My department is currently in the market for a new custom pumper, the last time we bought a custom pumper was 1992. Does anybody who has purchased a pumper in the last several years have good or bad feedback from any of the bigger companies? (i.e. Seagrave, Pierce, E-one, KME, Ferrara, ALF, Rosenbauer)

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I'm a fan of E-One. I'm sure once more folks chime in they will tell you otherwise. But, my department's, a '98 custom pumper and an '04 quint have been good, reliable trucks. We went with 6 man cabs on both trucks, plenty of space with a 4 or 5 man crew, but it does get crowded when you're able to fill all 6 seats. Aluminum bodies make for even easier, post-delivery customization(attaching brackets, additional wiring, etc., etc.). With any new delivery you're going to have kinks to work out within the first year or two. It's nice if you have mechanically/electrically inclined members and a good dealer to help get those kinks out. There's quite a few pictures on my profile here of our two main apparatus. I've also worked with KME apparatus in the past, I can't say anything bad about them either, but the joke is KME = Keeps Mechanics Employed.
Pierce. Quality, Wide arrange of options. We are basically all Pierce except for the Tanker and Squad.
Which both will be replaced with Pierce.
Great to work with during design. They basically pay for all your inspection visits, food and such.
Great support with your unit. Singer Associates is our Pierce dealer and they are AMAZING!
Quality units. Little maintenance problems. Hey stuff breaks every now and then but less other companies with non Pierce apparatus.
Our 87 and 89 Pierce Lance and Arrows are still running great. Everyone's favorite pieces.

We have a;
87 Arrow Pumper Tanker
89 Lance Pumper
2003 Dash Pumper
2009 Arrow XT Rescue Pumper
our new rescue will be Pierce, its a spartan saulsbury now/ no complaints with it.
lokk at the pumpers and find one that will siut your dept. personal stratigics.find also the company that can give you the best deal on customizing you pumper for your specific needs of the fire dept.
Don't know where you are located but if Pennsylvania is within your range, look into 4Guys Fire Equipment located in Meyersdale Pennsylvania. Our departmet just took delivery of a new 2010 Spartan custom cab 6 man pumper, 1250 GPM Hale pump, 500 gal. tank. We also have a 2005 HME custom cab 2500 gal tanker that was built by 4 guys for us. They are great people to work with, have delivered both pieces on time. We have had only one problem with the pump on the tanker 4 years after delivery and they were instrumental in getting Hale to fix it under warranty. Their facility is worth the trip to see and the quality of their work is excellent.
We also have a 2003 Pierce pumper (which cost us more in 2003 than either of these). The Spartan is the same dimensions as the Pierce (they are almost twins) but the Spartan cab interior has more room inside front and back and has better access to all of the controls for the driver and officer. Check them out on their web site www.4guysfire.com!
We just got a new pumper from rosenbauer . Seems to be a good truck. Noone else would get down in the price range .thay was all haven to take things off to get the price down ,but we got what we wanted with rosenbauer.Pictures on my profile. This is not a custom truck. It has 1500 gpm pump & 1250 tank with foam
I'm a big fan of Pierce, Seagrave and Rosenbauer. I've had a few pierces, new and old, and they were unstoppable. Seagrave has a great reputation, and they few rigs I've driven work wonderfully. As well, the departments that use them love them, and anyone that has contracts with cities like New York and Los Angeles has to know something. The Rosenbauer rigs I've used were great too. They built a couple 2000 gallon pumpers for the last dept I worked for, and they were the only ones that could meet our specs and timeframe, and what they delivered was a pair of awesome trucks. They work like champs, and they're in a pretty rural department. They have the clearance needed for rough terrain, but run like champs everywhere.
I used to be a big Seagrave fan, (I cut my Engineer teeth on a Seagrave). I am now a Pierce fan. In the past 4 years, we've bought 2 Pierce Velocity Engines, and a Pierce 100' Tower Ladder. I've got nothing but good things to say about Pierce. At the top of that list is the fact that our 2 E-One's, (Quint and Engine), seem to always be in the shop, but we've had very few problems with the Pierce's! Hope this helps, stay safe!
My primary dept. we have 2 E-Ones and have nothing but good service out of them. My volunteer dept. runs KME's on a KentWorth frame and cab. They are a great truck and have had nothing but good service out of them and in fact we just purchased 5 more with up to date LED lights and a few other extras. My primary Dept. we are purchasing a 2010 custom cab from KME. All companys are going to have down sides to them but as someone else said you have to work through them, and no company wants an unsatisfied customer. Best thing I can recomend is to talk to them and look at some demos and put forth what is best for your dept.
Thanks for the feeback Jim, We do have a comittee of six put together, we each have one apparatus co. to deal with. We have had bad expieriences in the past buying form a "smaller" apparatus co. So we have decided to go with one of the big guys. Each of us are dealing with one company only, and we have about six months to view and spec a truck, before we are ready to put it out for bid. I was looking for any feedback that is helpful.
The one thing you may want to think about is getting a vehicle that is multi role. In 2007 we purchased a Freightliner Tanker from U.S. Tanker. With that being said it has a 3500 gallon tank ,1500gpm pump and a five man cab with 4 seats being equiped with scba. It has been used for different role at a fire scene started out as a tanker (tender) on a couple of runs for us and been pulled into an engine when the engine we was using had pump problems. This has also been done on mutual aid runs as well. Also we are a rural dept with most people working during the day time so during the day time when there is only about 5 of us in town we grab this truck so we have enough water till mutual aid arives and gets water supply set up, along with members that can leave work to arrive with additional equipment. Our trucks can be seen at strykerfire.org

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