Are new lorry models always superior to their predecessors?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
41

[zb]
anorak:

newmercman:
IMHO it’s all about the engine, Euro3 were the best engines made, EDC gave good mpg, power and reliability, anything after that was too complicated and often unreliable. A 164-480 or an FH12 460 were better than any of the castrated lorries that followed.

Lots of people moaned about EDC. I was told by a bloke who had one of the first 144-460s that it was not a patch on his 143-450s, at least in terms of performance. At the time, I remember reading that Euro 3 was the first round of emissions rules to actually hobble development, because it effected a reduction in combustion temperature, which stalled progress in fuel economy. I’m voting for Euro 2 as Peak Diesel. I reckon that, if they had left it at that, we would have far superior vehicles now. A few wisps of NO₂ never hurt anyone.

I think I agree about the Euro 2 my brother was Forman fitter at Morville Trucks a Scania dealer in Nottingham and he used to tell me about the reliability problems of of the 470 turbo compound engines
Just another note I’m sure Euro 3 finished off The Eaton twin splitter due to noise emissions I think an owner driver from Devon /Cornwall had the last lorry fitted with the twin splitter a Seddon Atkinson Stratocruiser with the big Iveco cab
Thanks Gary

42

It was a retrograde step when Foden decided to install the Fuller nine speed instead of the Foden 8/12 speed box in the two Gardner 201 engined Haulmaster powder tankers we had. They never performed quite as well, and the blower pto which was fastened to the rear of the Fuller was always falling apart!

Pete.

43

windrush:
It was a retrograde step when Foden decided to install the Fuller nine speed instead of the Foden 8/12 speed box in the two Gardner 201 engined Haulmaster powder tankers we had. They never performed quite as well, and the blower pto which was fastened to the rear of the Fuller was always falling apart!

The DOT RR 265 powered S85 gritters were converted retro fit from Foden 12 speed to Fuller 9 speed.
I think from memory top gear on the Foden box was higher than the overdrive 9 speed.Agreed it seemed a retrograde change to me.

44

Carryfast:

windrush:
It was a retrograde step when Foden decided to install the Fuller nine speed instead of the Foden 8/12 speed box in the two Gardner 201 engined Haulmaster powder tankers we had. They never performed quite as well, and the blower pto which was fastened to the rear of the Fuller was always falling apart!

The DOT RR 265 powered S85 gritters were converted retro fit from Foden 12 speed to Fuller 9 speed.
I think from memory top gear on the Foden box was higher than the overdrive 9 speed.Agreed it seemed a retrograde change to me.

We didn’t have any 265’s with the Foden box, we had two M reg 220’s with them and they kept shattering the gearbox casings. The problem with the 6LXC’s was that the Fuller didn’t have the same lower gear ratios or half gears as the Foden box and the change was slower of course, the Sed Ak 400’s had the same set-up but the Eaton axles were less of a drag than Fodens worm and wheel diffs so they performed better but knocked teeth off of the crownwheel! You can’t have everything! :laughing:

Pete.

45

ramone:
Looking back to the early "70s we saw big strides forward in lorry designs prompted by the European invasion. But moving on were the replacements better than their predecessors. The Seddon Atkis were better for the driver than the Atkis or Seddons (Dennis may disagree) The B series ERFs were an improvement over the A Series and so on . Moving further on i always thought Renault made a backward step with the Premium compared with the older Turboliner and i also thought the 112/113s had a better driving position to the newer 114/124s. Where did all the power go , i never thought the 2800s were spectacular but the 95 310s were dead . Same with the Mercedes 1729s . Any thoughts?

No

46

[zb]
anorak:

newmercman:
IMHO it’s all about the engine, Euro3 were the best engines made, EDC gave good mpg, power and reliability, anything after that was too complicated and often unreliable. A 164-480 or an FH12 460 were better than any of the castrated lorries that followed.

