Ambulance info request/ Taylor Made

[FYR Medic]

Our department is looking into purchasing an ALS ambulance from a company called Taylor Made. We will be placing the box on a medium duty chassis. We are located in Wisconsin and are especially interested in departments that are using this unit in snow and cold weather. Please reply with any experiences you have had with this style of ambulance. Thanks alot for the help! FYR medic

[MedicSprat]

I don't know if it's the same company, but there is an ambulance manufacturer somewhere in Arkansas that builds and sells alot of units in our area. In my opinion, most of the Taylor Made units I've been around have had faulty trim and bad wiring. Remember--this is just my opinion.

[Libra]

I´m in Mexico, and we receive a lot of used (very used) ambulances, and most of them have wiring problems, most of it in the ligths of the interior, on the other hand the construction are in very good shape and I could say this because most of our services are in rural area with very bad roads. I hope that this can help you with the choice

[ejeter]

The Memphis Fire Department has a fleet of 21 Taylor made ambulances on the International chassis and several smaller mods on Ford chassis. The following is only my openion, and not the opinion of the Memphis Fire Department and its staff. DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY! As the last post stated, the trim is very poor and they have lots of wiring problems. On wet roads we cant keep the internationals straight. If its the Taylor out of Newport, AR there operation is very shabby. Spend the extra money and go with someone else, and dont buy international. Go with Frightliner or GMC. The front ends on the International feel "loose", and the inside of the cab has a poor layout for ambulance use. Remember, its only my openion. Good luck.

[GunghoEMTP]

My personal opinion only! Taylor made ambulances are a good throw away ambulance, you spend your money use them a year and then throw them away and buy another. If you work for a busy EMS system you may not even get a year out of them. The service that I moonlight at that uses Taylor Made rigs only run about 2200 calls annualy. If you run more than that beware, they will be a rattle trap piece of crap. MY OPINION ONLY!!!

[Boothby]

I also work in Memphis and I can tell you from personal experience that Taylor Made ambulances are CRA*. The wiring on my ambulance was so bad that it cought fire on the side of the road. We had to get an engine company to come out at pull a booster to put it out. DON'T WAIST YOUR MONEY!!!!!! I can't stress this enough. Even the mechanics at our shop hate them. I have been in EMS for almost 14 years now and these are absolutly the WORST ambulances I have ever seen!!!! The wiring is horrible, the trim falls apart, the air conditioning doesn't work, and they spend most of their time in the shop. With the amount of money this department has spent on repairing these ambulances we could have bought the same number of Road Rescues or Wheeled Coaches 10 times over.

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Larry Boothby
Firefighter/Paramedic
Truck 3 A-shift
Local 1784
Memphis.

[britter]

WE have recently purhcased 3 taylor made ambulances and so far so good. We have had them in operation for about 9 mos and other than the usual variety of new apparatus problems we have not had any real complaints. Their attention to detail was not that good but over all the cost savings compared to their competitors was worth it. These ambulances average 5-10 calls a day amd we consider all ambulances as throw aways. WE went with a freightliner FL-60 and big generator powered module. E-mail me if you have any questions or would like photos.