..In this case, heavy equipment.

My workcenter ordered a pair of new Caterpillar 9000-lb forklifts (model 943 something or other), with the reach capability. Which is out to 20-odd feet or so.

We got them in and they looked pretty nice. Got a how-to class from the Cat rep, and everything seemed fine.

I was operating one about a week later and I noticed that when I stepped on the brake pedal, nothing happened. Luckily, I was able to coast to a stop without hitting anything. The other forklift (assigned to another shop) had similar issues. We also noticed a coolant leak on ours. So, both machines went back to the Cat dealer for repair. We were told that both complete front axles were replaced.

A couple weeks later, the same thing started happening again. To both forklifts. Also, ours sprung a hydraulic leak.

Myself and a co-worked were asked to take a transmission oil sample from ours (for some reason) and send it in to Cat. I'm not a mechanic, but in my experience, the tranny fluid on the vehicles I've worked with has been a red or pinkish color. When we pulled the sample from our forklift (using a plastic pump/soda straw-looking thingy), the fluid was the appearance of gray dishwater with some sort of particles suspended in it. Turns out that the torque converter needed to be replaced.

At that point, management threw in the towel and had Cat come and get their crap. Now, every time I see equipment with the "CAT" name on it, I'm reminded of the worst pieces of mechanical garbage that I've worked with. I would have been more comfortable with a Korean or Chinese machine.

For those of you that work with this sort of equipment, is this typical of Caterpillar?