Quite a few.
TP.1610 was written off after it was destroyed
in similar circumstances in Perth City.
TP.1297 was partially destroyed in Fremantle,
again in similar circumstances, but was rebuilt with a new chassis
and rear-end.
Most recently, TP.1877 was partially destroyed
north of Perth. It is currently undergoing a complete
rebuild.
There have also been some fires inside bus depots but these were
put out before any major damage was done.
The previous fires were caused by poor welding quality used in
the design of the turbocharger oil supply line. This design
fault was the subject of a massive Australia-wide recall shortly
after the fire on 1610. The line was prone to rupture and
when hot oil leaks onto a hot turbocharger, the inevitable is bound
to occur. I suspect that the fires wouldn't have occured if
this oil supply line was rerouted so that any leaking fluids would
leak directly onto the road.
Regards,
Dave
Perhaps because of the old engine block design? If im not wrong,
re routing the turbo oil supply will result in changing ur engine
block design, because ur oil is fed from the engine via a gear pump
attached to the engine casing. Hence you will notice why sometimes
the turbo is placed only at a certain area and not anywhere on the
engine(altho turbocharging pipe length that affects engine
performance also play a role).
From the trend i noticed, seems like most turbo failure occured on
the OM447 engine block. From a little info i saw from
documentaries, different engine block and series are assembled on
completely different plant lines. It is possible that the line that
produces the OM447 block could have some problems resulting in the
poor quality weld.
