Re: Japan buses (mentioned in expired post)

hseochin SG

The european buses & bus-chassi are deservely higher class products compared to most Japanese ones. Any price premium i find it more than justified !

Having riden on some Mitsubishi Fuso & Isuzu bus-chassi operating by some 'free' services from shopping centres here, i find these terrible in suspension ride comfort with low performing engines & poor user ergonomics
etc. I know the local coach builders here put in great effort in building quite good bodies with German Vogel Sitze seats even BUT mating such better class bodies with such lousy class bus-chassi is i find a 'mismatch' & a waste !!

Why ? Because now you sit in a comfortable quality seat with a body that hardly rattles & squeaks BUT the moment the bus moves the inferiorities of the lousy bus-chassi slowly becomes obvious as in the squeakly spring suspension & lousy & rough engine noise upon accelerating etc. then the whole experience is spoiled ! Might as well have lousy bus-chassi to lousy bus body instead that way costs even lower !!

Singapore, with its expensive private car costs & land constrains, there's simply no room for lousy buses here ! Unfortunately the finer class buses & coaches do cost somewhat more but utimately that'll have to make more sense to have still.

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Originally posted by alantanchunshyan:

maybe sbstransit and smrt wants to look high class .hence prefer european bus models to japanese bus models.

iveco SG

So far, the only good Japanese buses are the Nissan U31s and the Hino HSKs. Please don't write off all Japanese makes. I have to admit some of the buses deployed on the IMM shuttle are quite bad, though.

What models are currently available from Nissan and Hino, by the way?

hseochin SG

I'm not writting off ALL Japanese buses, as i believe there's always some exceptions. But from personal experiences after trying so many types of buses over the last 2 decades, my conclusion is that Japanese buses do NOT ultimately measure up to European buses in overall quality & appeal ! Just like much of their cars, vans & trucks too ! Perhaps their priorities in automobile design are 'different' to suit their own circumstances etc. but whatever it is, it generates to me less favourable impressions compared to the European ones.

The integrally constructed Japanese buses & mini-buses i've tried here are quite good in build & finishing qualities, but suspension ride comfort & NVH (noise, vibration harshness) levels are much higher, in the case of those Toyota Coaster minibuses used by TIBS Bus Plus when compared to the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter mini-buses i've riden on. Of course the M-B used M-B car diesels in this case & the Toyota's diesel doesn't seem taken from their cars !

The IMM ones i find so-so, i'll prefered the M-B OH 1318 instead as i find the M-B spring suspension ride comfort superior to any others spring suspension so far !

iveco SG

I find the Merc OH series somewhat cheapskate, especially those with manual gear. Had some unhappy experiences with them in Malaysia. The O series seems much better.

The_Bus_Guide SG

A real good Japanese bus is the Hino RM. It has a 13-litre engine mounted vertically at the rear with a maximum output of 260 hp @ 2150 rpm. This bus is capable of high speeds and very comfortable thanks to its Wide Air Suspension. Perfect for a Super VIP coach. I rode a Hino RM once from KL and slept like a baby.

Halide SG

Wow. I’ve sat in tat bus just last month when i was in Japan. The suspension is superb and engine noise real low. sighs Too bad its only used on the first day of the tour. =( As for the speed, it was sweet. Cruising on the highway until when it reached the outskirts of Tokyo.(Cursed traffic jams)

hseochin SG

The OH bus-chassi range is what Mercedes-Benz is known to consider as 'export chassi', which i'll take it to mean as chassi of a spec level no longer 'suitable' for German or 1st world use so it's 'downgraded stuff' mainly targeted for 3rd world markets instead ! So no surprise if the instrumentation e.g. on the OH 1318 is of the old generation type seems unchanged in 30 years, eventhough they updated the engine to include turbocharging for this model !!

