General Motors has paid just under $3 million to buy a 75-acre plot of land in Brookville, Ohio.
According to local news outlet WHIO TV 7, GM plans to build a new, $175-million plant on the land, which will manufacture parts for Duramax diesel engines. The facility won’t build any engines from scratch, but rather machine engine blocks and heads to support production at the Duramax plant in nearby Moraine, Ohio.
Back in September, when it was still unclear if GM would build the new plant, spokesperson Dan Flores said it “would be for the machining of blocks and heads, and those parts would be sent over to DMAX (in Moraine) for more engines. That’s ultimately how we get more engine production.”
GM also said that the new Brookville facility could bring as much as 100 jobs to the region. The automaker came under fire for closing the Lordstown Assembly Plant in Ohio earlier this year, which is about a three-hour drive from Brookville, laying off 1,400 hourly workers. While the plant will remain closed under the new national agreement with the UAW, GM said it would open a battery production facility not far from Lordstown Assembly, bringing some jobs back to the region. The battery assembly facility would be a joint-venture project with another battery supply company, manufacturer or automaker. It’s not clear when construction on the new battery facility may begin. GM has also said the battery production plant will employ UAW workers.
The DMAX plant in Moraine opened in 1999 and builds the 6.6-liter L5P Duramax diesel V8 engines for use in the Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD pickups. It does not build the 2.8-liter LWN Duramax engine available in the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, which is manufactured in Thailand, nor the new 3.0-liter LM2 Duramax inline-six for GM’s light-duty pickups, which is built at the Flint Engine plant in Michigan.
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Source: WHIO TV 7
Comments
Anticipating increased 6.6L Duramax sales in medium duty commercial trucks?
This is a little off base or a lot off base. If you can do a 4 valve pushrod for a diesel what not a gasoline engines? Is the overhead cam better than pushrod if you can have four valves righter way?
I don’t know of any engine bridging valves and spinning high rpms. the bridge hardware is too heavy to rev.
So I gather from your statement the four valve with pushrods are ok with slow raving engines such as diesels but not gasoline Engines which are subject to much higher RPM.
Building a what ? The phuck sell off Lords, to a competitor ? Electric trucks no charger station off 98 % of interstate highways,
Ground up plant ? By the time it is tooled and in production, 5 years ? Or get rid of the Buick burden,
What are they thinking ?
Sorry, will GM ever be great again ?
Look at the used GM medium duty truck prices from those built up to 2010. They are very high. They used both the big block 8.1 liter gas engines and in some of the years, they used the inline Isuzu diesel. other years they used the Cat diesel. There is tremendous pressure on GM to start selling the new medium duty trucks in Canada. The only engine offered in those trucks is the 350 HP with 700 lbs feet of torque version and only with an automatic trans. Leasing companies know that if they buy the new Silverado medium duty trucks, that even 10 years from now they will still get top dollar for them. Same goes for rental companies, they will have a lower cost of operation, because the resale value will be very high after 2 or 3 years in a rental fleet. GM is also under pressure to offer a bigger tire model than the 6500HD, to be a 7500HD to directly compete with Ford’s F-650 and F-750 trucks rated up to the edge of the Class 8 trucks at 33,000 pounds GVWR. Pay attention folks, this new medium duty offers 4 wheel drive on all three models and also offers air ride suspension on all models. The motorhome industry loves these things with the air ride suspension. By the way the lowest rated Silverado medium duty 4500HD lists for just $48,000, so it costs less than many 3500 Silverado pickup trucks, but are more capable. GM does not build these new 4500HD, 5500HD and 6500HD mediums, they are built in the Navistar truck plant in Ohio. For Canada, only the Navistar version is offered for sale, sold under the International brand name. GM needs to offer both a GMC version and also sell them through the huge Chevy dealer network in Canada and probably Mexico too.
The factory rear air suspension option will be a big advantage in the ambulance market too. Currently, I see a lot of Ram 5500 ambulances in my location, and they have been retrofitted with Kelderman rear air suspension. Not cheap, bt a necessary upgrade in this vocation. Willing to wager a Silverado 5500 would spec. out cheaper than the Ram considering Chevy offers rear air ride as a factory option.
Very true about the resale value of 2003-2010 TopKicks and Kodiaks compared to competing makes.
MARK, like what you had to say,
Ohio It’s a empty lot ? Lots of time and effort to get to the production stage ???
Can’t understand all the ???
Must be a slow day in sales, dealership level,
Can’t sell a veh. Let’s bash people who like me that own….. multiple GM products in the real world.