Me either. Some of them have hundreds and hundreds of them. I don’t know how many are new or used. But far more RV’s then the number of cars in any large car dealership I’ve ever seen.
I often think the same thing, that all those expensive RVs are sitting out there in the Florida sun, aging. In the car industry, the dealership often borrows money from the bank to put a car on the lot, and pays back the loan when they sell the car. If the RV industry does the same, that would tie up a lot of capital.
It tells me their markup is considerably higher then say a Ford or Toyota. It almost has to be. They may have a large inventory, but they are not a large volume dealer.
Ohhh yeah. 40% markups aren’t uncommon in the RV industry.
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The problem with those Fords (if you want to call it that) back then was that those cars were carbureted which require a number of adjustments; any or all which may go out of whack at any time. Yes, I have seen some engines at idle no matter the make which would slowly or even somewhat suddenly start accelerating on their own.
However, that falls back to a lack of maintenance and keeping those adjustments (idle speed, fast idle cam, freed up choke plate/linkage, choke pull-off diaphragm, secondary linkage, vacuum pot, modified vacuum lines, etc, etc, etc) in sync. Many back in the day including some mechanics really did not know the full picture with carburetor theory and so on.
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The expression “Kentucky windage” comes to mind when trying to unscramble the linkage and properly adjust carburetors @ok4450. But I’ll have to admit that I’m guilty or re-engineering fuel systems to get a vehicle back on the road immediately. increasing the flow rate on the accelerator pump, installing Dorman choke heaters, reconnecting choke pull offs so that they actually acted like accelerator pumps, etc. And more often than not the results included a very fast idle when cold. Funny thing looking back the 'seasoned" Ford drivers had a bottle of gas somewhere handy on cold mornings and after loosening the wing nut on the air filter lid they poured the dished out center of the lid full of fuel which enabled the engine to start quickly and pumping the accelerator for a minute or so would get everything up to running temperature so to speak.
It happens often enough that there is a word for it. It’s called an accident. Millions of people make their living from accidents.
I also remember (vaguely) some sort of issue with the shift interlocks on some of the Ford vans. I want to say it was in the 90’s. If the van was modified, such as with a police lights package, the interlock was disabled so you could shift it into gear without your foot on the brake. The flaw killed a couple of people at a parade in Minnesota when a cop van plowed into a crowd, and I think it maimed a little kid too.
It’s fun to write about all the ways makers have screwed up over the years, but bear in mind this discussion started with a UPS truck. As best I can tell, UPS trucks are not regular trucks made in mass production; they are unique to UPS and are designed and engineered for one specific purpose. That purpose includes stopping, securing the truck in place and from thieves, and then going again, time after time. These trucks are rebuilt by UPS or contractors several times in their life. Breakdowns in quality control of maintenance and overhaul can happen, and every device can break, but the report was of a truck failing in its most frequent activity. That’s very unlikely to be a design error.
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While it’s obvious that both UPS and FedEx have vehicles built to their specifications but it is unlikely that they have anything in the drive train re-engineered. Both those corporations favored Ford 300ci I-6 engines for many years and it’s doubtful that what they bought for the drive trains wasn’t available to anyone. I’ve worked on dozens of retired FedEx vans and seen first hand what was under the hood and behind it. Nothing unusual at all. As for UPS, they must run their trucks till the sheet metal is worn away by the wind.
Bottom line is that one cannot override the torque converter. Try it on any car (assuming the brakes are serviceable at all) by holding the brake pedal down and then stomping the accelerator pedal. The car will rear up and lurch but it’s not going to rocket forward as some have claimed “with both feet planted through the floor”.
And most people go into panic mode so reaction times are not going to be fast. Car takes off and the foot is a bit too little, too late.
The 70s and 80s were a bad time for carburetors and emissions but the car makers did the best they could under the circumstances until injection took over although the Europeans were already ahead in that game.
The common “fix” back then whenever an engine stumbled was to blame the EGR and stick a BB into the vacuum hose. 