BUT from personal VERY positive experiences on the OH 1625 L & OH 1627 L (both use similar 15 litre V8 engines with twin exhaust pipes) i find these models in the OH range are still of 1st world standard, as far as passenger ride comfort goes ! The air suspension is 1st class & engine noise vibration harshness levels (are lower than all the others here i've riden on !) When i say the NVH levels are low, i refer to NVH levels when crusing on the highway which are impressive considering they don't have any engine encapsulation @ all ! Otherwise they're only somewhat noisier than others externally when accelerating off from stationary, which is understandable in view of its big capacity V8 naturally aspirated engine.

A bus or coach with V8 engine is to me never 'cheapskate'. Many operators still seem reluctant to buy such vehicles because they think it's not worth their while to pay the higher price for them ! I of course think otherwise & am in full support for V8 coaches, whenever the class of service offered is high enough to justify their usage !!

The lower end models of the OH range like 1318 are of course nowhere as satisfying & i've encountered many instances of ill maintained vehicles with squeaky (spring only for this model !) suspensions with lousy 'donkey' engine air-cons which add much to the unwanted noise & vibration levels !
But when compared to those Hinos also with spring suspensions only, i'll still take the 1318 anytime over those, largely to due to the superior suspension ride comfort from M-B's spring suspension !

Windy_hates_B10TLs SG

The suspension in the UD U31 series is leaf spring, and for leaf springs, their suspension is still quite supple. Alot of ppl do complain about it, but I find it just right, as do quite a few others.

iveco SG

Apologies if you were offended by my observations of Merc OH series buses. Among the touring buses I have sat in, I still favour the MAN 18.310. By the way, I have noticed MAN vehicles (both truck and bus) aren't very popular in Singapore. Why is it so?

hseochin SG

No offence taken. It doesn't really matter to me.
I was merely depicting the true colours as accurately as i could perceive it to be.

The MAN 18.310 bus-chassis i believe also used with city bus body by Handal Indah in JB. It's only an in-line 6-cylinder 12 litres but their efficiency is fairly good, taking into account exhaust emission standards. These newer generation charged-cooled diesels (most likely) are much quieter than the old naturally aspirated units in the MAN 16.240 used by SJE, which i found terrible being excessively noisy both in the engine & the manual gearbox !!

Overall i consider M.A.N. as the 'BMW' of buses, coaches & trucks nothing surprising as both are German products, where product quality & technical competence are highly rated.

The Handal Indah (suspect it's) 18.280 used on CW2 route is a big improvement over then 16.240 used by SJE !! Allowing for some differences in bodywork specifications, i find the overall noise vibration harshness levels of these newer MAN's comparable to the Scania's, whether K94 or K113 etc.

But these still fall short of the ultra-low NVH levels of the V8 engined M-B OH models i mentioned especially when crusing ! With the air-con compressor in off-mode (when cold enough reached) the interior is like deaf-silence & you can hear even whisphers from those seated right behind, like as if you're in a quiet reading room ! I do believe there's some favourable acoustical properties from V8 engine design which produces such quietness which i find NOT attainable from even the newest charged-cooled in-line 6 engines so far, which unfortunately is what the newer MAN's, Scanias & even M-B tend to use nowadays. In M-B's case i suppose that's why they still keep their very top-line model the Travego coach available with the twin exhaust pipe 16 litre V8, charged-cooled to output @ 476 BHP !

There's very few MAN trucks & bus-chassi in Singapore. I suppose MAN considers Singapore as too small & insignificant a market for them to make it worth their marketing efforts, especially with their closest competitor Mercedes-Benz already having among the highest levels of market share here in commercial vehicles. MAN probably sees more potential in Malaysia for them instead so they focus mostly in Malaysia instead of Singapore. I think they are selling quite well in Malaysia especially in bus-chassi for citybus & coach use. I was quite surprised to note in East Malaysia there's even 3-axle 24.460 used for Tawau to KK route with double-deck coachwork !

