Life Expectancy of Steel Coasters

How about the wood and steel hybrids?  You have woodies with steel superstructures and then there's woodies with the tubular steel track.  Are these configurations less maintenance intensive than a 'true' woodie?  Are they more expensive initially? 

The life expectancy of a coaster, as stated above depends on how much money a park is willing to invest in maintenance.  Just like a car, expensive parts will start to fail and need to be replaced.  Some parks will replace the parts, other will decide they don`t want to spend the money to keep the ride running so they`ll take it out.  Another reason why some coasters have shorter life expectancies is beacuase the company that made them is no longer in business so replacement parts are hard to come by and very expensive.  I believe that this is the case of King Cobra.  However, King Cobra had lon lines almost every time I visited PKI in 2001.
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I`ve ridden Son of Beast 67 times!

gravity rules:  Either combination is going to be less maintenance intensive that pure wood.  I really don't know how the costs compare, but you might be able to look up the prices of similarly sized CCIs with wood and steel frames.

The first B&Ms were not that of Iron Wolf. That was the first under that name, but the worked under Intamin. Look at SFAW's Batman, and SFGAm's Iron Wolf, also SFMM's Flashback. All B&M.

MFRULES. Regardless if Walter and Claude were a part of those rides, Iron Wolf is still their first coaster under their own corporation(The official B&M brand).
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Im going to grab a cold one! WHAT? Walk to my computer! WHAT? Turn the thing on! WHAT? Log on to Coasterbuzz! WHAT? I said log on to Coasterbuzz!! WHAT?WHAT?WHAT?

Ugh... Batman The Escape, Shockwave (Drayton), and Le Cobra or whatever that one at La Ronde is called, and Flashback/Z-Force are GIOVANOLA! Look at the Giovanola website, it shows a picture of Shockwave, and look at the track construction... That is also Giovanola. It's like Goliath's and Titans, with a rounded tie, unlike B&M's ties that have corners. Or maybe the tie shapes are vice versa, but either way, the Intamin standups and Space Diver are Giovanola. Look past the "track at a glance" and look at "the track upon closer inspection."

Until someone comes forward with hard evidence that any of these 4 rides are B&M-related, I will refuse to belive it, and preach my theory that it's all Giovanola.
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I still have no signature.

*** This post was edited by TrBiggar on 2/23/2002. ***

I don't understand why we can't take the manufacturers as given.  Its common knowledge that Claude and Walter worked for Intiman for a while, but if its an intiman ride, its an intamin ride.  Same with Gio or whatever...and also, all of the garbage about B&M designing DF. 
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If the shoe fits, find another one.