merc0447:
Worst trucks in wind are 14ft-16ft standard curtains and small box vans, they are the ones you always see go over. Never seen a decker go over in my life. And only ever heard of one container go over in my life.
Thatâs me! Iâve had a couple of very hairy nights in winter doing runs upto Scotland on the M6 and M74, Iâve had the van down to 40mph many times going up that hill towards Shap after Tebay services. And had I felt brave and wanted to go any quicker the van wouldnât allow it anyway, I think the Sprinter 313 (box-type Lutons, not the smaller Sprinters) is quite under-powered, so Iâve been struggling at 40mph in 4th gear quite a few times in winter. Itâs not too bad when you have a full load on, but as someone who trunks them, Iâm often travelling one way with the van fully loaded but on the way back itâs completely empty, and that is when the fun starts.
Funniest thing was, our ex-transport manager (note the âexâ) was obsessed with fuel economy and MPGâs, and couldnât understand why in winter, when thereâs 70mph gusts and itâs freezing cold, the Sprinter will only do 22MPGâs, whereas on a fine, calm summerâs day it will happily do 30+MPGâs. He had me in a meeting once saying that such a drop in fuel economy was unacceptable, âif Eddie Stobartâs suffered a 50% increase in fuel costs on windy days then then would go out of business in winterâ was one of his more funnier rants. This a guy who did the job for about 10 years and I think actually went out driving twice in all that time. And that was only down to the local shops. Anyway, I digressâŚ
On that particularly notorious stretch of motorway around Shap I moved to overtake a wagon that was evidently struggling a bit, I was only doing about 50 but this poor guy was doing less than that, so I indicated to move into lane 2 to overtake and as I was about a vanâs length from his back doors a huge gust got hold of him and swung him out right across the carriageway in front of me and out into lane 3. Thankfully it was late at night and hardly anyone else was on the motorway but it really shook me up, had I been 15 ft further forward heâd have taken me out, no doubt about it. That night I rang the TM and told him I was heading south back down the A1 or was parking up for the night in a Travelodge at his expense, I ended up coming back to the A1, M1 then back over the M62 (which wasnât much better!), what is usually an 8 hour shift ended up taking 12 hrs.
The latest Sprinters have a âWind Assistâ function", where an onboard computer detects a sudden crosswind and activates the brakes on one side of the van to assist in preventing you going across the carriageway, a nice bit of kit but it isnât going to prevent the van from actually blowing over if the wind is strong enough.
mercedes-benz-intelligent-dr ⌠ind-assist