Lots of people moaned about EDC. I was told by a bloke who had one of the first 144-460s that it was not a patch on his 143-450s, at least in terms of performance. At the time, I remember reading that Euro 3 was the first round of emissions rules to actually hobble development, because it effected a reduction in combustion temperature, which stalled progress in fuel economy. I’m voting for Euro 2 as Peak Diesel. I reckon that, if they had left it at that, we would have far superior vehicles now. A few wisps of NO₂ never hurt anyone.

Euro2 was still mechanical fuel pumps, so you had less engine life as a result of fuel dilution in the oil, mpg was worse too and they had hard speed limiters, which cut fuel and took a while to kick back in rather than the soft limiters with EDC that stayed at the limited maximum until you hit a hill, as opposed to the hard limiter constantly bouncing between 56 and 52mph.

47

Suedehead:

ramone:
Looking back to the early "70s we saw big strides forward in lorry designs prompted by the European invasion. But moving on were the replacements better than their predecessors. The Seddon Atkis were better for the driver than the Atkis or Seddons (Dennis may disagree) The B series ERFs were an improvement over the A Series and so on . Moving further on i always thought Renault made a backward step with the Premium compared with the older Turboliner and i also thought the 112/113s had a better driving position to the newer 114/124s. Where did all the power go , i never thought the 2800s were spectacular but the 95 310s were dead . Same with the Mercedes 1729s . Any thoughts?

No

Ok

48

Whilst comfort sound insulation etc has usually improved with each new model, some makes have notably gone backwards, their newer offerings giving boneshaking rides where 20 and sometimes knocking on 40 years ago they were smooth riding on steel springs.

Inevitably there are a few lorries from your happiest lorrying days that stick in your mind and colour your appreciation of what follows, i enjoyed lots of different motors, from Buffalo, S80, Bseries, Crusader even a column shift 232MAN was a pleasure once you sussed the gears, moving further forward came more powerful wagons, DAF2800 a variety of ■■■■■■■ engined motors F90 MANs all good for the job i was doing at the time, day cab 3 series Scanias we used on the supermarket was probably the best and most reliable vehicle you could buy for that particular job having all round windows and the turning circle to rival a forklift, whilst in more specialised work (transporters) my favourite was an FL12 380 wagon and drag pulled like a train and it had the perfect car transporter body for multi drop work and the low FL cab just made it…also the last manual gearboxed car transporter i drove.

And that gents is where things changed forever, when the automated manual box became the standard, nothing has been the same regarding driving enjoyment since then, if you like actually driving lorries that is, most modern lorry drivers don’t, to them its just another job to be made as easy as possible, not dyed in the wool lorryists all too often they are on a second third or fourth career when the previous one died for many.

The gradual move to relatively smaller engines as weights have increased hasn’t helped because not only is it more awkward (assuming you even have a manual override option) to control gear changes at moving junctions etc but the obvious lack of low rev guts of these new engines, even though they boast high bhp figures they can be frustrating vehicles for those who still take a pride, making making good smooth flowing progress more difficult than ever…the new drivers don’t see it that way of course and many older hands have lost their lorryist mojo along the way, they just want an easy life with gearshifting and vehicle control done for them, newer lorries are starting to interfere with the steering and that luckily for me is where my time at the wheel will finish, by the time my current lorry is replaced i’ll be out of it.

Goodness sake we had standard 14 litre ■■■■■■■ for years running at 32 tons, coupled to a decent constant mesh box, 8 gears was more than enough for a proper engine it was only undersized (and imho often overrated) Swedish motors that needed 12+, those ■■■■■■■■ would accelerate superbly with the engine more than happy to pull high road speeds at no more than 1100 rpm given the right final drive spec.