M-B probably is aware of their lower sales performance in more recent times so their now gearing up & intensifying their marketing efforts via the new generation (i suspect) Brazilian sourced bus-chassi like IBC 1725 & CBC 1632 & lately i observe the gradual emergence these models in the Malaysian scene although surprisingly responce from Singapore seems not showing yet. Maybe they want to push even higher end (more expensive) models to Singapore like Citaro or Travego in the longer run, i'll suppose !

lemon1974 SG

MAN Trucks are used by Mindef... Their new 5 tonners are all from MAN if i am not wrong.

iveco SG

Apart from SAF, no other organisation the I know of uses MAN lorries. SJE has a number of 16.240s (manual) while SBS has 0081, an auto-geared 16.240.

If MAN indeed has a plant in Malaysia, these buses should cost lesser. Why isn't SBST or SMRT interested in the 18.280 in any case?

hseochin SG

The MAN 18.280 is a high floor bus-chassis, like all the M-B OH & OF series.
Therefore i'll consider as NOT optimally suitable for citybus operators like SBST etc. Instead such models more suited for intercity, outstation or tour coach use where boarding height is not so 'critical'. For citybus operations, the norm is low floor buses instead like the Citaro, O 405 etc.

The next nearest choice to the O 405 or Citaro i suppose can be the MAN SL 262 or variants of this (like the SL 252 which i believe is used by Intrakota in KL) with purpose built low floor chassi & low profile tyres & O 405 like gentle angle & low height dashboard ergonomically optimised for citybus operations.

In Singapore i know of 1 MAN (suspect is 16.240) used as tour coach while SJE does have MAN with automatic gearbox but mostly theirs is manual gear.

What i've been saying is that high time the world class bus & coach makers like Mercedes-Benz, MAN, Saab-Scania etc. supply their integral PSV bodies in CKD form to Malaysia & do local assembly there (like what has been happening last few decades with M-B or BMW cars) either via their local dealers or sub-contract such works to the Malaysian bus/coachwork builders !! This way you can then get real original quality integrally built buses or coaches (similar quality standards like the cars) for sale both in Malaysia as well as for export to Singapore maybe even to further markets on a global basis. That way it can be possible to cut down somewhat on price but not on quality. Definitely better than the status quo where you only tend to see good chassi but mated to 3rd party bodywork very often of suspicious quality & 'inconsistent' design themes with respect to the models of chassi used !! A rojak situation giving the buses & coaches some real identity crisis which is definitely not desirable in the long run as buses & coaches are PSV's not goods vehicles !

iveco SG

Then how does the thread starter feel about MAN double decks like those found in Hongkong? Some bus fan from Hongkong said they are prone to overheating. Do you know anything about such matters?

hseochin SG

Is your post directed to me ?
I don't know what that thread starter said as i didn't see the starting thread.

From what i know, the MAN double-deckers in Hong Kong use MAN bus-chassi only but the bodywork from Walter Alexander of Scotland, similar to the M-B O 305 there. Have not heard of any overheating problems from those MAN's !

But nice to know is that in Hong Kong, least they have quite 'a few' original real integrally constructed (heavy duty category i.e. ~ 16t GVW) citybuses & coaches, a noteworthy achievement i'll say that surposely 'advanced' cities like Singapore have NOT 'arrived' to !!!! In Hong Kong, they have ultra low floor MAN citybuses (which i have reason to believe are original CBU import from Germany with MAN bodywork), i've personally riden on Kassborher Setra S 210 H (full original coachwork) again (from the finishing quality) i know most certainly are CBU imports from Ulm, Germany as local bodybuilders simply do NOT measure up to the same exacting standards ! Even the M-B O 405 there use original M-B front & rear body sections like the real O 405 original bus in Germany, Norway etc.! Then the 'touch of class' & quality is really there !

Windy_hates_B10TLs SG

the MAN 18.280 HOCL-R comes with a 7 litre engine, and while it has a good dose of power, its torque range does not make it suitable on hills. It is used in high numbers in Adelaide.

iveco SG

In view of Japan's insincerity and refusal to confront its wartime past and Germany's genuine remorse for the Holocaust, I suggest that bus and truck companies should boycott Japanese-made vehicles (Hino, Nissan, Fuso & Isuzu) and buy MAN products instead. Very Happy