We still have a lot of Grumman LLVs in front line duty here, but they do break down from time to time. Given that they’re now some 30-35 years old, that’s hardly surprising. Annual maintenance costs are running some $5,000 per year (really?). Some parts no longer available are having to be reverse-engineered. Maybe the Postal service should have bought Corollas?
Looks like the USPS has its own flatbed trucks to haul them too. I wonder if these will be sold off like the Jeep Dispatchers were. If so, I’ll bet that private owners will be able to keep them running another 30 years, and it won’t cost $5,000 per year.
When we saw this on our late afternoon walk, this Ram Promaster van was also there. Did it get dropped off by the flatbed?
Related CC reading:
Here in Valley Cottage, for the last year, our postman is driving a Mercedes Van. The three-pointed star is replaced with USPS logo on the grill, but the driver uses a steering wheel that has the Mercedes emblem on it.
They replaced the star because MB successfully brainwashed Americans into believing they build only luxury vehicles. Thus, they will think the USPS overpaid for a “luxury” imported van and will not believe they are competitively prices AND built in America.
I was going to mention this – did the USPS actually say this or is it just speculated that’s the reason the three-pointed stars were removed?
Essentially yes. They said they were concerned that folks would think these Metris van were expensive “luxury” vans, which of course they aren’t, and were concerned about the negative PR aspects.
I suspect one of the reasons they got rid of the three-pointed star is people like to steal them. When I was a younger it was very common to see Mercedes with the emblems pried off.
The USPS mail van is perfect to electrify. Over a six hour shift, they drive at an average of 14 mph and stop 500 times. (Source: https://www.greatbusinessschools.org/usps-long-life-vehicle/)
They issued an RFQ several years ago. It excelled as they clearly talked to seemingly everyone who had anything to do with a mail van – from the letter carriers to mechanics to finance etc. The problem was is that they then did not (seemingly) cull the list. When USPS then issued a list of specs for vehicle demos to the free market, they ended up with a bunch of highly custom vehicles, the antithesis for reliability and scalability. Add in some politics and a high questionable “study” on EV charging needs, and we are where we are today.
Many postal agencies around the world have simply bought off-the-shelf BEV vans of various sizes. Done.
The only off-the-shelf BEV available in the US, is the Ford Transit, which seems kinda big for urban deliveries. Though not significantly different than the ProMaster which sees some use in my community, not to mention all the extended Sprinter and Transit Amazon, FedEx and UPS trucks. We still have LLV’s though the Metris is making inroads. It does seem the right size though I’ve heard complaints that it can’t fit as many packages as the LLV.
Rivian is now selling their electric vans to any customers who want them, not just Amazon. Those look like they would make a good USPS van; their usage scenario isn’t all that different than Amazon’s.
In addition to Rivian there is GM’s subsidiary Bright Drop and the E-Sprinter.
The new postal van is coming in 2024, and the great majority will be EVs, using quite a bit of parts form the Transit EV.
How soon will some shop put in a 600 hp LS and slam it to the ground?
Oh yes…
I always know when my mail is delivered when I hear the unmistakable drone of the Iron Duke engine.
From what I’ve heard, the USPS is at the stage of cannibalizing LLVs to keep as many of them running.
When they go EV I plead they have sound emitters that sound like an iron duke for that very reason!
That drone announces the mail is here!! It’s like the Good Humor man’s bells…
Well, Deutsche Post (DHL Group) just went full BEV producer, fwiw
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter
There are 80,000,000 people living in an area the size of Montana. They can do that.
My puppy and I walked past one of these smog belching USPS delivery THINGS a few days ago. The REEK of the exhaust was worse than being in L.A. in the early 70s! Besides being an eyesore, what they can do to nearby sinus’s is truly horrible! 🙁 DFO
There are still a few LLVs up my way, but the vast majority are more recent off-the-shelf vehicles, mostly Ram Promasters.
Wonder what caused the breakdown. I can’t stand Iron Dukes, having had to drive one of those paint shakers of an engine (in a GM FWD X body no less) for years, but they are pretty indestructible.,
Annual maintenance costs running $5,000 per year. That’s our government at work, efficient as ever. No wonder we’re trillions in debt. Maybe time to privatize the Post Office?