I’m lucky in the respect i’m still driving, was given the chance to add some spec to suit my particulat job to my current vehicle before build, sadly a manual box was off the option list but i still have manual override and it doesn’t revert to eco every few minutes.
I have the rest of the electronic garbage same as everyone else, sadly that is here to stay with yet more to come, but whilst alleged drivers manage to ram each other up the arse due to tailgating and overturning the whole lot on perfectly straight roads we’re going to continue to get even more electronics and spyware.

49

Juddian:
Whilst comfort sound insulation etc has usually improved with each new model, some makes have notably gone backwards, their newer offerings giving boneshaking rides where 20 and sometimes knocking on 40 years ago they were smooth riding on steel springs.

Inevitably there are a few lorries from your happiest lorrying days that stick in your mind and colour your appreciation of what follows, i enjoyed lots of different motors, from Buffalo, S80, Bseries, Crusader even a column shift 232MAN was a pleasure once you sussed the gears, moving further forward came more powerful wagons, DAF2800 a variety of ■■■■■■■ engined motors F90 MANs all good for the job i was doing at the time, day cab 3 series Scanias we used on the supermarket was probably the best and most reliable vehicle you could buy for that particular job having all round windows and the turning circle to rival a forklift, whilst in more specialised work (transporters) my favourite was an FL12 380 wagon and drag pulled like a train and it had the perfect car transporter body for multi drop work and the low FL cab just made it…also the last manual gearboxed car transporter i drove.

And that gents is where things changed forever, when the automated manual box became the standard, nothing has been the same regarding driving enjoyment since then, if you like actually driving lorries that is, most modern lorry drivers don’t, to them its just another job to be made as easy as possible, not dyed in the wool lorryists all too often they are on a second third or fourth career when the previous one died for many.

The gradual move to relatively smaller engines as weights have increased hasn’t helped because not only is it more awkward (assuming you even have a manual override option) to control gear changes at moving junctions etc but the obvious lack of low rev guts of these new engines, even though they boast high bhp figures they can be frustrating vehicles for those who still take a pride, making making good smooth flowing progress more difficult than ever…the new drivers don’t see it that way of course and many older hands have lost their lorryist mojo along the way, they just want an easy life with gearshifting and vehicle control done for them, newer lorries are starting to interfere with the steering and that luckily for me is where my time at the wheel will finish, by the time my current lorry is replaced i’ll be out of it.

Goodness sake we had standard 14 litre ■■■■■■■ for years running at 32 tons, coupled to a decent constant mesh box, 8 gears was more than enough for a proper engine it was only undersized (and imho often overrated) Swedish motors that needed 12+, those ■■■■■■■■ would accelerate superbly with the engine more than happy to pull high road speeds at no more than 1100 rpm given the right final drive spec.

I’m lucky in the respect i’m still driving, was given the chance to add some spec to suit my particulat job to my current vehicle before build, sadly a manual box was off the option list but i still have manual override and it doesn’t revert to eco every few minutes.
I have the rest of the electronic garbage same as everyone else, sadly that is here to stay with yet more to come, but whilst alleged drivers manage to ram each other up the arse due to tailgating and overturning the whole lot on perfectly straight roads we’re going to continue to get even more electronics and spyware.

Well I can relate and agree with that even though I never drove some of the earlier vehicles mentioned

50

newmercman:

[zb]
anorak:

newmercman:
IMHO it’s all about the engine, Euro3 were the best engines made, EDC gave good mpg, power and reliability, anything after that was too complicated and often unreliable. A 164-480 or an FH12 460 were better than any of the castrated lorries that followed.

Lots of people moaned about EDC. I was told by a bloke who had one of the first 144-460s that it was not a patch on his 143-450s, at least in terms of performance. At the time, I remember reading that Euro 3 was the first round of emissions rules to actually hobble development, because it effected a reduction in combustion temperature, which stalled progress in fuel economy. I’m voting for Euro 2 as Peak Diesel. I reckon that, if they had left it at that, we would have far superior vehicles now. A few wisps of NO₂ never hurt anyone.

