What has Morbark offered to resolve the engine problem?

As of June 2008 Morbark refused to accept any responsibility or fault.  John Dale our salesman who said he had full authority to make whatever deal necessary offered to trade our 1600 in for another and asked us to pay an additional $486,000 on top of what we already owed.  This would have brought the total we paid for a good working machine to over $1.4 million plus all repairs/maintenance and losses associated with down time.

What have been Mulch Matters losses associated with down time?

Our total down time for the first 2 years of ownership of our Morbark has been approximately 6 months.  Our direct losses include not being able to honor grinding contracts totaling over $140,000 plus long term loss of those customers.  Mulch sales losses are over $50,000 plus possible loss of those long term customers.  $55,000 paid for sub contract grinding at our facility to help with inventory loss and over $50,000 for repairs to the Morbark engine not associated with normal wear and tear parts.  The total losses as of June 2008 have exceeded $300,000.

Summary

Despite performing maintenance as required and keeping full records as well as having the engine oil scanned with every oil change we have been told that Caterpillar does not usually honor warranty claims with engine liner wear.  You may click on a detailed account of our problems with Michigan Caterpillar and Morbark’s denial of responsibility for fixing major design flaws in the Morbark 1600 tub grinder.

In the end we are stuck with a machine which will need a minor overhaul every 6-9 months and a complete overhaul every 1-2 years.  In addition we will also be responsible for the downtime and these engine repair bills despite having a 5 year 10,000 hour engine warranty.

Other than premature liner failure our engine with the high load factors has caused many other premature failures in the following areas in less than 2 years.  We have replaced 5 turbo chargers, all injectors once and most twice, 2 huey pumps, 1 oil cooler, re-built radiator, complete top end of the engine once and the bottom end is in need of its second set of liners and pistons.  The engine is and has always ran at a higher temperature than what Caterpillar considers normal for the engine although it has never overheated/shut down and Caterpillar nor Morbark really seem concerned about this. 

Again we have attached our service records for review and a detailed explanation of our past and present service procedures.

Besides the engine our Morbark 1600 has experienced other design problems with some failures at 5-6 times in just the first year.  For most of these design issues Morbark has accepted responsibility and they have fixed them although one has been determined as an unfixable design flaw.  See link.  Overall and you can be the judge but we feel that Morbark’s biggest concern was to get us to sign a release of all liability present/future once they had us “over the barrel” financially.  Also see release link and e-mail’s link.

Do you own or are you thinking about buying a tub grinder?

If you have experienced similar problems with Caterpillar engines or design flaws in Morbark products we would urge you to post your problems here or contact us directly.  Or, maybe you have answers for some of our problems or additional information that could help others out that you could also post here.

In any event please read our detailed problems with Caterpillar engine maintenance & maintenance records keeping if you own or plan on owning a Morbark or any other product with a Caterpillar engine.