Oh, jeez. The ol’ “privatize the USPS” argument rears its ugly head again. Keep in mind that, if we do, they’ll be closing about 50% of the post offices in America in the interest of “streamlining”. And about half of Americans won’t be able to have mail delivered to their homes anymore because it’s “inefficient.”
Thank you.
As an old and ex-Grumman employee who worked there when Apollo 13’s Service Module “failed” and Grumman’s LM served as a lifeboat for that North American Rockwell craft, I still have warm feelings for the “Iron Works” nickname for Grumman.
Iron Works was originally used to describe the abuse Grumman Naval aircraft could absorb from enemy fire (see below).
LLVs are a bit less glamorous, and most of their abuse does not include bullet holes, but abuse it is – day after day, year after year.
Credit to Canada Post. In forty-five years of spotting their delivery vehicles, I’ve probably seen less than five broken down, or being towed, in that time.
There is a large Canada Post terminal on Riverside Drive in Ottawa. And I’ve recently spotted these Morgan-Olson C250 Electric vans in the fleet parking lot. Has a bit of a vintage look.
Regarding the $5k/year figure to keep an LLV going…
Government salaries are pretty transparent, and I learned that a USPS mechanic makes $35-45/hr. Add in benefits, and a mechanic costs the USPS $55/hr or so. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Given the age and condition of the LLV fleet, I wouldn’t have trouble believing that each vehicle requires, on average, 4 hours of shop time per month.
So we’re over $2500/year just on labor. Figure for parts, supplies, and materials, the $5000 per year doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Most civilians who don’t do their own repair are not driving 30 year old vehicles that have been ridden hard and put away wet every day for 30 years. It’s too expensive.
I can’t imagine that the LLV replacement, with or without a three-pointed star (essentially any current commercial vehicle not specifically purpose-built) will rival the longevity and practicality of the LLV. If the UPS model for vehicle utilization was implemented, the LLV’s would be updated with new mechanical components (or electric conversions) and the almost indestructible shells would continue on indefinitely. Flat panels and “bread truck” engineering lends itself to panel replacement and major repairs which are far more economically accomplished as compared to repairing a Metris after a fender-bender, for example. The S-10 type underpinnings are nearly indestructible, and certainly the simplest contemporary engine and transmission could be fitted. In the rust belt, frame swap-outs would probably be practical. Do we really believe that these new tin cans will have a 30 year lifespan like the LLV’s? Crude as the were (and would continue to be) they were well suited to the application, and shouldn’t that be the bottom line? Well worth $2500 a year to keep them rolling, compared to the alternative, I’d say.
Neither snow nor rain,
Nor gloom of night,
Shall stay these couriers.
From the swift completion,
Of their appointed rounds.
…and then there’s reality.
Funny, I saw a USPS flat bed with two vehicles on the road this morning… I don’t think they were LLVs, tho.
USPS transports it’s delivery vehicles to be serviced. Rather than driving two or three and paying for two or three drivers, they have one driver pick up two or three for routine maintainence. That is probably what you saw.
In my area of southern Ontario most of the rural postal delivery drivers use RHD Japanese vehicles (JDM). Honda CR-V seem to be most popular with Toyota RAV4 a close second. To meet Canadian import rules, they are all at least 15 years old.
The one(s?) that delivered mail to my mom’s townhome in Denver during the lockdowns was a real mess, I spent some time there and the neighborhood box is right next to the patio, so I’d be sitting outside the LLV would pull up, carrier would spend 10-20 minutes filling up all the various boxes with mail, get back into the truck and it would just crank and crank and start and stall. Day after day. Some days there’d be a promaster in its place, but then the next day there’d be that rough old LLV again.
It’s pretty weird, I think the LLV has been THE mailtruck of my lifetime, we’re the same age, when the fleet is officially replaced it’ll be like a whole new world.