Euro2 was still mechanical fuel pumps, so you had less engine life as a result of fuel dilution in the oil, mpg was worse too and they had hard speed limiters, which cut fuel and took a while to kick back in rather than the soft limiters with EDC that stayed at the limited maximum until you hit a hill, as opposed to the hard limiter constantly bouncing between 56 and 52mph.

Food for thought here:
archive.commercialmotor.com/arti … ge-of-euro
Instead of the usual, “The new model is better on fuel”, it says “Euro 3 is worse, but you should get the losses back with the extra torque at low engine speeds”, or words to that effect.

What was the improvement in fuel pumps? Did the electrical bits somehow “get in the way” of leakage across the pump?

51

Early EDC did leave a lot to be desired, ■■■■■■■ mastered it first with Celect, then the others gradually caught up with Daf being the exception as they were still mechanical for Euro3. IMHO those 98-02 engines were the pinnacle, from then on all the engineering went on reducing emissions, they did increase efficiency, but only to compensate for the side effects of the ridiculous crap they needed to add to keep the tree huggers content.

52

newmercman:
Early EDC did leave a lot to be desired, ■■■■■■■ mastered it first with Celect, then the others gradually caught up with Daf being the exception as they were still mechanical for Euro3. IMHO those 98-02 engines were the pinnacle, from then on all the engineering went on reducing emissions, they did increase efficiency, but only to compensate for the side effects of the ridiculous crap they needed to add to keep the tree huggers content.

I was about to mention the DAF link NMM. I had the pleasure of driving two of those XF’s with Euro 3 engines, especially the last one was such a joy to drive, IMHO the 95XF was the best of them all, although I very much enjoyed it’s follow-up, the XF95, too. Did a trip in the 105 as well, but that was fitted with AS-tronic, not really a good combination to put it mildly.

53

Yes superior to who? Eg clydesdale tipper 10 tn load ——freighter 9 tn but driver comfort Much better not so good for company losing a ton every load. Same to be said for the Reiver 17tn payload , constructor 16 if lucky. Driver comfort 100% better , no smacking elbow.but imo more breakdowns that the driver couldn’t do get u home repairs

54

JIMBO47:
Yes superior to who? Eg clydesdale tipper 10 tn load ——freighter 9 tn but driver comfort Much better not so good for company losing a ton every load. Same to be said for the Reiver 17tn payload , constructor 16 if lucky. Driver comfort 100% better , no smacking elbow.but imo more breakdowns that the driver couldn’t do get u home repairs

I think NMM came up with the answer in that the emmissions and mpg have been the main excercise. You mention Clydesdale and Reivers where comfort was way down the list but on tipper work the payload was king so that is also relevant to what i’m getting at. Technology as come so far in commercial vehicle manufacturing but sometime imho they get it wrong . In a health and safety led world how can auto boxes be safer than a manual? Come to a busy roundabout in a Merc where you have to stop and if its on a slight incline god help you. There’s no control over the thing and they have a mind of their own , foot down nothing then a lurch forward . Not for me i also cant see how they are more fuel efficent than a manual, , half to three quarter throttle changing through the gears then no it needs more revs for the next one so out of the green and hope it goes up . I still believe they were broght in to attract more drivers

55

ramone:

JIMBO47:
Yes superior to who? Eg clydesdale tipper 10 tn load ——freighter 9 tn but driver comfort Much better not so good for company losing a ton every load. Same to be said for the Reiver 17tn payload , constructor 16 if lucky. Driver comfort 100% better , no smacking elbow.but imo more breakdowns that the driver couldn’t do get u home repairs

