Drive in or out of our yard with an empty trailer/unit only and the midlift down and expect a sharp rebuke from the boss for wasting his tyres.
Sidevalve:
Drive in or out of our yard with an empty trailer/unit only and the midlift down and expect a sharp rebuke from the boss for wasting his tyres.
These bods who know little and care far less would find themselves out of favour and/or a job if they were seen by the people who actually pay the bills, my old boss would give Usain Bolt a run for his money across the yard to stop an unecessary tyre shredding U turn.
Dafproblems:
It’s a wonder people give a toss about this stuff in 2022 you must be in a old heap. The computer puts it up and down for you in all trucks I’ve driven for the last 15-20 year or so. As above the only time you need to concern yourself about lift axles is a tag and empty decker combined. As for reversing it’s all the same pish 6 legger or 4, just get it on the bay and stop overthinking things.
You’ve not been near an MAN or a DAF in 10-15yrs then cos neither of those have a computer that raises the midlift[emoji848][emoji848]
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Sidevalve:
Drive in or out of our yard with an empty trailer/unit only and the midlift down and expect a sharp rebuke from the boss for wasting his tyres.
^^^this definitely [emoji16][emoji16]
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Juddian:
Sidevalve:
Drive in or out of our yard with an empty trailer/unit only and the midlift down and expect a sharp rebuke from the boss for wasting his tyres.These bods who know little and care far less would find themselves out of favour and/or a job if they were seen by the people who actually pay the bills, my old boss would give Usain Bolt a run for his money across the yard to stop an unecessary tyre shredding U turn.
polytrotter:
Dafproblems:
It’s a wonder people give a toss about this stuff in 2022 you must be in a old heap. The computer puts it up and down for you in all trucks I’ve driven for the last 15-20 year or so. As above the only time you need to concern yourself about lift axles is a tag and empty decker combined. As for reversing it’s all the same pish 6 legger or 4, just get it on the bay and stop overthinking things.You’ve not been near an MAN or a DAF in 10-15yrs then cos neither of those have a computer that raises the midlift[emoji848][emoji848]
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And both of them are well designed in this respect, fully raising the mid lift axle after a few seconds…even if it does take you a minute or two to find the appropriate switch on a CF if you don’t use one regularly 
Just a couple of thoughts regarding trailers with lift axles, there’s no one size fits all answer to whether its easier or better to have the lifting axle down, it changes the pivot point whether the axle is a front or rear lifter which again will change depending on terrain as one axle loses grip over loose ground, a front lifter makes a noticeable difference to the weight imposed on the drive axle so helps handling and grip in poor weather, obviously with few exceptions this doesn’t help when loaded because most trailer lifters are automatic.
That one Beefy drove above in the pic can well understand why so many drivers couldn’t get on with it, rear steer that locks straight when in reverse would change everything let alone chucking a front lifter into the mix, could imagine it not being that difficult to maneuver yourself into a situation very hard to recover from say if up against a side loading bank.
Not a fan of rear lifter/steering axles to be honest, except on purpose built urban trailers, i like front lifters a lot and easy enough to drop the axle when empty if it helps on a tight reverse by just switching off the engine and restarting.
Juddian:
Just a couple of thoughts regarding trailers with lift axles, there’s no one size fits all answer to whether its easier or better to have the lifting axle down, it changes the pivot point whether the axle is a front or rear lifter which again will change depending on terrain as one axle loses grip over loose ground, a front lifter makes a noticeable difference to the weight imposed on the drive axle so helps handling and grip in poor weather, obviously with few exceptions this doesn’t help when loaded because most trailer lifters are automatic.That one Beefy drove above in the pic can well understand why so many drivers couldn’t get on with it, rear steer that locks straight when in reverse would change everything let alone chucking a front lifter into the mix, could imagine it not being that difficult to maneuver yourself into a situation very hard to recover from say if up against a side loading bank.
