Trickydick:
Rob K:
The DAFs have to use the service brakes down hills to hold speed because the exhaust brake is about as effective as opening the door and sticking your foot on the ground to slow down. Even if you manually drop it from 12th into 2nd gear to send the revs off the end of the dial it just makes a lot of noise and not a lot else. Now if you tried that in the old mk1 FHs with the 3 stage exhaust brake you’d be picking up bits of your face from the windscreen.
The DAF eco thing picks you up for all sort of stupid reasons, eg. it’ll wreck your score and scream at you if you dare to tap the brake to cancel to CC as you’re about to slow down on a slip exit instead of manually cancelling it on the stalk. It comes up with “WARNING : ANTICIPATE BRAKING” or some BS like that and knocks your score down
. Also unless you pull away from junctions slower that a tortoise it’ll hold your score under 60% if you’re pulling any kind of weight. I think even if you accelerated so slowly that it took you an hour to reach 56mph from a standstill it’d still deem you to be driving uneconomically and mark you down.
In short it’s a load of BS and in real world tests a good experienced driver would easily beat the mpg of how the computer wants you to drive.
All exhaust brakes are crap including volvs, penny to apound the one you are talking about is in fact an engine brake, which is a totally different thing.
On my current DAF it has the DAF engine brake, better than just an exhaust brake, but nowhere near as good as the intarder on my previous truck.
Using the intarder at higher speeds, when it`s most effective, then using the exhauster in lower gears as the vehicle slows means that the service brakes stay cooler and have much less wear, than otherwise. Using the combination of different braking systems with the gearbox meant a fully freighted truck could be controlled on pretty hilly roads without “grilling the girling”.
Driving the A75 through the Massif Central was a pleasure with a properly equipped truck.