I’ve just bought Truckings’ Truck test yearbook, and scanning through it wonder why all the reviews appear either luvvy duvvy towards the vehicle or rather wishy washy. I’ve read the review of the MAN 35-400 8wheeler and they portray it to be something wonderful; Granted they used a demonstrator which wouldn’tve had a hard days work in it’s life, but there’s no hint of criticism. No mention of the asthmatic gearbox and engine, obese tare weight or overhead compartments designed to carpet-bomb you with junk when you hit a pothole.
Do truck mags pander to the manufacturers so’s not to get blacklisted from media events?
Magazines make most of there money from advertising revenue and it’s a struggling market.
You say truck x is a pile of crap suddenly 20% of your advertising revenue is gone
I quite agree," if it was this it could have been that" lol
if my aunt was called bob she would have been my uncle lol
Moose:
I quite agree," if it was this it could have been that" lol
if my aunt was called bob she would have been my uncle lol
You’ve just reminded me of a tipper test about a Cornish firm; They put one of their new FMXs against one of their Daf CFs and half the review was a history lesson of Leyland built light tipper chassis. The rest was in the style you quoted “the Daf would get our vote if it had this…the FMX might get our vote if this and that were addressed…”
Sowhich one is superior then■■?
As above…
The magazines are in the pocket of the manufacturers and daren’t criticise because of the loss of advertising revenue. The ‘tests’ are just glorified adverts for the manufacturer written by a sycophantic magazine ‘journalist’.
Don’t waste your money on them.
I can tell you now about every truck on the market. They are all Ok in the sense they will get the job done. All have at least one big fault (sometimes more), and all have several small faults or irritations.
I’d save my money for a beer at the end of the week instead if I were you. 
The problem with our trade press is they are ‘gutless’ pandering as stated to the manufacturers because of advertising revenue but the alternative I have always considered was to
have the manufacturers living in fear as to what might be revealed that they were obliged to pay for advertising anyway. And the financial advantage is that we, who don’t buy mags.
often would actually buy the mags. to see who is being hammered this week/month. Our trade press in my opinion do fail our industry and sales are dire because of it.
I think GasGas and Newmercman would have an interesting take on this.
Surely a mag can risk upsetting Hino? 
Yea! but who owns Hino? they might spend a lot money advertising in the magazines sister titles about cars,btw after nearly 6years with a Hino its proved to be a reliable cost effective motor to own 
splitshift:
Yea! but who owns Hino? they might spend a lot money advertising in the magazines sister titles about cars,btw after nearly 6years with a Hino its proved to be a reliable cost effective motor to own
Are they still selling new 700 series? I’ve never seen one newer than about an 09 reg.
Yes ive seen up to at least 61 plate dont know if they have a model for euro 6
Muckaway:
I think GasGas and Newmercman would have an interesting take on this.
Surely a mag can risk upsetting Hino?
I can’t comment on what goes on at Trucking now, because I no longer have anything to do with it.
But when I was editor a couple of manufacturers did take exception to what was said in ‘Truck on Trial’: one of the trials was written by Tim Blakemore and the other by Bob Beech.
On each occasion I had to field a cross phone call from the manufacturer’s PR department, and advertising was cancelled for a while.
Interestingly, what they took exception to was criticism of after-sales service rather than the actual product: but we were reporting the operator/driver’s experience with a particular truck and a particular dealer.
But my publisher didn’t get upset when advertising was cancelled. To be honest, I ran the magazine on the basis that there were 7 manufacturers who were likely to advertise with us (Foden and ERF never did, and they went out of business anyway), so if you upset one or two there were still five or six to sell to. Manufacturers in any case only spent serious money when they launched a new product, which was about once every five years.
Over the years, we probably gave Scania more positive coverage than any other make (magazines sell better when there’s a Scania on the cover), but Scania didn’t advertise much with us because they thought they were preaching to the converted, so giving a particular maker positive coverage doesn’t mean getting included on an advertising schedule in return.
The situation might be different now. Volvo has spent a fortune on making youtube films of its new trucks, and very little on advertising. Still if you want to know if you can hang your truck from the front tow pin, steer it with a hamster and a piece of carrot, or drive it alongside another tuck while someone does the splits between the two or crosses from one to another on a tightrope you know your buying decision will be well-informed.
Not everyone shares Muckawy’s low opinion of MAN. Keyway in Gloucester replaced Scanias with MAN, and the boss man there is not particularly easy to please. Last time I spoke to him, he was full of praise for them…things may have changed since then mind.
A guy I know has one about 6 months old,the local main dealer had a roll-on-off & a tipper in stock ready to go last time I was there,but sales of new Hinos seem to have dropped off over the last few years,the boom time for them was when the London LEZ came in,they had done their homework and had plenty of stock ready to roll!, plus the main dealer was ex Foden so the sales team knew all the right people who would buy!
They realy took of from when foden finished up to around 08 then a lot of firms stopped buying with the recession.
When firms started buying again aroung 2011 they seemed not to go back. Renault seemed popular round our way then must of been offering good deals.
Last year or 18 months scania seem to have shifted a lot of tippers round our way.
kr79:
Yes ive seen up to at least 61 plate dont know if they have a model for euro 6
No euro 6 Hino yet that I know of…but I think they may still have a number of pre-registered and bodied E5s if you want one.
The E5 Hino uses EGR and a particulate filter, so it would be possible to fit a ‘bolt-on’ SCR system from ■■■■■■■ plus a new ECU and you could get to Euro 6.
