TeamsterGrrrl

Guys, I hafta somewhat agree with you on this one, from my experience with two tornadoes five years ago- The first tornado hit my old 'hood in north Minneapolis, so weak a tornado that it didn't even make one on the Fujima scale. But going through a heavily wooded city with mostly two story houses on 40 foot lots, it blocked most of the streets and took out the above ground utilities and some of the gas too. This is a poor neighborhood, so a lot of volunteers came in to help out. About all the city did was prevent mass looting, and the city was clueless about how extensive the damage was. The city even went so far as to arrest a couple foresters who were volunteering their services for not having Minneapolis contractors licenses, even though they had state licenses. I loaded up my pickup the next morning with saws and other tools to help out, and on arrival found I was being profiled by the police who must have though I was another unlicensed contractor. I parked the pickup and dug out my late mom's minivan and put it into service. Meanwhile, a council member who barely know which end of a chainsaw to hold it by was doing media opportunities of him cutting up large twigs. Fortunately some of the local charities and churches were on the ball, knowing that a lot of children and elders couldn't get out to get food and medications and were in danger. They divided up the tornado's path, each church or charity taking responsibility for several blocks around them. The one I worked with, a small branch campus of the university of Minnesota, extended their hours, fed folks, and let them use their phones and computers. I volunteered out of that office, we'd get 4 or so of us in the minivan with food and supplies in the back and a wagon to haul that in and go door to door covering a block or two at a time. We'd do that a couple times until we had covered the whole area to be sure we had caught everyone. While the city was harassing folks who were trying to help, our churches and charities found several vulnerable folks who couldn't get out to get medications and food and would have probably died without our volunteer efforts. A month later we got an F1 tornado out in rural Minnesota where I live. Our town's only major damage was a garage and a lot of trees down, everybody got our their saws and pickups and trailers and we had the streets open in a couple hours so the power company was able to get in and restore power quickly. We then went over to the next town that had got hit worse and helped them out. But their wasn't much to do, because everybody there had worked just as we had to clear the debris and get the town reopened. The tornado brought down the roofs of the city garage and the electric co-op, but they dug out the trucks and got right to work... In Minneapolis they would have waited a week for the insurance claims adjuster and probably FEMA too! We were able to use a lot of volunteers out here successfully because we have a lot of people here with experience in construction, farming, etc. who knew how to work with tools and equipment safely. Give a big city council member a chain saw, and you may as well call the ambulance before he figures out how to start it! I suspect the best strategy would be for the local government to organize the "cajun navy" sort of like a Sheriff's Posse, in other words an organized group of volunteers ready to help out if called.

There is no ethanol subsidy, it went away in 2011.

To say nothing of the difficulty of getting americans to buy a cabover. If VW wants to enter the american market, a MAN designed engine in a Navistar truck is the easiest way, and buying Navistar would give VW a dealer network too. And who knows, after our government allows more productive trucks like at least 25 meter B-doubles that dealer network could add Scania to their offerings...

If you spec and load carefully, you can easily haul 40,000 pounds with a single rear axle tractor- Fifth wheel set forward on the tractor to put some weight on the front axle, and have the tandems on the trailer about three quarters of the way forward from the rear of the trailer to maximize the load they carry. With a spread tandem on the trailer you can haul 6,000 pounds more, even more with a tridem.

Agreed on the interior, very well laid out- Even though the cab's size is restricted by the Euro overall length regulations, there's as much usable room as an American conventional "condo" sleeper has. For example, the meter wide lower bunk bests the American average of 36 inches or so. Scania clearly didn't try to cheapen the product like Volvo has- They're stuck to the Swedish tradition of building the best rather than the cheapest product.

Looks impressive with better aerodynamics and a lot of little detail improvements everywhere. The new 500 HP six with no EGR should be quite popular.

Over at www.tdiclub.com there's been some discussion of this pushing VW Group into bankruptcy and ending the U.S. buyback/fix? of the offending TDIs.

That's an attractive price, unlike some of the not much cheaper that new fleet prices I've been hearing for the other glider makers.

At what time GMT will Scania make the announcement?

I drove for USPS for several years and the MRs were fun trucks to drive- Excellent maneuverability and visibility and with the Allison automatic they seemed like they had a lot more than 300 horsepower!