My business is behind the Post Office out here in BFE, Ohio so I see the comings and goings right out the window. They have 5 delivery trucks, in addition to about 6 or 7 route drivers using their own vehicles. They use the USPS trucks in town and on the few paved rural routes. All the other rural routes have to be 4WD. They used to have all LLVs. The roll-back was there at least once per week swapping one out and taking the broken one back to the maintenance facility about 60 miles away. A couple years ago they replaced one LLV with a Metris. The first week the driver caved the whole left side in by side-swiping a utility pole. It has never been repaired. I asked our mail carrier about the Metris. She said the carriers hate them. She said they are hard to load and unload and hard to see out of. She said she would much rather drive the LLV. Last year they got Metris number 2 and this week number 3 arrived. The two remaining LLV are still used every day but now the roll-back does a swap about every other week.
And to think the US Postal Service replaced the ancient LLV with the monstrosity below.
Clearly designed by committee rather than an actual design firm.
The two things that stand out to me as really really questionable, 1 even if that thing has A/C (which is only going to be so effective with the side window open all the time) there’s no way that thing wont be broiling in the summer. 2 does every single vehicle have to have plastic flush headlights? If there’s one positive thing to be said about the LLV I have never seen a single one with yellow cloudy headlights – think those fashionable new ones won’t be hazed and yellowed 35 years after they replace the fleet? Will they even be available to replace? They look like they were repurposed from a 13 year old Ford Taurus
I can just tell the same committees who design silkscreened license plates designed that.
I drive into large postal facilities pretty much every day, and there are still LOTS of these in use in my area.
I wonder if that $5k/yr cost includes downtime or lost productivity time. That could be a significant figure based on USPS labor rates.
The USPS has been an odd combination of private and public for decades now, and it has been running on old/worn out equipment and facilities for years. I think we are long past time when the USPS has the wherewithal to contract for custom designed and built delivery vehicles. It is mostly Sprinters and the Mercedes minivans (whose name I cannot recall) that fill the few holes in parking lots not filled with LLVs. But that situation cannot go on forever.
I think we are long past time when the USPS has the wherewithal to contract for custom designed and built delivery vehicles
The USPS’ current vehicle replacement program is budgeted at $9.6 Billion investment for 106k new delivery vehicle, of which no less than 60k will be the custom-designed Oshkosh NGDV. 45k of those will be EVs.
It’s an absolutely mammoth investment program and the NGDV (below) has been in development for almost a decade.
A large amount of this is coming from the federal government.
My math makes that vehicle come to $90k apiece. I have to ask whether a quasi-public agency that has been a financial black hole for at least a generation really needs something so special.
Lol! I didn’t make the window/ AC connection until you mentioned it but yeah the gigantic window is going to turn it into a mobile solar cooker. I cannot fathom what driving one in the the SW desert during summer time would be like. Maybe 3M created some new miracle window film to solve that. I heard the first batch will use ICE so AC energy requirements shouldn’t be an issue.
I think everybody would love and benefit if we could go back to glass headlamps but cost is the likely culprit. What might work is if the government agency responsible mandated all new car headlamps come with protective laminate that could easily be replaced by the owner as part of regular maintenance.
I worked in a local USPS facility as a “part-time flex” summer employee, and the small vehicle ‘way back then was the Jeep DJ 5 “Dispatcher” (as I recall.) As a farm kid who knew about equipment maintenance, it was clear to me that the postal service vehicles were very poorly maintained, with almost no preventive maintenance and repairs only when the vehicle became unusable, There always seemed to me to be delays in obtaining parts, as well. I strongly suspect that the Jeep that I drove wouldn’t have had any chance of passing my state’s vehicle safety inspection, and I had one long weekly run during which I always held by breath that I wouldn’t break down and miss my assigned punch-out time (a mortal sin!) Of course, being Federal vehicles, they didn’t have to pass any safety inspections except the ones they might have imposed upon themselves, but apparently didn’t. If their vehicle management practices are still as haphazard and shoddy as what I recall from 45+ years ago, no wonder vehicle issues abound. I suspect the noble Metris won’t tolerate the abuse the Jeeps and the LLV’s suffered for nearly as long, and there’ll be an opportunity for another round of expensive vehicle replacements sooner rather than later. As I said in a previous post, why not look to the private sector and see how they do it (UPS, especially!)