"They're all the same truck with bad DNA. The risk to firefighters and the public is too great. Christchurch firefighters cite ongoing issues, build issues and the truck's quality of performance as reasons for pulling firefighters from their appliance."
The Auckland appliance's failures include water pumps that don't work, door latches falling off trapping firefighters and major engine trouble.
He says the faults were widespread across the fleet, introduced just last year, and were preventing firefighters from doing their job. So far there had been 215 complaints of gear failure.
New Zealand Fire Service Auckland regional manager Kerry Gregory earlier told the Herald the engines were not posing a dire threat but experiencing "teething problems". However, they were currently "moving to fix the issues".