I am surprised that Tiffin would produce a coach, especially with a diesel engine that costs $13K more than the Workhorse and $17K more than the Ford, with an inadequate transmission. I would suspect that many buyers bought the FRED because they thought it would tow a vehicle more easily than the gassers, a thought that I'm sure was not discouraged by salesmen.

Is there an issue with the Allison transmission in the Workhorse?

What does Bob Tiffin say?

I don't know but I plan on asking him when I see him next month.

Interesting posts,
We are going to the Springfield Ma show next week to see if there were any Tiffen Freds on display. Guess I have to look a little closer.
The info on this forum is invaluable for sure.

quote:

Originally posted by jOHN95683:
Is there an issue with the Allison transmission in the Workhorse?

I am not aware of any anomaly between the Allison transmission used on a Workhorse vs. the transmission used on FRED. Both appear to be model 2350s. There's a FRED chassis parked in the display area behind my area and I looked over the tranny the other night while I was walking Roxy.

It looks like the same six-speed transmission to me and to my understanding in 2008 both of these units use parking pawls as the FRED has a mechanically applied foot brake. One thing I did notice is the drive line brake looks smaller than the one that's on the W24. The FRED uses an Ahrens push button shifter similar to the WCC UFO.

The front Hendrickson spring pack on the FRED uses a 1/2 helper spring as opposed to the UFO which only needs a single spring. What's obvious is the increased weight on the front axle due to the diesel requiring the additional capacity springs. There is a roll bar installed on the front suspension and Sachs shocks.

The rear spring pack uses a multi leaf parabolic spring construction unit and would not seem to me not to ride as comfortably at the Stabil-Ride longer springs on the W24 which use a single leaf and helper. The FRED's springs are labeled as Sof-Tek.

The FRED is using a roll bar on the rear suspension and Sachs shock absorbers.

The brakes on the FRED appear to be pretty straight forward ABS unit, conventional in appearance with no particular brand name on the caliper housings. According to their press they are 15 inch units.

The front axle is reminiscent of the UFO in that it's a welded shaped axle and hollow in the middle. This is a Hendrickson unit no doubt. The UFO's implementation of their Hendrickson suspension uses Bilstein shock absorbers.

The ULSD emission controls are very obvious on the 08 FRED and in my opinion those controls drive the price of this unit considerably over and above gas which does a pretty good job right out of the box in 2008 without extra emission control devices.

The FRED has a 27,000 GVW rating and an 80 gallons fuel tank. The 26,000 GVW rating on the UFO uses a 100 gallon fuel tank.

Both FRED and UFO share a 55 degree wheel cut.

DriVer:

Was the coach you were looking at an Allegro or an Allegro Bay? Different animal, I think. The GVWR on the Allegro FRED is 24K, and the Allison is a 5 speed, according to the brochure. Also, the shifter on the Allegro is a stalk type, which sticks out of the dash. I think you may have been looking at a Bay.

quote:

Originally posted by jOHN95683:
Was the coach you were looking at an Allegro or an Allegro Bay? Different animal, I think.

Freightliner has their display trailer behind my display unit and what I was looking at was a bare 2008 FRED chassis. The Allison guys told me that the FRED is now using a 6 speed and parking pawl. The push button shifter is temporarily installed to the right of the steering wheel up on the driver's pedestal.

You are correct, FLCC's website only shows the FRED with a 5 speed.

The one I was looking at, which kind of started this whole thread, was an Allegro Open Road. It did have the stalk type shifter sticking out of the dash.

quote:

Originally posted by Gary the Wombat:
It did have the stalk type shifter sticking out of the dash.

You're right! Most of the coaches that I have recently seen on FREDs did have a conventional shifter and a 5-speed!

Well we are here in Casa Grande AZ with our 2007 Allegro Fred TGA with an alluminum open car trailer and a 2004 Nissan Maxima on it that we drove down from Alberta Canada.
I hardly knew that the car and trailer were behind and it did very well in the hills and handled well. In fact it rode better with the car and trailer behind.It never showed any signs of heating up

So it does work well as I thought it would.

What was your average mileage on this trip GEO ?