Post by VPL630 on Jul 14, 2021 9:50:12 GMT
Euro 3 Dennis Dart
The Euro 3 Dennis Dart is annoyingly where I feel it went downhill for Dennis/TransBus International and it’s not even their fault really, they just chose to use certain products that I feel don’t work great together.
Other than the Nimbus which really felt like it was made with papier-mâché and smelt like it too, I don’t have an issue with any bodywork fitted to the darts and this post is mainly hatred of the chassis and driveline.
The Engine:
The Euro 3, 4-cylinder 3.9-litre Cummins ISBe engine is my first dislike, the engine has a terrible rough idle sound and vibration which honestly makes the whole bus rattle and vibrate and after spending a considerable amount of time suffering with this it really gets annoying, not helped by getting stuck in traffic. Poor engine mounts that seem to wear out in no time make this even worse. Personally the general sound of this specific engine produces no sound that I find pleasant at any rpm and even hearing the low boom of the engine as they pass on the road I just find annoying not helped by the cooling fan that on some vehicles seems to be permanently stuck on, they make so much drama for little performance and as they sold by the absolute thousands you can’t avoid them, even now there must be hundreds still in service in Essex alone.
The gearbox:
The later Allison 2000 series gearbox (The one that doesn’t whine) while it’s a much more robust gearbox than the AT545 it just wasn’t well matched to the Cummins ISBe and would notoriously hunt for gears going up and down the box for no apparent reason as you were trying to slow down , depending on load as well while it was doing this you lost retarder so made smooth braking at times almost impossible, my funniest memory of this is coming down Burrage Road on the 291 with a packed bus and over shooting the bus stop massively with my foot hard down on the brake pedal. The jolts this hunting would do at times could cause people to lose their balance quite easily and there is almost nothing as a driver you can do to stop it, admittedly some buses were worse than other but everyone one I’ve been on has done this.
The brakes:
The brakes I just feel were completely questionable on every single dart I’ve driven, they just don’t want to stop the bus unless you pretty much stamp on them and stamping on them would cause the front of the bus to nose dive to the point some buses if you had to do an emergency stop the front of the bus would smash into the ground, some were also very loud and squeaky and you’d also have the suspension auto level just as you came to a stop which would raise the front up giving an additional jolt when coming to a stop
The Euro 3 Dennis Dart is annoyingly where I feel it went downhill for Dennis/TransBus International and it’s not even their fault really, they just chose to use certain products that I feel don’t work great together.
Other than the Nimbus which really felt like it was made with papier-mâché and smelt like it too, I don’t have an issue with any bodywork fitted to the darts and this post is mainly hatred of the chassis and driveline.
The Engine:
The Euro 3, 4-cylinder 3.9-litre Cummins ISBe engine is my first dislike, the engine has a terrible rough idle sound and vibration which honestly makes the whole bus rattle and vibrate and after spending a considerable amount of time suffering with this it really gets annoying, not helped by getting stuck in traffic. Poor engine mounts that seem to wear out in no time make this even worse. Personally the general sound of this specific engine produces no sound that I find pleasant at any rpm and even hearing the low boom of the engine as they pass on the road I just find annoying not helped by the cooling fan that on some vehicles seems to be permanently stuck on, they make so much drama for little performance and as they sold by the absolute thousands you can’t avoid them, even now there must be hundreds still in service in Essex alone.
The gearbox:
The later Allison 2000 series gearbox (The one that doesn’t whine) while it’s a much more robust gearbox than the AT545 it just wasn’t well matched to the Cummins ISBe and would notoriously hunt for gears going up and down the box for no apparent reason as you were trying to slow down , depending on load as well while it was doing this you lost retarder so made smooth braking at times almost impossible, my funniest memory of this is coming down Burrage Road on the 291 with a packed bus and over shooting the bus stop massively with my foot hard down on the brake pedal. The jolts this hunting would do at times could cause people to lose their balance quite easily and there is almost nothing as a driver you can do to stop it, admittedly some buses were worse than other but everyone one I’ve been on has done this.
The brakes:
The brakes I just feel were completely questionable on every single dart I’ve driven, they just don’t want to stop the bus unless you pretty much stamp on them and stamping on them would cause the front of the bus to nose dive to the point some buses if you had to do an emergency stop the front of the bus would smash into the ground, some were also very loud and squeaky and you’d also have the suspension auto level just as you came to a stop which would raise the front up giving an additional jolt when coming to a stop