I just did my first day’s class 1 work for about three months, and it was a DAF XF. Nice, I thought; I’m familiar with DAFs since I’ve been driving them since my 7.5-tonne days. The job was going from west London up to Leicester, fill up with Walker’s crisps and drop them in west London, then back to the depot.
Only, when I hit the motorway and I started noticing that I was a bit cold, and searched for the heating controls … they were nowhere you could call obvious. Then I looked down at my feet and there they were, hidden below just about everything else. Same controls as on the LF which means there was nothing new to learn, but still, couldn’t they have put them somewhere I can see at a glance, so I don’t have to keep taking my eyes off the road to look for them?
I looked at pictures of rivals’ interiors and they all seem to have most of the controls, including the hazards (which are on the central panel on the XF105, not facing the driver) and the ventilation/heat controls on a concave panel so it all faces the driver. DAF seem to be more concerned about modularity, so it’s easier for them to reuse parts for left- and right-hand-drive trucks. The 106 has improved slightly, but the heat controls still look like they’re well out of where the driver would easily see them.
I’ve read reviews of the XF that say that surely it’s about time DAF come up with an alternative to the XF cab which dates right back to the Cabtec days in the early 90s (or perhaps earlier?), and surely they’re right - what an ugly thing it is, looking like lots of little panels bolted together and hardly any curves. But the interior design really needs an overhaul as well.
at least they put them on the dash on the new ones! Notice they still have e haust system warnings about ad blue though!!