Top gear U S A testing lorrys
Top gear USA is crap.
Trying to imitate the orriginal is not working out.
i saw that episode & while i agree for us brits it’s very tame by comparisson , the truck one was good it showed up just how crap even modern US trucks are, i mean c’mon take the latest offering they had from volvo ,still fitting non syncro boxes in this day & age 
MolePower:
i saw that episode & while i agree for us brits it’s very tame by comparisson , the truck one was good it showed up just how crap even modern US trucks are, i mean c’mon take the latest offering they had from volvo ,still fitting non syncro boxes in this day & age
True, the Roadranger gearbox has been around for about fifty years but let’s not rush into anything too hastily 
MolePower:
i saw that episode & while i agree for us brits it’s very tame by comparisson , the truck one was good it showed up just how crap even modern US trucks are, i mean c’mon take the latest offering they had from volvo ,still fitting non syncro boxes in this day & age
When Volvo North America first pitched up here they were offering the syncro box and it nearly bankrupted them,only when they started supplying the Eaton Fuller did sales take off.It’s a great transmission,who wouldn’t want to drive an 18 speed manual without have to use the clutch ?
watching it at the moment, tame, you kidding they let them drive them on the local interstate . watching them driving around the town realy ■■■■■■ them up though
flat to the mat:
MolePower:
i saw that episode & while i agree for us brits it’s very tame by comparisson , the truck one was good it showed up just how crap even modern US trucks are, i mean c’mon take the latest offering they had from volvo ,still fitting non syncro boxes in this day & ageWhen Volvo North America first pitched up here they were offering the syncro box and it nearly bankrupted them,only when they started supplying the Eaton Fuller did sales take off.It’s a great transmission,who wouldn’t want to drive an 18 speed manual without have to use the clutch ?
Probably the best transmission ever, but given the choice between the Eaton and the Volvo Ishift it would be the Ishift, just.
The Euro regs have forced the technology on European truck builders, North American trucks aren’t crap they don’t need to change why fix something that’s not broken.
Still I find it a bit overkill to have double drive units and big engines for just over 36 metric tonnes.
I’ve been driving in Canada/US for over three years now and apart from the living space in the trucks here, I think they’re absolutely crap. Crash boxes are alright when driving down the open road for hundreds of miles with no hold up, but the eastern seaboard of the US is every bit as congested as the UK and western Europe and the standard of car driving is far worse, that gear box is no good when you’re constantly being cut up by cars and have to emergancy brake to avoid the morons (with crappy drum breaks!). The truck I just took on this week is a 2008 Freightliner Cascadia which is fantastic inside, but it has rubbish drum brakes. More importantly its automatic. Its a crap and very primative automatic that goes through every gear, even when bobtailing, but I’m just so pleased to finally be shut of crash boxes after three years. If American trucks had proper modern auto-boxes or syncromesh gear boxes and came with disc brakes as standard they wouldn’t be half bad to drive in my opinion.
The Volvos here with I-shift are a great bit of kit I think. They ride wonderfully, the drive is effortless and they have a great turning lock so manouvering is much easier. For those reasons alone they are not popular with the dinosaurs that are American/Canadian truck drivers. Its quite sad that Canada and the US will bring the electronic log book in to law for apparent safety reasons (think digi tacho) yet they’re happy for sub-standard drum brakes to continue on forever, purely because fines for breaks being out of adjustment are so lucrative for them.
But then, this is only my opinion and I’m sure many of my fellow ex-pats will disgree and love their trucks.
Haha, funniest thing I’ve seen all day, can’t stop laughing @ silly y*nks… 
Cant see anything wrong with drum brakes or Roadranger gearboxes. We are in a hilly area in South Shropshire and I wish I could get rid of my 16 speed ZF and have a 13 speed Roadranger to save keep using the clutch.
They need to just scrap the whole progam for ever, no way do the idiots compare to Clarkson, May and Hammond, they have no sense of humour and the range of crap cars etc they have in the USA makes it a pointless series of programs.
Ford UK for instance alone has a far greater range and choice of cars than Ford USA, each car is mainly basic and 4 years behind the UK, you can’t get any other Focus here than just basic non sporty models, they have made the Fiesta look realy stupid by putting a boor on the back and you can’t but a 2 door version, they just this week launched the new Escape which is in fact the 3 year old Kuga model Next year they are launching the so called ‘Reveloutionary New Fusion’ which is a Ford Mondeo a,d then it’s gonna be a basic range again.
The best GM car here is decades was when they launched the Saturn Astra 2 door sprots model which was infact at very neat and sporty Vaxhaul Astra … then they scrapped the whole Saturn range and replaced the smaller cars with crap like the Aveo etc which are in fact Daewoo’s
Lets face it Americans can’t build vehicles… I was once listening to the head of vehicle design at Ford in Detroit she told the BBC she had a Mondeo because it’s the best car Ford make, when asked how she got a car not on the market in the USA she replied that she had to have it imported specially
There is no decent range of cars or trucks for any Top Gear team to test.
I prefer discs over drums these days really although I notice quite a few new supermarket trailers have gone back drums.
Top Gear USA has never really seemed too great to me the UK one’s getting pretty stale as well.
mike68:
flat to the mat:
MolePower:
i saw that episode & while i agree for us brits it’s very tame by comparisson , the truck one was good it showed up just how crap even modern US trucks are, i mean c’mon take the latest offering they had from volvo ,still fitting non syncro boxes in this day & ageWhen Volvo North America first pitched up here they were offering the syncro box and it nearly bankrupted them,only when they started supplying the Eaton Fuller did sales take off.It’s a great transmission,who wouldn’t want to drive an 18 speed manual without have to use the clutch ?
Probably the best transmission ever, but given the choice between the Eaton and the Volvo Ishift it would be the Ishift, just.
The Euro regs have forced the technology on European truck builders, North American trucks aren’t crap they don’t need to change why fix something that’s not broken.
Still I find it a bit overkill to have double drive units and big engines for just over 36 metric tonnes.
Id rather have a Fuller. Ive got an ishift in my FH n wished I had a manual. I wouldnt mind havein a go on a roadranger as Ive already done a bit of drivin on a 9spd fuller, a twin split tho. I might have to give it a miss 