Drove one of our new 460hp LNG trucks or the first time this week. A few of my colleagues had driven a previous gas truck & they were not impressed much at the old ones (Merc I believe) and were sceptical that the new ones (Volvo) would be as claimed.
volvotrucks.co.uk/en-gb/tru … h-lng.html
I have to say I found the Volvo good. There are 3 tanks & gauges - Gas, Derv & Adblu. The engine needs a bit longer cranking before firing up and the engine sound is, IMHO slightly different. Range wise I did just over 400ks and used just over 1/2 a tank of gas and 23 lts of Derv. The chassis is a bit longer & lift axle wheels are the smaller type with a reduced weight capacity though the drive axle has a higher weight capacity so the total is the same. The adblu tank sits behind a hatch in the drivers side wind deflector and about head height, could be awkward if filling from a bottle.
Both our gas & derv trucks are configured for economy with the power mode disabled so were sluggish on hills but comparable between fuels. The gas would go to 50mph before selecting top gear at about 1900-2000 rpm but with barely 3k on the clock I expect that to improve as things bed in & settle.
Any one else using gas trucks?
I do recall when they were coming out that people were claiming there were issues with them overheating and some drivers refusing to drive them for that reason.
But I’m not sure if that was just another bs rdc waiting room tale.
I’ve driven both. The original Mercs weren’t great, but the Volvo FLs at the time were worse and it was those that eventually gave the kiss of death to their use. The new Volvos have been designed to run on LNG, rather than just being adapted, and they are far better. They rev slightly lower in top and change down far more readily when needed - less use of Manual gear on hills. The range might become a bit of an issue. The first one I used said there was an LNG range of nearly 800k on start-up, this dropped to just over 400 k in a matter of miles and then varied wildly throughout the day, not very comforting. They have done Swindon-Heywood and back with a reefer, but I think drivers are wary of doing long runs with a decker yet, at least until they have sorted out the refuelling.
As you say, they sound awful at start-up until they’ve heated up but that only takes a few minutes of idling. The abdlu tank is definitely in a daft place, considering the amount of room to the rear of the diesel tank, and I can see those little doors not lasting long. I reckon they will have issues with the little mid-axle. The reasoning was that the original FLs barely had more than 3 tonne on them at any time so the little ones rating at 4.5 tonne means the front axle could be rated at 8, rather than 7.5. However they’ve found that loading becomes more of an issue when running fully laden, hence not using them for full loads of tiles.
Final little points are that despite the cost of the units they have ommitted some of the odd useful things - no auto headlights or wipers, no levelling button on the dash, back to standard headlights. But they are still nice units to drive.
tallyman:
The first one I used said there was an LNG range of nearly 800k on start-up, this dropped to just over 400 k in a matter of miles and then varied wildly throughout the day, not very comforting. They have done Swindon-Heywood and back with a reefer, but I think drivers are wary of doing long runs with a decker yet, at least until they have sorted out the refuelling.
Yes had that discussion before I left. took a decker into Greenwich & Peckham. The traffic was pretty much free flowing till you got past the South Circular so I’ve been fortunate in that regard. the extra chassis length made Peckham “interesting” getting turned round. 
DHL spent around £14M on them for their yard at Bawtry around 4yrs ago, this included installation of the LNG filling station. From day one not a day went by that a truck wasn’t back at the dealers, then a couple of years later one of the crucial parts manufacturers for the LNG system went out of business, thus rendering several trucks without spare parts, so they where slaved to provide parts for the remainder. As time went on they lost several contracts/customers, there where redundancies and downsizing of the fleet, shipping out half the trucks to other site, and so the mileage piled on (average 900k+) the engines became tired, and the LNG would shut down and the trucks would revert back to diesel as soon as they sensed any real load ie: dragging uphill. Which is ok except that these volvos only have a 150ltr diesel tank, so they spend more time running on diesel then gas. So as a driver your constantly thinking about where to refuel for diesel, especially as DHL only use BP cards. When I left the yard before Xmas, instead of replacing the trucks after 3-4 years they’ve extended the lease by 1 year+ So the fun continues, which is no surprise as last I’ve heard was that the yard was sold to a property Co, and is eventually closing/moving to a brand new depot/warehouse being built at Worksop opposite wilkos circa 2020.
Now as I’m doing a bit of limping for a famous orange diy chain, I’ve seen that they’ve setup a new distribution warehouse alongside the other at Swindon, and AFAIK they’ve got themselves 20+ new Volvo LNG trucks, and knowing what I know I just chuckled to myself when I saw them, and speaking to one of their drivers yesterday while I was at Ipswich, I was told that within the first week half of these new truck have broken down and are sitting at the dealers awaiting repair.
We had a fleet of Volvo fl 63 plate LNG/diesel trucks but they reached the end of their life late last year most with 900,000 plus but they’d come too unreliable at the end and there was often as much as 20% of the fleet in the dealer at any one time, with the 4 leggers range wasn’t a problem if the gas packed in as they had a large diesel tank anyway but if the gas on a 6 legger didn’t work then we were looking for a re-fill pretty quick as the diesel tank was the size of a hip flask !!
At the moment we have normal diesel powered FH’s as a stand in for a year whist we have 2 Fh LNG trucks on trial but it’s looking increasingly likely that at the end of this year we will buy a fleet of Volvo FH LNG trucks as apart with some fueling up problems they have been generally performing well.
We did have a Scania LNG truck on demo which was trouble free in all departments but apparently they only come in 4 legger form which ok for a lot of our work but we certainly need 6 leggers too for our deckers and the more heavier work we do.
peirre:
Now as I’m doing a bit of limping for a famous orange diy chain, I’ve seen that they’ve setup a new distribution warehouse alongside the other at Swindon, and AFAIK they’ve got themselves 20+ new Volvo LNG trucks, and knowing what I know I just chuckled to myself when I saw them, and speaking to one of their drivers yesterday while I was at Ipswich, I was told that within the first week half of these new truck have broken down and are sitting at the dealers awaiting repair.
To be fair, the breakdowns (there were around 5 I recall) were nothing to do with the units, it was down to not being refuelled correctly - due to having been stood for a while before putting on the road there was not as much gas as the gauges said. Once the refuelling system is running correctly there hopefully won’t be any more issues.
A proper gas truck will be spark ignition and won’t run on DERV while combined gas and diesel ain’t the same thing.Now awaits dave to moan at me and tell me I’m talking bollox. 
tallyman:
To be fair, the breakdowns (there were around 5 I recall) were nothing to do with the units, it was down to not being refuelled correctly - due to having been stood for a while before putting on the road there was not as much gas as the gauges said. Once the refuelling system is running correctly there hopefully won’t be any more issues.
When they where new we had to initially hook up a breather pipe until they settled down, the other option is to vent the tank. I actually did tell the Swindon guy that there can be false readings due to them being stood or when the weather is warm and the liquid vaporises and builds up the gas pressure, so to counter that you hook up the filler and vent the tank via the blow off pipe while it’s filling. This allows space for the fresh fuel.
Carryfast:
A proper gas truck will be spark ignition and won’t run on DERV while combined gas and diesel ain’t the same thing.Now awaits dave to moan at me and tell me I’m talking bollox.
It’s easy for me to agree with an on-topic post that’s a bit shorter than War and Peace and not filled with Carryfastist theories and irrelevant waffle. 
Thanks!!