Cat 740B Reviews Needed

[631G]

I’m looking at a 2014 and a 2015 740B set of trucks at auction. Both have right at 7000hrs. They look great cosmetically. I’m working on getting permission to go pull oil samples and put a close eye to them.

Until then can I ask for some options on the trucks and what to look out for? For example a good friend of mine from college is PM on a new Hyundai plant moving several million cy of material and they’ve got something like 30 new 745’s and I’ve been told by him and my Komatsu dealer that these newer trucks all have transmission issues out the wazoo. Friend says that a new cat truck they’ve got has already dropped a transmission with less than 1500 hrs. The sales rep with Komatsu says it’s to the point that some of the local large outfits are dropping Cat and buying fleets HM400’s instead of 740’&745’s. He claims it’s because Cat put a bigger engine in them and the transmission cannot hold it together.

What are you guys seeing? Are the transmission issue only isolated to the newer units? When I was at Kiewit, I worked on a reservoir project in 2012/13 that had a herd of them when they were new but not in my group and then later on in 2018 I had some 740B’s I was responsible for and they all ran well except for one instance where the front axle was the only one pulling and it turned out to be something with a clutch in the transfer case as I recall. (Not too sure if I’ve got that recalled correctly or not.) Should I be leery of these 2? As I recall these should only be 50% of their first life until rebuild is needed.

 

[Nige]

Before I left the last job I heard loads of bad things from dealer personnel about the latest generation of 740/745 models but they were the replacement for the B-Series trucks, so not what you are asking about. Customers close to us had those machines and the dealer techs flip-flopped between us and them so we heard all sorts if stuff via the grapevine.

We had B1P/B1R-prefix 740s and L4E-prefix 740Bs. These were all TIER 3 export models, so the engines did not have all the emissions fruit hung on them. I can't think of anything that was an issue across the fleets but sure we had problems with them from time to time. If I had to mention one thing it would be failure of the bearing #6 on the bottom end of the articulation hitch pin supporting the rear end of the front axle suspension frame. Not too difficult to fix though.

 

[ahart]

I can say from experience that the T4R prefix 740B trucks are the most reliable articulated trucks cat ever built. They are T4i trucks so they have a DPF but no DEF. Aside from a few regen issues, we have several with over 7K hrs and no major issues aside from general maintenance. All the transmission problems are the newer generation trucks, we have a couple 745 next gen trucks with the latest transmission updates and they have over 1500 hrs on them and haven’t seen any transmission problems to date.

 

[92U 3406]

The 745C transmissions are probably one of the highest failure items in Cat's product line. I'd avoid them like the plague unless Cat has figured out a fix for that.

 

[631G]

I can say from experience that the T4R prefix 740B trucks are the most reliable articulated trucks cat ever built. They are T4i trucks so they have a DPF but no DEF. Aside from a few regen issues, we have several with over 7K hrs and no major issues aside from general maintenance. All the transmission problems are the newer generation trucks, we have a couple 745 next gen trucks with the latest transmission updates and they have over 1500 hrs on them and haven’t seen any transmission problems to date.

Thank you for the information. I’m still waiting on serial numbers at the moment but do know these would be in that year range of T4i. I’ll follow up once I get the info I’m waiting for.

 

[631G]

Before I left the last job I heard loads of bad things from dealer personnel about the latest generation of 740/745 models but they were the replacement for the B-Series trucks, so not what you are asking about. Customers close to us had those machines and the dealer techs flip-flopped between us and them so we heard all sorts if stuff via the grapevine.

We had B1P/B1R-prefix 740s and L4E-prefix 740Bs. These were all TIER 3 export models, so the engines did not have all the emissions fruit hung on them. I can't think of anything that was an issue across the fleets but sure we had problems with them from time to time. If I had to mention one thing it would be failure of the bearing #6 on the bottom end of the articulation hitch pin supporting the rear end of the front axle suspension frame. Not too difficult to fix though.

View attachment 274188

Funny you mention the B1P series SN’s. There was a 740 in Iowa I was interested but got scared off of due to having high hours. The dealer who specializes in Cat resale said those series 740’s were very reliable and sought after for rebuilds in no small part because there were no emissions equipment to stifle them. I like the “fruit” comment. That is a pretty adept description.

 

[631G]

I can say from experience that the T4R prefix 740B trucks are the most reliable articulated trucks cat ever built. They are T4i trucks so they have a DPF but no DEF. Aside from a few regen issues, we have several with over 7K hrs and no major issues aside from general maintenance. All the transmission problems are the newer generation trucks, we have a couple 745 next gen trucks with the latest transmission updates and they have over 1500 hrs on them and haven’t seen any transmission problems to date.

I got the serial number off the truck this evening. The one truck is serial number TR403051. Based on what you've seen this gives me hope that maybe I've stumbled across something worth buying. The one thing that makes my radar go up is the trucks are both freshly painted. I love the look of fresh clean equipment but on the resale side it makes me wonder what I didn't get to see before it was painted up slick as a whistle.

 

[Nige]

Any previous history or repair records.?

 

[Nige]

I may be wrong but I think the T4R-prefix 740B was the Tier 4 Interim equivalent of the L4E export model.

 

[nowing75]

Besides the bearing Nige talked about i have done several strut bearings. Most of the time its the bottom that fails.

 

[Nige]

Besides the bearing Nige talked about i have done several strut bearings. Most of the time its the bottom that fails.

A further comment about both those bearings. In pretty much every case it was a lack of grease that killed them. With the movement on the front end of an ADT it's imperative to grease them every shift. On the S/N below it has autolube on the rear chassis but central lube (the zerks are grouped in two locations) on the front end. The grease goes through nylon tubes to the bearings and those tubes have a habit of failing.

I got the serial number off the truck this evening. The one truck is serial number TR403051.

Built mid-November 2014.

 

[631G]

Any previous history or repair records.?

Nice,
The company that had them bought them from an auction in Texas. They never would answer my direct inquiries about maintenance and getting more photos of the trucks and the in cab monitor. They sold last week and went for under $200K.

 

[631G]

Closing up how this wound up playing out. I requested more info on the trucks from the seller. For the most part they were not interested in answering by email so I had to call them. That was how I got the serial numbers. The seller I feel was playing intentionally slow with me about answering the history of the trucks. They were listed on an ex municipal auction site but I was able to pin down that they came from Texas out of a bankruptcy auction. I was able to glean this but if info with some help from my local dealer pssr I’ve been working with. When I started pressing them about the history and knowing they weren’t being sold out of a municipality fleet they basically dropped off the planet. The other thing I sorted out was that the hours they were reporting were not the total hours of the truck but the operating hours which excluded the idle hours. The trucks actually both had over 10,000 hours. Which isn’t so bad, but it does put them at the range the rep said was the time when the first major component come due for rebuild.

The trucks got sold and I suppose that’s that for them. The search continues. My local Bell dealer has some decent used trucks they’ve owned since new in their rental fleet that we’re talking with them about purchasing or an RPO scenario in case the market slows abruptly next year.

The local Sunbelt branch, which used to be an independent dealer, recently bought 30 B40E trucks instead of Deere or Cat. The salesman’s I used to work with there was telling me that of the trucks they own in their fleet they've had excellent result from the E series. He’d said that they’d had one motor go out and it was the result of operator error over speeding the engine. No transmissions had failed on any of their trucks and they have 25tn on up to the 50tn trucks. Beyond the lower resale value I’m starting to think the Bell trucks might be the way to go. I love our two Komatsu HM300-3’s but there’s none out there in the range we’re prepared to spend and within the hour range we want to buy the unit at. I guess that speaks well to a Komatsu.