My fleet fuel figures for January 2012 show that the two ■■■■■■■ powered 44-tonne artics I run (420bhp) returned 6.60 mpg and 6.68 mpg. The four DAF 85 CFs 44-tonners (admittedly newer vehicles) averaged 8.39 mpg. These are all true dispensed figures against mileage covered, not computer readouts which bear little reality to actuals. No further comments needed except that I have an ERF and a Foden for sale if anyone is interested. 
gingerfold:
My fleet fuel figures for January 2012 show that the two ■■■■■■■ powered 44-tonne artics I run (420bhp) returned 6.60 mpg and 6.68 mpg. The four DAF 85 CFs 44-tonners (admittedly newer vehicles) averaged 8.39 mpg. These are all true dispensed figures against mileage covered, not computer readouts which bear little reality to actuals. No further comments needed except that I have an ERF and a Foden for sale if anyone is interested.
That’s probably why Mercedes intends to use the new Detroit engines to get the best efficiency not Mercedes or ■■■■■■■ ones. 
Carryfast:
gingerfold:
My fleet fuel figures for January 2012 show that the two ■■■■■■■ powered 44-tonne artics I run (420bhp) returned 6.60 mpg and 6.68 mpg. The four DAF 85 CFs 44-tonners (admittedly newer vehicles) averaged 8.39 mpg. These are all true dispensed figures against mileage covered, not computer readouts which bear little reality to actuals. No further comments needed except that I have an ERF and a Foden for sale if anyone is interested.That’s probably why Mercedes intends to use the new Detroit engines to get the best efficiency not Mercedes or ■■■■■■■ ones.
More likely that is because Daimler aka Mercedes Benz Stuttgart own Detroit Diesel, Western Star, & Freightliner
Carryfast:
gingerfold:
My fleet fuel figures for January 2012 show that the two ■■■■■■■ powered 44-tonne artics I run (420bhp) returned 6.60 mpg and 6.68 mpg. The four DAF 85 CFs 44-tonners (admittedly newer vehicles) averaged 8.39 mpg. These are all true dispensed figures against mileage covered, not computer readouts which bear little reality to actuals. No further comments needed except that I have an ERF and a Foden for sale if anyone is interested.That’s probably why Mercedes intends to use the new Detroit engines to get the best efficiency not Mercedes or ■■■■■■■ ones.
I’d be interested to learn what the Detroit achieves. I had an Actros on a month’s trial and its fuel figure was on a par with the DAFs and was nowhere near in reality what the computer claimed it was achieving. Like many operators in hire and reward transport I do have a completely open mind as to what trucks to run, but at the moment it comes down to fuel consumption and I don’t really care where an engine is made if it is frugal on fuel.
gingerfold:
Carryfast:
gingerfold:
My fleet fuel figures for January 2012 show that the two ■■■■■■■ powered 44-tonne artics I run (420bhp) returned 6.60 mpg and 6.68 mpg. The four DAF 85 CFs 44-tonners (admittedly newer vehicles) averaged 8.39 mpg. These are all true dispensed figures against mileage covered, not computer readouts which bear little reality to actuals. No further comments needed except that I have an ERF and a Foden for sale if anyone is interested.That’s probably why Mercedes intends to use the new Detroit engines to get the best efficiency not Mercedes or ■■■■■■■ ones.
I’d be interested to learn what the Detroit achieves. I had an Actros on a month’s trial and its fuel figure was on a par with the DAFs and was nowhere near in reality what the computer claimed it was achieving. Like many operators in hire and reward transport I do have a completely open mind as to what trucks to run, but at the moment it comes down to fuel consumption and I don’t really care where an engine is made if it is frugal on fuel.
The idea of commercial vehicle engine development is all about reliability and productivety.
There was the Gardner way which prioritised fuel consumption at the expense of output so it wasn’t productive and got knocked out early in the game.
There was the early Mercedes way which prioritised reliability at the expense of fuel consumption and output so that wasn’t productive either and got knocked out of the game a bit later.
Then there was the Detroit way which has,so far,managed to balance all of those criterea to a lesser or greater degree.Which is why it’s still in the game just like most of the American type trucks it’s engine’s have been used in over the years.Which is obviously why Mercedes has decided to use the money it’s been earning in it’s protected European market (European Type Approval) to invest in American truck and engine manufacturers and has also decided to use American engine technology to remain competitive in Europe. 
Having said that it’s no surprise,to me,that the main competition in that regard is European and it’s DAF.Who’s products,in and ideal world,would be Leyland,not DAF.If only it had been Leyland,not DAF,that had developed the 680 and built the 2800 DKS in the mid 1970’s in the knowledge that they had loads of buyers in the domestic market wanting to buy it at the time not wanting Gardner powered ERF’s and Atkis etc etc.
