LSVW for sale - Crown Assets

[chris vickery]

Ahh, Rob. Do I suspect some disdain for these beasts, similar to your feelings about the Iltis???

[rob love]

Disdain barely covers the LSVW.....you would have to add words like loathing and disgust to make the sentence lean towards my feelings for those trucks. The fact that the CF managed to get 20 years out of them is incredible.

While in Bosnia, I would see packets of Italian ones show up at our base for fuel, and theirs did not seem to suffer the same chronic problems our did, so I think I will have to blame the combination of parts Western Star assembled along with poor manufacture of some of their parts.

I don't even know where to begin on these trucks, so I will leave it at that.

[chris vickery]

So Rob
When is the legacy of buying troublesome foreign made vehicles going to end?
The Iltis, LSVW and MLVW have all been plaqued with issues right from new. Once again the taxpayer has been bamboozled into believing that we at least have Canadian content in these crap boxes but what we have ended up are only facsimiles of original designs made under license.
For the life of me I don't understand why we never piggybacked on US orders like the M35 series of trucks. The American trucks never seemed to be plaqued plus the supply stream of parts was easily available. Commonality amongst allies makes way better sense unless this is a case of wanting to wave the sovereignty issue by being different.
I think even their series of Stewart Stevenson trucks were superior to the LSVW fleet we fielded. For the use fullness of the Iltis we might as well had Jeep resurrect the M38A1 or otherwise used the CUCV...

[rob love]

The MLVW was not plagued with problems in my books. They are now 33, and still going for another 5 years possibly. In many cases, problems experienced in the East were applied to the whole fleet. Here in the west we did not suffer from things like the rusted out rims, or the levels of corrosion on the bodies. We did run a V8 where the US ran the 6 cylinder, and perhaps that is what contributed to some of the suspension problems.

The original tenders to replace the MLVW was going to be a sole source for the Stewart Stevenson. They came n two sizes, and were basically the Steyr HLVW truck with a North American engine and transmission, in different chassis and load configurations.

The sole sourcing had two problems....the S-S was nearing the end of it's service life in the US, and many companies complained because they were not going to be able to compete in the competition. Eight years later we still have no replacement, although the militia did manage to get the International Defense trucks.

There were programs announced recently that will replace the LSVW, the MLVW, and the HLVW fleets in the next 7 years. One has to remember that every time these trucks go to the field, they are driven to the maximum of their capabilities. The fact that we get decades of service from them is impressive.

[Jes Andersen]

It hard to understand where the years have gone since the LSVW were coming off the line at Western Star in Kelowna. I had the opportunity to tour the plant and look over the finished product but my time with SMP type vehicles was long over by that time. I can't say that I was ever fond of these and by most reports, the users weren't either. Design notwithstanding, hard use and years take their toll on any equipment, regardless of the efforts of the maintainers. If this is the beginning of disposal for LSVW vehicles, I wonder if they will be demilled rather than sold as drivable trucks. The one in discussion here could, as suggested, be more 'residue' than operational.

[rob love]

There appears to be no restriction on the sale of this one, and as well they have been approved to MOT safety standards with the exception of the daytime running lights.

Very possible these will be the exception to the recent releases (and non-releases) of vehicles.

[Gordon Yeo]

If, this is the beginning of the end of LSVW then what vehicle has been purchased and is replacing it? ?The G-wagon was the Iltis replacement and was in use long before the last Iltis was dumped.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Jes Andersen

... If this is the beginning of disposal for LSVW vehicles, I wonder if they will be demilled rather than sold as drivable trucks. The one in discussion here could, as suggested, be more 'residue' than operational.

All the M151A2s were sold as stripped scrap metal. Any bets scrapped LSVWs will reappear as 1993 'Western Star 1.5 ton cab over engine cab-and-chassis registrations'?

[45jim]

You can place your blame squarely on the Government in power, DND and PWGSC for the selection of the LSVW and the Iltis. In order to get Canadian content (i.e. jobs) it was decided to purchase the rights to produce vehicles domestically whenever possible if the production volumes warranted it. Sometimes it worked out, the MLVW and the HLVW were mostly successful but sometimes it didn't.

The Iltis was already long in the tooth (production wise) and there were few if any international sales left to be had so the rights were available. Same with the LSVW, no more orders forthcoming for Italy so they sold the license. Both of these vehicles were developed and manufactured by reputable companies (Audi and Fiat) and were relatively well engineered and soldiered on in those countries for a long time. However, they were developed to meet specifications that weren't ours and the "Canadianization" process is probably responsible for a good chunk of the problems. If they built them as they were designed they wouldn't have lasted any longer or been any better though, as they just weren't what we needed. The companies producing what we really wanted would only sell us finished goods and wouldn't allow our supply base to provide parts for their domestic contracts. It was a question of "find a way or do without".

Western Star was the winning bidder to manufacture the LSVW, they didn't design it. Blaming them is a waste, the Government wanted to put a major contract into BC and gave them a truck to build, so they built it. They had an excellent reputation in the heavy truck manufacturing business before being bought out by Freightliner. So its not like they couldn't build a good truck, they were given a truck to build and it had to include parts and pieces from Canadian companies as selected by DND and PWGSC. Most of the problems lie there.

I worked on the LUVW program with them where they tried to resurrect the LSVW on a four-door chassis to compete with the Hummer (vehicle of choice) and they tried extremely hard to improve the basic vehicle but the writing was on the wall, even though the project was DND funded and the final vehicle was not bad the confidence in the vehicle was so low that nobody got the LUVW. Eventually, the G-Wagen was bought to fill that role.

The problem with tagging on US (or anyone else's) procurements is that we get no jobs or experience for our money. We develop no suppliers, learn no new skills and do nothing for our economy, we can't even support the vehicles in the field. Even the requirement for the companies to spend 100% of the contract value in Canada doesn't help as they can spend over decades on sundry items like fasteners and just add a couple of layers of Quality Assurance testing to drive the price up and reduce their exposure.

We are capable of designing our own vehicles and we should. We could standardize the major drive train, suspensions and automotive components with the US to keep us interoperable. We could have bought half-assembled Hummers from the US (as Israel did) and develop our own bodies and versions to meet our specific needs. We should have tied up Jeep to make militarized TJ and JK's rather than Jankel in the UK, much better choice for the reserves than a GM pickup or a G-Wagen.

Sorry if its a rant here, but if the Government is going to spend money we should spend it here, but wisely. Sweden has always gone its own way, developing its own vehicles, ship and aircraft and does it with an economy 1/3 the size of Canada's.