I stopped believing what was written in those road tests when I kept on reading about how good DAFs are. :D:D
Have been told there are or were good deals to done on Renaults the image improved due to the Volvo content,plus lots of people are buying ahead of Euro 6,did Renault want to shift a few to make way for the new model? a mate has had one for nearly a year now,says its a nice drive,the cab seems a bit pokey to me though
damoq:
I stopped believing what was written in those road tests when I kept on reading about how good DAFs are.
yet figures don’t lie
Registrations of new commercial vehicles in the United Kingdom …look who is number 1
Marque Nov-13 % Nov-13 % % Change YTD-13 % YTD-12 % % Change
DAF TRUCKS 1,072 22.11 782 22.53 37.08 10,553 27.26 10,469 29.58 0.80
MERCEDES 1,112 22.94 633 18.24 75.67 6,826 17.63 5,757 16.27 18.57
SCANIA 717 14.79 500 14.41 43.40 5,432 14.03 4,209 11.89 29.06
VOLVO TRUCKS 618 12.75 479 13.80 29.02 4,397 11.36 3,614 10.21 21.67
MAN 433 8.93 413 11.90 4.84 3,877 10.01 3,961 11.19 -2.12
IVECO 357 7.36 216 6.22 65.28 3,019 7.80 2,696 7.62 11.98
RENAULT TRUCKS 298 6.15 241 6.94 23.65 2,091 5.40 2,397 6.77 -12.77
ISUZU TRUCKS 70 1.44 81 2.33 -13.58 822 2.12 803 2.27 2.37
DENNIS EAGLE 88 1.82 63 1.82 39.68 776 2.00 683 1.93 13.62
MITSUBISHI FUSO 78 1.61 47 1.35 65.96 680 1.76 590 1.67 15.25
HINO 4 0.08 15 0.43 -73.33 158 0.41 191 0.54 -17.28
OTHER IMPORTS 1 0.02 1 0.03 0.00 84 0.22 23 0.06 265.22
BMC 0 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 1 0.00 -100.00
Total heavy CV 4,848 100.00 3,471 100.00 39.67 38,715 100.00 35,394 100.00 9.38
Taxis
Marque Nov-13 % Nov-13 % % Change YTD-13 % YTD-12 % % Change
LONDON TAXI CO 107 78.68 9 14.06 1088.89 724 56.25 997 65.04 -27.38
MERCEDES 29 21.32 55 85.94 -47.27 563 43.75 536 34.96 5.04
Total taxis 136 100.00 64 100.00 112.50 1,287 100.00 1,533 100.00 -16.05
norb:
damoq:
I stopped believing what was written in those road tests when I kept on reading about how good DAFs are.yet figures don’t lie
Registrations of new commercial vehicles in the United Kingdom …look who is number 1
Marque Nov-13 % Nov-13 % % Change YTD-13 % YTD-12 % % Change
DAF TRUCKS 1,072 22.11 782 22.53 37.08 10,553 27.26 10,469 29.58 0.80
MERCEDES 1,112 22.94 633 18.24 75.67 6,826 17.63 5,757 16.27 18.57
SCANIA 717 14.79 500 14.41 43.40 5,432 14.03 4,209 11.89 29.06
VOLVO TRUCKS 618 12.75 479 13.80 29.02 4,397 11.36 3,614 10.21 21.67
MAN 433 8.93 413 11.90 4.84 3,877 10.01 3,961 11.19 -2.12
IVECO 357 7.36 216 6.22 65.28 3,019 7.80 2,696 7.62 11.98
RENAULT TRUCKS 298 6.15 241 6.94 23.65 2,091 5.40 2,397 6.77 -12.77
ISUZU TRUCKS 70 1.44 81 2.33 -13.58 822 2.12 803 2.27 2.37
DENNIS EAGLE 88 1.82 63 1.82 39.68 776 2.00 683 1.93 13.62
MITSUBISHI FUSO 78 1.61 47 1.35 65.96 680 1.76 590 1.67 15.25
HINO 4 0.08 15 0.43 -73.33 158 0.41 191 0.54 -17.28
OTHER IMPORTS 1 0.02 1 0.03 0.00 84 0.22 23 0.06 265.22
BMC 0 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 1 0.00 -100.00
Total heavy CV 4,848 100.00 3,471 100.00 39.67 38,715 100.00 35,394 100.00 9.38
Taxis
Marque Nov-13 % Nov-13 % % Change YTD-13 % YTD-12 % % Change
LONDON TAXI CO 107 78.68 9 14.06 1088.89 724 56.25 997 65.04 -27.38
MERCEDES 29 21.32 55 85.94 -47.27 563 43.75 536 34.96 5.04
Total taxis 136 100.00 64 100.00 112.50 1,287 100.00 1,533 100.00 -16.05
Not interested in all those numbers norb. They are only number 1 cos they are gaffers wagons. As a driver, I’m more than happy with my premium. 11plate with almost 606k and still drives like new. In that time its only lost a fan belt and an exhaust flexi pipe. Like to see a CF manage that.
PS. How come every time I slag a DAF, you pop up?
PPS. Our new DAFs still haven’t arrived yet. But I’m not bothered cos my Renault is staying for another year yet. :lol::lol:
Wonder how daf will fare with the new privitised post office. Im sure in the past there was pressure on them to buy british built which all RHD dafs are but i guess that wont realy apply no more.
The post office must be one of or if not biggest fleets in the country when you include all the7.5 tonners they run.
From what I see the PO has been renewing its fleet, every where I see new trucks being delivered on trade plates in convoy and I see a lot of new trucks in service.
Dont know how often they renew though.