History shows that it’s not an ideal world and the reality was that it was DAF (like Scania and Volvo) that had the domestic market for it’s products and then,like those other manufactuers,took advantage of that when the British buyers did,eventually,come to their senses.
As I’ve said in that not ideal world the only other option left for the survival of the British truck manufacturing industry was if we’d have forged more effective links like the ones between Foden and Paccar and try to get the licence to make Detroit engines here,in which case we’d have been building Kenworths not Fodens,from the time and since.In which case it might have been Kenworth UK competing with DAF to make the most efficient trucks on the home market and in Europe not Mercedes.
But as we’ve seen here there’s no way that the British manufacturing industry would have ever stood a chance in convincing it’s domestic market to buy British built American trucks.So the rest is history unlike the situation in New Zealand and Australia. 
However having said that it might be interesting to see what happens in future to KW US and KW Australia in an environment where it’s Mercedes that has control of Detroit engine supplies. 
Don’t mention ze var. 
Yeah but the modern Detroit engine is an inline four stroke not your beloved two stroke do how do we now how much influence came from Stuttgart in the design.
The new paccar engine Is basically a daf engine ■■■■■■■ and scania have worked together in fuel system design I presume the American volvos use the same engine as the fh do it’s impossible to say one is better than another.
Carryfast:
gingerfold:
This does get a bit a tedious when Carryfast keeps banging on about American trucks when all perceived wisdom tells us that they never have and never will sell in Europe. Stange how thousands upon thousands of British and European operators and drivers are wrong, according to Carryfast, when he is obviously right. But just a a thought or two to be going on with. Until the 1960s the majority of heavy US built trucks were gasoline powered, so could it be US diesel engine technology was years behind British and European technology of the time?Strange also how the prefered New Zealand truck configuration sems to be a rigid eight plus drawbar. Reminds me very much of Great Britain in the 1950s! But then again didn’t we invent the eight wheeler concept in 1933 with the AEC Mammoth Major? However, I’m probably completely wrong and it must have been developed by some American.
Blimey so the American diesel engine manufacturers all got it wrong and it was Gardner that still survives and put all of the US ones out of business and US technology isn’t able to get similar outputs reliably and economically from a 6 cylinder motor that Scania is getting from a larger capacity V 8.
It ‘wouldn’t’ have been strange at all how thousands upon thousands of British drivers ‘would’ have been happy to be given a new Kenworth during the 1970’s on instead of what their guvnors did give them and the difference is that,unlike what actually happened,drivers would still probably be using them today ‘if’ what I’m saying actually took place,because their guvnors would still probably prefer them to the euro competition.
It seems to me like all the euro truck fans are great at supporting their preferred option but they can only win the argument in a place where American trucks don’t actually exist to provide the required competition and choice.Then when someone points out a place where the market demands,of more advanced thinking operators,show that my idea actually works,all they can do is try to discredit those operators ideas.The fact is who needs an artic if a decent drawbar outfit can do the job better and if the job requires an artic that’s what they use unless you know something I don’t and actually no operators in New Zealand use 44 tonne artics at all,in a market where conditions are very similar to here but where US trucks compete head on with,and work sided by side with,Euro ones.
What I do find strange is the fact that “guvnors” know nothing, but some drivers do, it must be time to swap roles, the guvnors who have ran a business with enough profit to pay themselves, a driver and pay for the lorry should forget all that and just listen to 
drivers in future.
It is probably the reason that many of these drivers who splashed out on obsolete or over ambitious blinged up lorries to be a guvnor are now driving for someone again.
Your argument falls down when you say that it works, you don’t know it works because you haven’t got the balls to go out and buy an obsolete piece of machinery. Your argument about drawbars fails for the same reason, an artic is much more flexible than a drawbar, why have an expensive primemover ■■■■■■■ on a bay or waiting to unload when you can quickly drop a trailer and pick up another one and continue earning money. Yes drawbars do work in the right environment, with swap bodies probably even better.
For an owner driver, the most profitable job is going to be a sensible specified unit pulling someone elses trailer.
What i find very hard to comprehend is the following that American trucks have over here,i have only ever driven one for a short time and was i glad to get out of it, no lock or rather the lock of an 8 wheeler,12v electrics which caused a problem with not being compatable with the rest of the fleet,very low headroom in the cab,lamentable air steering,cross ply tires need i go on. The reason they sold was ,I think partly due to image (good buddy etc) and at a time when we needed something different it fitted the bill.All lorries (sorry Graham Lurries) have good and not so good points but the extent that “Carrylast” goes on about Detroit make me wonder at times.
I must admit I have a mental picture of carryfast which is cowboy boots jeans with a ludicrous belt buckle check shirt half undone Stetson or kenworth baseball cap mirrored sunglasses one of them big wallets on a chain driving a lorry with a confederate flag on the back wall chrome ladys and a plate with haulin ■■■ and a nameplate in the window with outlaw or silent wolf or suchlike even though he is going up and down the M1.
