fouts brothers

[ffhale160]

anyone have a fouts brothers tanker. We just received bids for a new tanker and they were by far the lowest. A few departments close have them but they were a ton cheaper. anybody with any pros or cons

[jeremy1213]

there just strat plain jane truck's

[NickSBFD6]

We have a 98. If you're looking for a tanker... not a pumper tanker, not a dual role tanker, just a plain ol' water hauler they'll do the trick, cheap. If you're looking for a truck that's going to run a bunch, then I'd look for something with a little better build quality. We only use ours to haul water, it doesn't run much at all and it works just fine. I would be leary about running it a lot more.

-Nick

[Elwood]

Metro Lynchburg Moore Co. TN has a 2500 with a 1500 gpm pump. They us it to haul water and serve as a backup pumper. The preconnect piping is not to standard and a few other quirks but all in all I believe they are pleased.

They acquired it via AFG 4 years ago, I believe. Fouts actually built them a crew cab rescue will a skid unit in 2007 or 2008.

I can give contact info if you send me a message.

[JE4935]

I would commend you to look elsewhere. I have seen some of these rigs and well, as the old saying goes, "You get what you paid for". Sure the pricing is more than attractive to a great deal of people, but there are quite a few in my neck of the woods that bought Fouts and would not do it again. While I have NOTHING to back this up, are they even building trucks to the 2009 NFPA standards?? Can they back that claim up??

I would strongly recommend doing some more homework so you do not get stuck with a regret...

[IronsMan53]

We have a few Fouts Bros tankers in my department. Their design has left me scratching my head. Who in their right mind would design a tanker that would not dump their whole load of water out of every dump valve?

What are you talking about you ask? Fouts Bros in their infinite wisdom plumbs in their side dump valves above the level of the lower tank area in their T-style tanks. Meaning that you MUST dump off the rear to get the full tank of water off of the rig. Otherwise, by dumping off of the side you only get the water in the top part of the T. In our 2000 gallon tanker that means you are only getting a 1300-1400 gallon drop leaving the other 600-700 gallons of water in the lower portion of the tank. This is completely rediculous. I can't believe my department purchased these rigs.

Look at the rig (ours is very similar) in the link below to see what I'm talking about:
http://foutsfire.com/newdelivery/Album8.htm

On a better note, we also have some Four Guys tankers and I have nothing but praise for those rigs. And they can dump their full load from three sides too...

[simpleguy68]

We have a 2006 Kenworth with 3000 gallons, 500GPM Darley PTO from Fouts. The next closest bidder was Deep South, and that was for a lined steel tank, and was still $9k more.

We took delivery in March 2007, so we've had it nearly two years now and have had zero problems with it. Everyone that sees it or drives it loves it.

We run it primarily as a tanker/tender, but it does run second-out on both structure and brush fires, so it sees a lot of use.

[chief41]

We have a few Fouts Bros tankers in my department. Their design has left me scratching my head. Who in their right mind would design a tanker that would not dump their whole load of water out of every dump valve?

What are you talking about you ask? Fouts Bros in their infinite wisdom plumbs in their side dump valves above the level of the lower tank area in their T-style tanks. Meaning that you MUST dump off the rear to get the full tank of water off of the rig. Otherwise, by dumping off of the side you only get the water in the top part of the T. In our 2000 gallon tanker that means you are only getting a 1300-1400 gallon drop leaving the other 600-700 gallons of water in the lower portion of the tank. This is completely rediculous. I can't believe my department purchased these rigs.

Look at the rig (ours is very similar) in the link below to see what I'm talking about:
http://foutsfire.com/newdelivery/Album8.htm

On a better note, we also have some Four Guys tankers and I have nothing but praise for those rigs. And they can dump their full load from three sides too...

It must depend on what you want? we have a fouts bros. tanker with the same basic configuration, except where the rig in the picture has compartments behind the rear wheels ours has the side dumps, they are at the same level as the rear dump.

I agree with you though, Why would you ever do that!! if your using the side dumps it's like hauling around a couple hundred extra gallons that you'll never use.

They definitly aren't the best built either, but when it came down to it, it's what we could afford, and ours has done the job we bought it to do.