ROG:
‘…I was hoping the EU would opt for that when it was first brought in as it would be 100kph - a nice round figure…’
Agreed: And until then and after …stuff the Euro, obviously
jammymutt:
When I worked for B&Q at Grantham Wincanton took over the contract from TNT one of the first things they did was limit half the fleet to 52 and left the others at 56 there was absolutely no difference in fuel figures at all not even a smidgeon.
i have a truck that does barnsley to morpeth everyday i droped it to 52mph and save 100lts a week
i can do 55mph in mine but just chug along at 53:)… when doing 55 you spend all day in and out overtakin other etc and its more stressful… but sit at 53 and just sit there and listen to the radio and when you come across sainsburys on the m25 doing what must be 50 
or others doing 52 just put the foot down and get past em and back in lane one 
someone from our place overtook me on the m1 near northampton and when i got the yard he was still fueling up… so it dont get that much more distance in the long run…
Westy:
As more and more firms seem to set their limiters to 85 km/h (52 mph) in order to save fuel and environment. Are there downsides to this■■?.
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Will the next step be to drop to 50 mph or even lower to save fuel, environment etc.■■?
Here in Finland Shell demands their hauliers to set limiters to 80 km/h (approx. 50 mph). According to the drivers fuel consumption has stayed the same on the motorways but on other roads fuel consumption has raised as they can’t use the momentum like they could before. With the other roads I mean two lane roads with no central reservation and one lane for each direction, which is what the most of the Finnish road network is. So I based on this I can’t say that lowering limiter speed saves environment, but my own experiences are that dropping speed from 90 km/h to 80-85 km/h without touching the limiter gives you considerable drop in fuel consumption.
jase:
I’ve started to set my cruise control to 85kph and i was pleasently surprised how it did’nt really affect my journey times and how much more relaxed it is too drive.
After all i don’t have to take mile after mile to overtake people now as i don’t do the overtaking.
Just try it one day,you may be pleasently surprised.
Ayup,ive done that too,and must agree its a more relaxing drive 
did it for years and much less stress 
id fall asleep if i could only do 85 consistently, lucky in australia its 100 for trucks, and even when im sitting on 100 i still get bdoubles bagging me up
I know of one Company who run Merc Actrosses.
When they first came home they were set at 56, it was then reduced to 52, since the reduction, 1 actross is now on its 3rd engine, another is on its second, and drinking oil. The drivers reckon that Merc dealers have said to get them back up to 56 and there wont be a problem, but firm say no, they are saving fuel… (Whats a new engine cost then 
) Its something to do with the mapping of the engine…
Seems like a myth to me, but the trucks are not stressed at 44 ton all day, in fact I reckon they run full weight only 30% of the time, plus Mercs always were a good engine, gutless but good. So why the sudden engine failures??
Tell you one thing though, if some of you guys could do 70 yu would moan its too fast/slow, then moan more cos Stobarts and Paddys are overtaking you… 
The ones that are limited stupidly, apart from Frieghtliner (Leeds), is IMO Sainsbury’s. It seems that most of their trucks are now limited to 50mph, well the ones running out of Waltham Point are, and on the motorway that is just pure dangerous. I came up behind one the other day on the M25, which as per normal you can sit there for forever and a day with your right hand indicator going and no-one will let you out, and almost rear ended him because I was going 6 - 7 mph faster than he was.
So for anyone from Sainsbury’s traffic department happens to read this thread, if you lot want to stick to speed limits for dual carriageways then stick to dual carriageways not our motorway network.
at our place,i do have the slowest vehicle.out of the newer vehicles that came(about 25 in total)most were iveco/renault which read 85kph,but actually do 56,and we also aquired two dafs,i got one which reads 90 kph,but only does 52.
i know it is accurate because
a)the sat nav tells me so
b)everyone,and i mean everyone can pass me.
i have complained to the office no end of times,and they arent interested,so now when they ask the"are you there yet" questions i fire my slowest truck in the fleet rant at them.oh,and mine does less mpg than its counterparts.
If some engine failures and drinking oil etc can be attributed to running at 85kph etc,does this mean in countries like Germany where the speed limit is 80kph,their engines last even shorter than our’s??
Sorry can,t agree with that idea, as over people are not
complaing or shouting about such problems at all
There is a simple logic to fuel good consumption. Extra horses and extra speed mean a destressed engine that gets over a hill and onto cruise quickest, thus giving good fuel. Just look at your fuel consumption display when on a hill. It doesn’t matter if you’re driving an old fh12 380 or a brand new fh16 700, they will all do a max of 2mpg up hill freighted. The difference being that a bigger horsepowered truck will get you back upto cruise and a healthy 10 on the flat quicker. When a fully freighted 44toner is empty, in my case 18 ton, I can get 10mpg at 58mph, not doctored by me, that’s how ours come home, in my fh480. How many rigid drivers are getting that with a fully freighted 18toner with a 200 ish lump. More is less as far as fuel is concerned, and until the college bods that run the motors take advice from the people doing the job, they will keep paying big bills. We load heavy scrap boxes all day every day it seems at the mo. I was pulled in the office and remonstrated for only getting 7.8 to the gallon, as we need to be doing 8 min. I explained the nature of the work but was told I should still get better figures from the motor. They also told me to stop using the power button on my i shift, as it drinks fuel. For 2 weeks I didn’t use the p button and ran at 85kph. We run at 44ton 80% of the time. I was pulled in the other day and asked why my figures had dropped to 6.7 mpg. Enough said on the matter I think!
Thanks for the replies it appears im not the only one who has doubts about this limiter setting. I used to work for maritime (manchester) thats when I first experienced 52 mph setting. No longer work there. The company I now work for is geting 33 new volvo`s next month with 460bhp engines limited to 52mph!!!. Cant wait, not!!!.
Does seem odd - start with horse & cart then go mechanical to get quicker then start going back towards horse & cart speed - ok, that is a little over exaggerated unless you time a journey in central London 
OVLOV JAY:
There is a simple logic to fuel good consumption. Extra horses and extra speed mean a destressed engine that gets over a hill and onto cruise quickest, thus giving good fuel.
Agreed, but in reality it’s not just that simple that more horses give better fuel figures as when you have more horses it’s more to the driver if he can put that fuel saving potential into action.
When driving, for example same 380 hp and 44 ton vehicle on a same work different drivers are likely not to vary very much. When this motor is replaced with, lets say 500 hp version, other factors being same, another driver might get significant drop in his fuel figures and the other drivers fuel consumption might stay same or even jump noticeable. Reason behind this is that with 380 hp vehicle drivers had to get all out of the engine most of the time (making fuel figures quite the same) when on the other hand with 500 hp vehicle you have enough power to accelerate uphill after you speed has dropped earlier in the hill. When other driver uses this power to accelerate to whatever his march speed is, he is wasting fuel compared to the other driver who accelerates only after the hill. So with more horses you are able to do more useless acceleration compared to the less powerful unit, which in turn makes driver skills more important in saving fuel in high power vehicle than in low power vehicle.
This (skilled driver) gives company much more fuel saving than dropping limiter speed as skilled driver can get good fuel figures regardless of the limited speed whereas driver with heavy foot can get bad fuel figures regardless of the limited speed. So my choice of dropping fuel figures is enough horses (10 hp per tonne) and enough of training on economic driving for the every driver in the company, latter being more important.
Let us be positive here and look on the bright side. When they get down to max 25 mph you won’t need to use the tachograph, so hurry on the day.