Evening all,
I was thinking the other day, why do we tend to go for hi-ride units and trailers over here (unless intended for use overseas etc)? I appreciate that we have an extra metre to play with, but surely we’d have more to gain by going lower as well - an extra foot or so of height in the trailer, regardless of overall height.
Surely it would also help with fuel consumption, if we had eg a 4m overall height on lo-ride, rather than 4.3m on normal ride?
I suspect I’m missing something obvious, or we would be the same as the rest of the Continent…
Gary
Lower height t/units and trailers tend to use lower profile tyres, which tend to cost more. The height of the trailer floor also depends on the thickness of the neck web profile (depth of the chassis at the kingpin). Necks for trailers in this country tend to be a bit deeper as they need to support more weight at 44 tonnes rather than the more standard 40 tonnes in Europe. And of course as you pointed out we have no height limits in the uk. If we had to adopt the European 4m height limit everyone would have low height t/units and trailers.
The tyres get beasted the lower you go.
This is my pet hate with UK motors!!
If you dont go for lower profile tyres (All DHLs Volvos are running on 70s and not 80s now) get a lower height 5th wheel and no slider (i dont know anyone with a slider that has actually moved it, so save a few quid and dont spec it when you order a motor, or if you already have the motor, just take it off) willl help a lot, you dont really need a massive gap between the bottom of the front of trailer and your mudguards.
Scanias are the worse for this, especially when the middle axle is up. People bang on about fuel economy and saving money, well the above is a simple easy way of helping the motors m.p.g