to open hundreds of new stores in Canada all at the same time. It was a billion dollar plus disaster. One of the main people involved was hired by Acklands Grainger when they wanted to get rid of all the regional managers and thousands of Canadian employee's when starting the move to change it to just Grainger. She was a real piece of work but I can't remember her name. She had a meeting at the main offices were I worked in technical support. They wanted to run the Canadian division the same as the US and it was a complete disaster! They failed to realize Canada is a completely different market than the US. A couple years before Acklands was doing over a billion in sales. I think sales dropped to about $600,000. Every idea they had to raise sales backfired. They wanted all customers to have accounts and didn't want walk in customers. Walk ins had to order what they need and come back a couple hours later to get their items even though they were in stock! They changed the computer system and a lot of customers got fed up and left. A few blocks away another large industrial supplier in Alberta was loving it. Gregg Distributer's main location always has a line up of 8 or more walk in customers and serves free donuts and coffee. They also have good stock of everything. Acklands Grainger was constantly out of stock of items. I doubt they ever got back to where they were. Classic example of how not to do things.
 
Welder Dave

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
17,932
Location
Canada
That's nothing. Counting the multiple trucks towing an 820 tonne vessel longer than a football field there were something like 932 tires! I'd imagine the tire pressures all had to be checked before the move as well.
 
Truck Shop

Truck Shop

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2015
Messages
25,190
Location
WWW.
Welder Dave said:
What's sad is Pacific was owned by IH and built way better/heavier duty trucks! Why didn't IH use at least some of the Pacific technology and engineering? They'd probably have a lot more trucks on the road than they do and a better reputation.
Click to expand...
International had the same issues White truck company had, too many irons in the fire.
International bought up X amount of agriculture manufactures early on, and kept branching
out to construction equipment and even consumer goods. White had the same issues and went
from trucks to construction to agriculture and finally bought a mom & pop toaster company.
*
IH had no business buying Pacific, they looked at it as leverage in the heavy truck market.
And White should have stayed with White, both trying to compete in a narrow market only
to fizzle. Truthfully Kenworth should have absorbed Pacific and combined both trucks
engineering, but leave Pacific name and manufacturing under it's own umbrella built in
Canada. Kenworth would have had 70% plus of specialized heavy built truck market. IMO.
*
When you stand back and look at the mistakes made by corporate CEO's and their minions
it's just way too many to count. Jacks of all management and masters of none. Being really
good at building one thing is what's important, building a bunch of stuff that is mediocre is
what consumers remember. Look at Lucas the prince of Darkness, anything electrical stamped
Lucas was looked upon with much skepticism.
 
Welder Dave

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
17,932
Location
Canada
IH owned the Ag market before JD. Massey Ferguson made some big mistakes too. Buying Hanomag was one of them and was a big reason the industrial division tanked. The 2000 series tractors had a lot of problems with the 24 speed transmissions. The 8 speed tractors were fine but the 24 speed problems gave them a bad reputation overall. Massey also had a strangle hold on the combine market in the 60's, 70's and 80's. I think it was Conrad Black who ran them into the ground. The name stayed because they were still the best selling tractors worldwide. Mostly because of the smaller tractors and Ferguson system 3 pt. hitch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top