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El Toro blows lift hill motor, could be closed for season


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Yikes. According to Screamscape, Six Flags Great Adventure's #1 ranked wooden coaster, El Toro, is closed and apparently the lift hill motor blew out. If it cannot be fixed, El Toro will be SBNO for the rest of the 2013 season as a new lift motor is installed:

http://www.screamscape.com/html/six_flags_great_adventure.htm

This has not been a very good year for Intamin. Intimidator 305, Shoot-The-Rapids, and now El Toro have all had problems and all 3 could be down for some time.

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Who designed the ride and specified the parts?

If a part fails on your relatively new Toyota, do you blame Toyota? They specified the part.

I work for a Toyota supplier. Toyota blames us if (and when but at a company wide .9 PPM rate) we send them defective parts. If our parts make it to the vehicles then wear out prematurely Toyota eats it.

They tell us what features they require and we design parts and present them to Toyota. If they like the design then we start mass production. Usually there is a negotiation process and small things are changed to make these parts as cheaply made (without sacrificing quality) as possible so both companies can maximize their profits per piece.

This is somewhat on a tangent, but I'm sure all industries are similar in the fact that they push for the cheapest possible part to get the job done. Sometimes hind sight is 20/20 and adjustments have to be made.

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Yikes. According to Screamscape, Six Flags Great Adventure's #1 ranked wooden coaster, El Toro, is closed and apparently the lift hill motor blew out. If it cannot be fixed, El Toro will be SBNO for the rest of the 2013 season as a new lift motor is installed:

http://www.screamscape.com/html/six_flags_great_adventure.htm

This has not been a very good year for Intamin. Intimidator 305, Shoot-The-Rapids, and now El Toro have all had problems and all 3 could be down for some time.

Youngstud won't like this!

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Indeed, but the Toyota owner blames Toyota if his or her new Prius quits working due to a defective widget.

This is true. I was going to add a line or two about public perception and reputation but I was trying to wrap it up and get out the door at the time. Ha.

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For now. There are rumors circulating that my company will start production on Prius parts for a domestically built version.

There are several Toyota plants in the US now aside from the two you mentioned. Also did you know the Camry is the most American made vehicle on the market in the United States?

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I know of a joint venture between Toyota and another Japanese auto manufacturer but I do not know the exact details of that venture. I know about the products we produce for Toyota (and others) and their destinations. Beyond that I do not know who makes what parts or where they ship to or from.

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I found it interesting myself for 2 reasons:

#1-El Toro is an Intamin, so this does connect with the recent closing of Intimidator 305 (another ride having issues with its cable lift) and the Shoot The Rapids accident. Dumb Luck or not, 3 well-known attractions down is not a good thing for Intamin's image ATM.

#2-Perhaps more interesting is that this attraction was voted #1 wooden roller coaster in the world in both the Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards and Mitch Hawker Wood Coaster poll in 2012...and it's won or tied for 1st in the Hawker poll 3 years running now, so it was going for a 4th straight Hakwer Poll title in 2013- something no ride to date has done. Will this breakdown affect its chances? If so, what rides will take advantage of El Toro's stumble? (My guesses, if this does in fact effect El Toro: Phoenix @ Knoebels or Voyage @ Holiday World for the Golden Ticket Awards, and T-Express @ Everland for Hawker's poll...though Outlaw Run could show up as an unknown x-factor, but I haven't heard too much about that ride yet as suddenly it got kind of quiet after the early reviews came in)...

Just some random thoughts...

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Excuse my ignorance, but is it that critical of an ordeal to put some kind of a motor at the base of a coaster's lift hill to make the chain go round and round? I mean geez - does it need to have a certain number of government-specified hamsters running around in their wheel or can someone just remove one or two old used washing machine power drivers and sync them up to turn that chain?

I know it's silly - but it times past, when things were simple, you could probably have pulled up your Chevy under the lift hill, popped the hood, connected the chain to one of the fan belts, and revved up the engine to pull the train up and over. Now-a-days, all is computerized and tedious requiring specialized parts and such - hence, the SBNO

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