Yelling “Yee Haw” at all & sundry
kr79:
Yeah but the modern Detroit engine is an inline four stroke not your beloved two stroke do how do we now how much influence came from Stuttgart in the design.
The new paccar engine Is basically a daf engine ■■■■■■■ and scania have worked together in fuel system design I presume the American volvos use the same engine as the fh do it’s impossible to say one is better than another.
Detroit engines have been four stroke six cylinder for years since they went over to the 60 series years ago before any link with Merc.There was nothing much wrong with the two stroke series either except the criterea was more prioritised towards reliability and output at the (relative) expense of fuel consumption which at least was one better than the early naturally aspirated four stroke Merc idea of the same period.
However if there’s nothing of any value in US engineering and technology why would Merc have wanted to invest in it at all anyway ?. 
Wheel Nut:
Carryfast:
gingerfold:
This does get a bit a tedious when Carryfast keeps banging on about American trucks when all perceived wisdom tells us that they never have and never will sell in Europe. Stange how thousands upon thousands of British and European operators and drivers are wrong, according to Carryfast, when he is obviously right. But just a a thought or two to be going on with. Until the 1960s the majority of heavy US built trucks were gasoline powered, so could it be US diesel engine technology was years behind British and European technology of the time?Strange also how the prefered New Zealand truck configuration sems to be a rigid eight plus drawbar. Reminds me very much of Great Britain in the 1950s! But then again didn’t we invent the eight wheeler concept in 1933 with the AEC Mammoth Major? However, I’m probably completely wrong and it must have been developed by some American.
Blimey so the American diesel engine manufacturers all got it wrong and it was Gardner that still survives and put all of the US ones out of business and US technology isn’t able to get similar outputs reliably and economically from a 6 cylinder motor that Scania is getting from a larger capacity V 8.
It ‘wouldn’t’ have been strange at all how thousands upon thousands of British drivers ‘would’ have been happy to be given a new Kenworth during the 1970’s on instead of what their guvnors did give them and the difference is that,unlike what actually happened,drivers would still probably be using them today ‘if’ what I’m saying actually took place,because their guvnors would still probably prefer them to the euro competition.
It seems to me like all the euro truck fans are great at supporting their preferred option but they can only win the argument in a place where American trucks don’t actually exist to provide the required competition and choice.Then when someone points out a place where the market demands,of more advanced thinking operators,show that my idea actually works,all they can do is try to discredit those operators ideas.The fact is who needs an artic if a decent drawbar outfit can do the job better and if the job requires an artic that’s what they use unless you know something I don’t and actually no operators in New Zealand use 44 tonne artics at all,in a market where conditions are very similar to here but where US trucks compete head on with,and work sided by side with,Euro ones.
What I do find strange is the fact that “guvnors” know nothing, but some drivers do, it must be time to swap roles, the guvnors who have ran a business with enough profit to pay themselves, a driver and pay for the lorry should forget all that and just listen to
It is probably the reason that many of these drivers who splashed out on obsolete or over ambitious blinged up lorries to be a guvnor are now driving for someone again.
Your argument falls down when you say that it works, you don’t know it works because you haven’t got the balls to go out and buy an obsolete piece of machinery. Your argument about drawbars fails for the same reason, an artic is much more flexible than a drawbar, why have an expensive primemover ■■■■■■■ on a bay or waiting to unload when you can quickly drop a trailer and pick up another one and continue earning money. Yes drawbars do work in the right environment, with swap bodies probably even better.
For an owner driver, the most profitable job is going to be a sensible specified unit pulling someone elses trailer.
It does work because if it didn’t a large proportion of the New Zealand road transport industry would have gone down the tubes by now.But the fact is that seems to be more likely in the case of British ones.
What went wrong ■■? Carryfast hijacked another thread with his drivell and ■■■■■■■■ regarding the pros of American trucks and the cons of every other manufacturer on the planet.
1 question i never got a straight forward answer to from a similar thread when i asked him (we`re going round in circles here) was if it was the hauliers fault that British manufactures failed due to their liking of Atkis with 180 Gardners who on earth bought the higher powered foreign invaders in the first place to make them so successfull if it wasnt the very same hauliers?
I know 1 haulier on here who he quotes regularily bought the Atkis he mentioned but progressed onto higher powered foreign vehicles ,something that contradicts his theory.The basic problem with British lorries were they were outdated uncomfortable and in some cases unreliable , and the british manufacturers didnt have the money and know how to produce a cab compareable to the Swedes at least.Sorry to bang on about AEC but the Mandator was around 205 - 226 bhp coupled to a six speed constant mesh gearbox and a noisey drafty cab trying to compete against a F86 with around 200bhp 8 speed synchro box and a warmer quieter cab.Atkis , Fodens , ERFs and Leylands were similar albeit some with 9 speed boxes
kr79:
I must admit I have a mental picture of carryfast which is cowboy boots jeans with a ludicrous belt buckle check shirt half undone Stetson or kenworth baseball cap mirrored sunglasses one of them big wallets on a chain driving a lorry with a confederate flag on the back wall chrome ladys and a plate with haulin ■■■ and a nameplate in the window with outlaw or silent wolf or suchlike even though he is going up and down the M1.
