We’re all having to go out with a driver mentor at some point (as it happens my turn was yesterday). This is cus they are wanting to better the km per litre figure, they say if our depot and the one down the A14 improve by a small amount it would save them 200k per year in diesel! As it happened, our mentor had done a 10 week average for all of us, and my average 3.45km per litre is better than the target. So, for the current average to be lower than the target, which I can’t remember off the top of my head, then some people must be really revving the ■■■■ off their trucks.
The only real thing he wanted me to do was to get the auto box to change up earlier 1 cog at a time by lifting the gas rather than keepin a steady foot and waiting for the box to go up maybe 2 gears. Apart from that, he said my idling time could be decreased. So I’ll try and improve, so I can keep ahead of the pack! Shame we are’nt being offered an incentive.
had an interesting conversation with my boss last year.
we started buying new trucks from “07"plates onwards,being a mixture of renaults,ivecos,and two dafs.
during a conversation,he commented on the fact that he wouldn"t be buying anymore dafs,cos the fuel consumption was lower than the other two makes.
i drive one of the dafs,and pointed out to him that it will never beat the others on mpg for one simple reason.
all of the trucks he bought were 420+ bhp,apart from the dafs,which are 380bhp.
he asked"does it make a difference like?”
im working with idiots!!!
We got assesments comming up too. we have them every year surprise the ones at the top are gen 3 of use on contract agency.
It’ll be interesting when we get the daf’s
i only use what i can no more and no less 
My daf was doing 65mph, i went on holiday and i got it back at 52mph, so i sent it in to get it set to 58mph,(i thought i meet the boss about half way ) there was no difference on fuel consumption.
If this country was flat then it would have made a difference. it’s all about momentum.
If they are that bothered, Why don’t they use hydrogen to make the diesel burn more efficient as 80% of your diesel vapourises without burning, even a couple of gallons of petrol in each tank of diesel would make a difference.
Or diesel tank heaters would make a more efficient truck, (warm fuel burns more efficient than cold fuel).
You could have two identical trucks and put a driver in truck (a) for a week and truck (b) the following week. doing say 7.5 mpg in truck (a) and 9 mpg in truck (b).
They will always look at the driver instead of the mirror for a person to blame.
limeyphil:
They will always look at the driver instead of the mirror for a person to blame.
not surprising that though is it really. You’ve only got to look at how many like to take it right round to the red line before shifting up, and those who are down a gear before you’ve even started to climb a hill. not to mention those whose foot is always either on the accelerator or the brake and make no use of the momentum when approaching roundabouts, junctions or whatever.
Several years ago on agency, I used to do a trunk run down to London along with one of the companies drivers. We both had the same wagon, same load, did the same route, set off at the same time and arrived within a couple of minutes of each other.
His average MPG was TWO MILES PER GALLON WORSE than mine. That’s a hell of a lot of diesel on a 400 mile round trip. He used to rag the nuts off the motor whereas I used the torque instead. He was up and down the gears like you wouldn’t believe. When they used to put up the fuel economy sheet every month, it was laughable - a 28 yr old “kid” beating the lot of them.
I’ve always put economy high on my priorities.
I did an economical driving course with Geopost when I worked from them a few years ago and only managed to improve by 0.1MPG so I guess I wasn’t doing too badly.
i was taught by an old irish fella his saying was the harder you drive em the better they preform,
V8 Passion:
i was taught by an old irish fella his saying was the harder you drive em the better they preform,
many years ago when working for Kammac, got a new motor and asked the guy in workshop how I should drive thi for th first few weeks, he replied to cane the nuts out of it, red line it in every gear you can for a few weeks and it will loosen up nicely he said
It did turn out to be a good motor, not sure if doing that made the difference though
V8 Passion:
i was taught by an old irish fella his saying was the harder you drive em the better they preform,
Nah, he was talking about his women.