I think NMM came up with the answer in that the emmissions and mpg have been the main excercise. You mention Clydesdale and Reivers where comfort was way down the list but on tipper work the payload was king so that is also relevant to what i’m getting at. Technology as come so far in commercial vehicle manufacturing but sometime imho they get it wrong . In a health and safety led world how can auto boxes be safer than a manual? Come to a busy roundabout in a Merc where you have to stop and if its on a slight incline god help you. There’s no control over the thing and they have a mind of their own , foot down nothing then a lurch forward . Not for me i also cant see how they are more fuel efficent than a manual, , half to three quarter throttle changing through the gears then no it needs more revs for the next one so out of the green and hope it goes up . I still believe they were broght in to attract more drivers

Autos i believe were brought in to allow non lorry drivers into the game with an attempt to mitigate the damage such people can and do, ie without them wrecking clutches and gearboxes*, not to mention thrashing engines as they would a car whcih only goes to use more fuel for no advantage in progress, and to be fair they have been a success, they allow car drivers with HGV licences to get average fuel figures without wrecking the gearboxes clutches and engines.
Its annoying that those of us who didn’t need to be reduced to the level of steering wheel operative have had to accept this nannying, but we are where we are.

I know of one smallish operator who specifies his motors up and presents them really well, he asks his drivers due for a new motor what they want, if they want a manual they get one (even though that excludes the two Swedish makes), but you never see an unknown in those vehicles, he cherry picks his drivers.

** a mate told me of such a non driver (relation to boss) he was asked to show a regular job to one night, a night he’ll never forget, my mate did this run on a part time basis only, the new bod in question proving utterly clueless not knowing one end of a manual shift from the other, night after out on his own managing to not only wreck the clutch on the permanent rental but also the clutch on the one the renter sent out as a replacement, this probably the following night, whilst with him my mate had other drivers witnessing the performance in customers premises coming up to him and asking him to get that zb out of the driver’s seat and zb him off, quite apart from the hooter blasts whilst on the road.
Ended up the vehicle had to be abandoned at a customers, when it was recovered again it was found he’d turned the fridge off with the remaining undelivered product melted and leaking out the back of the trailer.

I’ve had similar, had a bod out for one day who terrified the bloody life out of me, hadn’t a clue how to drive a lorry, i refused to train him any further, glad i did because several weeks later and over £100k’s wiorth of damage later he was sacked.

These two examples alone are probably out there still, but with auto gearboxes so long as they can perform a decent walk around check and not actually smash the vehicle up on assessment, they are probably the standard being set wherever the are now working, their decent colleagues judged at their level of incompetence, and whilst this one size fits all method of management continues to reign we’ll lower the standards and scrape the barrell further still and fit ever more electronic ■■■■■■■■ to stop idiots like that doing what anyone with an ounce of common knows they will.

56

Juddian:

ramone:

JIMBO47:
Yes superior to who? Eg clydesdale tipper 10 tn load ——freighter 9 tn but driver comfort Much better not so good for company losing a ton every load. Same to be said for the Reiver 17tn payload , constructor 16 if lucky. Driver comfort 100% better , no smacking elbow.but imo more breakdowns that the driver couldn’t do get u home repairs

I think NMM came up with the answer in that the emmissions and mpg have been the main excercise. You mention Clydesdale and Reivers where comfort was way down the list but on tipper work the payload was king so that is also relevant to what i’m getting at. Technology as come so far in commercial vehicle manufacturing but sometime imho they get it wrong . In a health and safety led world how can auto boxes be safer than a manual? Come to a busy roundabout in a Merc where you have to stop and if its on a slight incline god help you. There’s no control over the thing and they have a mind of their own , foot down nothing then a lurch forward . Not for me i also cant see how they are more fuel efficent than a manual, , half to three quarter throttle changing through the gears then no it needs more revs for the next one so out of the green and hope it goes up . I still believe they were broght in to attract more drivers

Autos i believe were brought in to allow non lorry drivers into the game with an attempt to mitigate the damage such people can and do, ie without them wrecking clutches and gearboxes*, not to mention thrashing engines as they would a car whcih only goes to use more fuel for no advantage in progress, and to be fair they have been a success, they allow car drivers with HGV licences to get average fuel figures without wrecking the gearboxes clutches and engines.
Its annoying that those of us who didn’t need to be reduced to the level of steering wheel operative have had to accept this nannying, but we are where we are.