Navistar built a bunch of these low profile tractors based on the 9600 cabover series too, there was an outfit that hauled for one of the cereal companies that had a bunch of them. The cereal company had designed their cereal boxes and cartons to fit in a standard 50 foot boxcar and wanted a trailer with similar inside dimensions. To meet that requirement they built trailers and tractors with 17.5" low profile wheels like these.

ATC shouldn't activate the power divider. In most implementations it slightly brakes the spinning wheel and then reduces power if the wheelspin persists.

At 04:30 this Teamster is ready for a nap...

Has the extended front bumper and some other UPS features. As far as survival numbers being low, this ain't like the MB, as very few MH 4 by 4s were built to begin with. As far as the switch to conventionals, UPS didn't with until the early 90s.

As soon as the trucking industry gives up their love affair with single 53 foot trailers and the unproductive 80,000 pound weight limit, cabovers will make a comeback in the U.S.. Even though much of the eastern portion of the U.S. is stuck with these low federal size and weight limits, many of the western states and turnpikes have more liberal limits where a cabover would have an advantage... For example South Dakota allows twin 48' trailers in a 110' overall length on the Interstates and some other roads. Twin 48s plus the usual gap of 3' between trailers leaves only 11' feet for a tractor and tractor to trailer gap- I saw one company that just barely managed that with conventionals using Navistar 8600s IIRC, but with the space taken by EPA 2010 emissions hardware I doubt they could build that short a BBC a tractor without going to a cabover design. And the only way you can fit a sleeper and twin 48s into a 110' length is with a cabover.

The real question is, why are we putting up with living on the road? That said, the Euro cabovers are short because the length laws allow a 13.6 meter trailer in a 16.5 meter overall length- Figure in trailer front swing radius and even with a 1.6 meter long pin you've got trailer+swing radius= 14 meters and only 2.5 meters left for cab. That's why the Euro cabovers don't come with "condo" sleepers! We had a similar situation in the U.S. before the STAA of 1982 when most states restricted single trailers to 45 foot length in a 55 foot overall length, and like Europe a 36 inch or so wide sleeper bunk was the widest practical. If the Euro overall length requirements were relaxed, we'd see longer cabs and wider bunks there.

That KW ain't pretty either...

Lots of the "steering wheel holders" that knock cabovers have never driven one. I've driven both, and prefer cabovers. I'm not the only old timer that prefers cabovers, when the big fleets like Continental Baking and UPS switched from cabovers to conventionals in the 80s and 90s, a lot of experienced drivers hung on to their cabovers to the bitter end. Keep in mind too that some of you are comparing obsolete american cabover fleet trucks to modern air ride conventionals... If you compare like specced modern cabovers versus conventionals the cabover wins on most counts, though a conventional might make sense if your loads weigh out before they cube out. The rest of the world gets it- Cabovers are better... When will americans catch up?

Florida still allows 73,280 pounds on 4 axles, so you see a lot of single rear axle tractors down there pulling short tandem dump trailers.

You sure you wanna do this? Most MRs are refuse trucks, they're heavy and get beat to hell. The exception is the Post Office Mack tractors, not much heavier than a CH. Most of them that have survived are '96s with 300 Mack power, Allison HT740 automatic, and 3.90 Eaton rears on air. Frames are 3/8" deep belly with 23k or 40k rears and 12k Mack front axle. That's what you got to work with... Would make a good tractor for city use, but with the barn door aerodynamics and 3.90 gears it's burn too much fuel for long haul use.

Again, the costs of building trucks for North America's oddball desire for conventionals is driving a reduction in the number of trucks available to choose from. BTW, doesn't look like it, but does the new Paccar conventional cab share any panels with the DAF cabovers?

Splitter boxes like the Mack 12 speed simply make sense... Even if you're using every gear, you're only moving the lever for half the shifts. Splitter boxes also make it easier to skip shift when running light- For example, with an 8V-71 hauling bread with a Spicer 10 speed splitter box I'd start in 1st or even 2nd high and go up in full gears, only splitting in top gear (5th).

Bring that beast to South Dakota!

A lot of the later HD series were electronic, so maybe programming issues too. Best to just buy a truck with an Allison already factory installed, probably cheaper in the long run. If you can find an ex-Postal Service Mack with an Allison cheap you could swap the whole powertrain, but it might be a hassle making that powertrain from the 90s work with a newer Mack. To get any idea what all you need, might want to ask an Allison dealer what all would be required to retrofit an Allison to the truck.

intentionally or not, Ford sort of let GM test the market for a compact pickup. Perhaps Ford is waiting to let GM test the market for a low tilt cabover too?