Not a fan of rear lifter/steering axles to be honest, except on purpose built urban trailers, i like front lifters a lot and easy enough to drop the axle when empty if it helps on a tight reverse by just switching off the engine and restarting.
It wasn’t that hard -
if you could reverse it in you could drive it out . The problems started when they drove in to a tight building site and unloaded , the front axle came up and when they tried to reverse they quickly found out it wouldn’t go back round the corners , luckily there were 2 lashing points at the rear that a telehandler could get chained up to and "help " it around the corners .lol
Confusing topic, if it is the trailer or the unit he’s talking about, the trailer drops automatically and you have no control, the unit you have full control, so if it’s the unit it’s up when reversing full and empty, if it’s the trailer wheels then you have no control
Truckulent:
switchlogic:
Kenny_C:
But another driver said he always puts it down even if the trailer is empty. He says it’s easier to reverse with 3 axles.He’s a fool
This ^^^^
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I would argue that it is easier to reverse a tri axle TRAILER…
(and hardest to revese a single-axled “Stumpy” trailer, like for delivering to small urban stores…
I don’t call this an “Urban Trailer” since they have rear-wheel steering, which “Stumpy” trailers don’t have.
Otherwise, I’ll have the middle tractor axle up as often as possible, as the traction is better.
One bit of “Grey Area” though is “Wot do you do when pulling an empty Double Decker Trailer”?
For myself, I’ll keep the third axle down, unless the road surface is wet enough to lose traction anyways…
The extra weight of a DD trailer otherwise, even when empty - should be enough to give good traction even with the third axle down…
polytrotter:
Dafproblems:
It’s a wonder people give a toss about this stuff in 2022 you must be in a old heap. The computer puts it up and down for you in all trucks I’ve driven for the last 15-20 year or so. As above the only time you need to concern yourself about lift axles is a tag and empty decker combined. As for reversing it’s all the same pish 6 legger or 4, just get it on the bay and stop overthinking things.You’ve not been near an MAN or a DAF in 10-15yrs then cos neither of those have a computer that raises the midlift[emoji848][emoji848]
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I drive a Daf cf 5 nights a week, when a 28-29 ton box goes on the midlift drops and when said box gets lifted off the midlift raises by itself. Here’s me thinking it was a little computer, it must be magic then
Ive been told by several drivers to rause the midlift to make it easier to reverse.Given that the unit still follows the same path,I never understood why they told me this.
Sploom:
Ive been told by several drivers to raise the midlift to make it easier to reverse.Given that the unit still follows the same path,I never understood why they told me this.
- most mid lifts are fixed axles (non steering) so on a turn that’s one less axle to have to drag around against its nature, which eases the strain on the entire vehicle, two or more fixed axle like this only want to go in a straight line, by lifting the mid lift you’ve removed that feature completely.
- lifting (or transferring the weight from) a mid lift increases the drive axle load by several tons, obviously aiding grip, some weight will also bbe transferred to the steer axle, depending on where the fifth wheel sits, think 30%ish of the mid lift weight going to the steer axle the rest to the drive.
- watch heavily loaded Dafs, especially those fitted with small mid lift wheels, on tight maneuvers the mid lift tyres and they are particularly small on Dafs are put through hell, plus the wheels themselves go to all sorts of angles seeing the forces the mid lift axle and suspension is being put through, you watch the most experienced drivers of heavily loaded vehicles (who care a ■■■■), the minute they leave the road and get into yards the mid lift weight gets transferred.
beefy4605:
You want to try this for a bit of fun . That trailer has an auto lifting front axle and a steer axle on the back . It only steers going forwards and locks up straight when you hit reverse. It confused so many of our lot we ended up having to sell it as some “drivers” couldn’t get their heads round why it would go in to places but it wouldn’t reverse out again lol. All they had to do was pull the fog line out and it wouldn’t lock up or pull the button on the side to lock the steer axle but it confused to many of them .
Front lift axle
Rear steer
post and pins
sliding roof
mounty brackets
I’m sure it would confuse them if nobody had told them about it.
Surely some training would be involved?