I know of one smallish operator who specifies his motors up and presents them really well, he asks his drivers due for a new motor what they want, if they want a manual they get one (even though that excludes the two Swedish makes), but you never see an unknown in those vehicles, he cherry picks his drivers.

** a mate told me of such a non driver (relation to boss) he was asked to show a regular job to one night, a night he’ll never forget, my mate did this run on a part time basis only, the new bod in question proving utterly clueless not knowing one end of a manual shift from the other, night after out on his own managing to not only wreck the clutch on the permanent rental but also the clutch on the one the renter sent out as a replacement, this probably the following night, whilst with him my mate had other drivers witnessing the performance in customers premises coming up to him and asking him to get that zb out of the driver’s seat and zb him off, quite apart from the hooter blasts whilst on the road.
Ended up the vehicle had to be abandoned at a customers, when it was recovered again it was found he’d turned the fridge off with the remaining undelivered product melted and leaking out the back of the trailer.

I’ve had similar, had a bod out for one day who terrified the bloody life out of me, hadn’t a clue how to drive a lorry, i refused to train him any further, glad i did because several weeks later and over £100k’s wiorth of damage later he was sacked.

These two examples alone are probably out there still, but with auto gearboxes so long as they can perform a decent walk around check and not actually smash the vehicle up on assessment, they are probably the standard being set wherever the are now working, their decent colleagues judged at their level of incompetence, and whilst this one size fits all method of management continues to reign we’ll lower the standards and scrape the barrell further still and fit ever more electronic ■■■■■■■■ to stop idiots like that doing what anyone with an ounce of common knows they will.

That’s depressing but sadly true of some drivers , on a slightly different note ive been watching the latest series of imho the excellent if a little staged Highway through hell now is it my immagination that nearly all the lorries stuck on the hills in snow are Volvos driven by foreigners

57

It’s the driver not the truck in those cases Ramone. There is a racket going on amongst that community where drivers are imported, I say drivers, they’re not though and that’s the problem, to make matters worse they run to ridiculously tight schedules which means they have to keep going when anyone with half a brain has pulled off the road. It has made that route and the single lane sections of the TransCanada Highway extremely dangerous roads, most of BC and all of Northern Ontario are single carriageway too, there are road closures on an almost daily basis caused by bad driving.

58

A recent one in Ontario, the one in the middle hit the B train with the timber on head on at the moment he had passed the white box van, who then smashed into the back of him, it’s a no overtaking zone, it was foggy and the two eastbound trucks were double manned. None of them walked away.

59

Juddian:
Autos i believe were brought in to allow non lorry drivers into the game with an attempt to mitigate the damage such people can and do

^ Also to an extent synchro boxes.So they can’t rev match their shifts so they just let the clutch in against an idling engine on downshifts.Result still a massive shock loading going through the whole driveline whereas a proper constant mesh gearbox would have washed them out before they’d got that far. :open_mouth:

In addition to the question if you can’t trust any driver to actually change their own gears properly how can you trust them with the rest of the job.

60

newmercman:
A recent one in Ontario, the one in the middle hit the B train with the timber on head on at the moment he had passed the white box van, who then smashed into the back of him, it’s a no overtaking zone, it was foggy and the two eastbound trucks were double manned. None of them walked away.

Weird road layout there.It looks like a shoulder either side which is wider than the running carriageway ?.
Also no solid dividing line to denote the no overtaking. :confused:
Everywhere seems to have this issue that you just can’t any longer trust anyone to stay on their own side of the line even when the road is clear.I can only remember that problem when driving in the old Yugoslavia.The Turks, among others, seeming to have had no driving licences or even basic training most of the time.Now it’s just the same here.It’s scary.