Talk:Volvo B7L

Latest comment: 18 years ago by 195.70.32.136

What' the problem with the vertical engine in BL7? It's a heck of a bus, a fleet of 150 pcs bendy Volvo 7700As run in Budapest and they are like a tank, cope well with very bad roads and never catch fire unlike the London Citaros. The full size rearmost door is a blessing you cannot do with horizontal engine. A 7700A costs the same as a V12 touring Ferrari and Volvo refuses to give a price reduction, but we buy a batch of 50 more every year because they are so good. It performs suprisingly well with the smallish 7liter turbodiesel engine. 195.70.32.136 12:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

I know that here in Britain it has never been popular. One of the main problem is that compared to other sinlge-deckers sold it has around two less seats. Plus full-low floor chassis don't sell very well with price being one problem. The only type that has is the Scania Omni-City and the Mercedes Citaro. The low-entry Volvo B7RLE has sold more here and many other low-entry chassis like the Scania L94, apparently low-entry chassis seem to be more economical on fuel, as low-entry chassis use a T-drive arrangement as opposed ot a Z-drive. Lastly, it is true the engine position of the B7L put UK operators off who bought Volvo, I've never been on one, but there's a lot of word of them being noisy. Lastly with the lack of seats, standee buses are very unpopular in the UK vere since trials in the 1960's, and for the right reasons, as many find them unsafe, plus there is no passenger comfort. This is possibly why double deckers still have a future.