You just knew someone would post this 
kr79:
I must admit I have a mental picture of carryfast which is driving a lorry with a confederate flag on the back even though he is going up and down the M1.
Fixed that.
Wheel Nut:
kr79:
I must admit I have a mental picture of carryfast which is cowboy boots jeans with a ludicrous belt buckle check shirt half undone Stetson or kenworth baseball cap mirrored sunglasses one of them big wallets on a chain driving a lorry with a confederate flag on the back wall chrome ladys and a plate with haulin ■■■ and a nameplate in the window with outlaw or silent wolf or suchlike even though he is going up and down the M1.
You just knew someone would post this
LOL just 1 major problem he looks way too clever to be Carrypest
Carryfast:
kr79:
I must admit I have a mental picture of carryfast which is driving a lorry with a confederate flag on the back even though he is going up and down the M1.Fixed that.
Must be hard work trying to drive wearing a bed sheet and a pillowcase over your head
I commend our friend for the effort he puts into his posts, and some of his stuff is well thought-through. However, the notion that the GB lorry builders should have taken on the Continentals by adopting US engineering wholesale?
If any company could have succeeded with this, surely it was the Americans themselves. They had the money to do it but they either didn’t bother or, when they did, it came to nought. Mack tried all sorts in the 1960s- collaborations with Bernard and Unic, European cabs from Pelpel(?) and Motor Panels. They had good sales to operators in the Middle East, and International had an assembly plant in Turkey(?)- even with this springboard, they did not break into Europe.
Mack seemed to have, on the face of it, a Euro-friendly product- a big, modern (for 1962) steel cab rather than the fibreglass and riveted aluminium sheds favoured by their compatriots, but people who drove Macks in the 1970s have recorded their opinions of them on this forum and they are not universally positive. Many called them the “Yankee Atki.”
ramone:
What went wrong ■■? Carryfast hijacked another thread with his drivell and [zb] regarding the pros of American trucks and the cons of every other manufacturer on the planet.
1 question i never got a straight forward answer to from a similar thread when i asked him (we`re going round in circles here) was if it was the hauliers fault that British manufactures failed due to their liking of Atkis with 180 Gardners who on earth bought the higher powered foreign invaders in the first place to make them so successfull if it wasnt the very same hauliers?
I know 1 haulier on here who he quotes regularily bought the Atkis he mentioned but progressed onto higher powered foreign vehicles ,something that contradicts his theory.The basic problem with British lorries were they were outdated uncomfortable and in some cases unreliable , and the british manufacturers didnt have the money and know how to produce a cab compareable to the Swedes at least.Sorry to bang on about AEC but the Mandator was around 205 - 226 bhp coupled to a six speed constant mesh gearbox and a noisey drafty cab trying to compete against a F86 with around 200bhp 8 speed synchro box and a warmer quieter cab.Atkis , Fodens , ERFs and Leylands were similar albeit some with 9 speed boxes
It’s not a question of British hauliers not buying the higher powered more comfortable invaders it’s a question of when and the problem for the domestic manufacturers in the all important home market,which the foreign ones didn’t have in their home markets,was that all the answers,to the problem,in the domestic market,(rightly) came back saying it’s going to take too long and we can’t spend money we don’t have on designing and making loads of better wagons which the stupid zb’s won’t buy,for at least another 5-10 years or so.So zb it just put together something cheap,quick and nasty like the T 45 later on and leave DAF etc etc to get on with it. 
[zb]
anorak:
I commend our friend for the effort he puts into his posts, and some of his stuff is well thought-through. However, the notion that the GB lorry builders should have taken on the Continentals by adopting US engineering wholesale?If any company could have succeeded with this, surely it was the Americans themselves. They had the money to do it but they either didn’t bother or, when they did, it came to nought. Mack tried all sorts in the 1960s- collaborations with Bernard and Unic, European cabs from Pelpel(?) and Motor Panels. They had good sales to operators in the Middle East, and International had an assembly plant in Turkey(?)- even with this springboard, they did not break into Europe.
Mack seemed to have, on the face of it, a Euro-friendly product- a big, modern (for 1962) steel cab rather than the fibreglass and riveted aluminium sheds favoured by their compatriots, but people who drove Macks in the 1970s have recorded their opinions of them on this forum and they are not universally positive. Many called them the “Yankee Atki.”
I`m sure someone on here will disagree with you guess who