test drives

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

The urge to compare is great, but I will resist. Both Peterbilt's Model 579 and Kenworth's T68O were introduced with much fanfare at the Mid-America Trucking Show earlier this year

Tags: Test Drive, Peterbilt

By Tom Berg

Cruising down the Interstate, you glance at the tachometer and gasp as you see the needle hovering at under 1,200 rpm. Yet the engine isn't vibrating or straining, and the rig continues to move steadily forward

Tags: Test Drive, Mack, Diesel

By Tom Berg

If the Kenworth K270 had been introduced in time to be judged for the medium-duty Commercial Truck of the Year award, it might have given the Model 210 from KW's sister company, Peterbilt, a run for the title

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

When I first throttled up the new Cummins Westport ISX12 G, I wanted to make a comparison between this natural-gas-fueled engine and its diesel-fired counterpart. But they are different engines, with very different approaches to getting fuel into the cylinders

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

For many years, Western Star Trucks played last fiddle in truck sales symphonies, with U.S. Class 8 market share numbers of 1% and less. The company's share climbed a bit when it was bought by Freightliner in 2000

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

When I first heard that Kenworth's new T680 was unveiled at the Mid-America Trucking Show, I wondered why Kenworth was already upgrading the two-year-old T700

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

BAE Systems is a multi-national company that claims to have built HybriDrive electric powertrains for more than 3,500 transit buses in cities around the world, plus many thousands of straight diesel trucks for the U.S. Army. And it's developing hydrogen fuel cells and electric propulsion systems

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Last fall, Allison Transmission invited a few trade press reporters to Indianapolis to fill us in on a future product: the TC10, an automated mechanical transmission the company will release in late 2012.

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

When I first saw the T680 on the show floor at the Mid-America Trucking Show, I thought, that's the same as the T700. That truck is only two years old, and I was wondering why the truck maker was introducing its replacement after such a short lifespan

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Baby 8 trucks (Class 8 chassis with midrange engines) have long been useful conveyances of moderate load

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Unique to North America, this all-wheel-drive cabover is strong, maneuverable and fun to drive. Driving this Canter FG was like seeing an old friend who's aged gracefully

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

I recently sold my '87 Dodge W150 pickup, and I don't miss it at all. Oh, I liked it when I bought it a year earlier, because it was a funky Power Ram 4x4, built just a few years afte

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Nunlist, Associate Editor

After several years of absence, Isuzu's gasoline-powered, medium-duty trucks are back for the 2012 model year. I had a chance to test drive the new 2012 NPR Gas truck, as well as the comparable NPR Eco-Max diesel

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

The "viper yellow" paint on this Kenworth T800 grabs your attention, but there was much more to this dump truck I drove last summer

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

We came, we saw, we drove -- but not far. Caterpillar people are very proud of their CT660 vocational truck. They introduced it earlier this yea

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

What a difference a little extra torque makes. I recently had the privilege of being one of the first drivers outside of test fleets to put a new fuel economy and performance concept from Volvo through its paces

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

One way to cut weight and cost from a new truck is to choose a relatively small engine. This is the essence of the Mack Granite MHD, announced early this year and recently put into production

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

The dynamics of the U.S. transportation market are changing, opening the door to smaller, more efficient trucks

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

The emergence of the regional transportation market is causing many fleets to rethink their equipment demands

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

As light-duty commercial trucks go, cargo vans are a hot seller because they're so useful. In a good year, about a quarter million are built and snatched up by tradesmen, building contractors, rental fleets and many other types of users

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

When Navistar execs turned the key on one of the first MaxxForce 15 engines at the 2009 Mid-America Trucking Show, there were more than a few doubting Thomases in the audience

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Freightliner has long been a sales leader in on-highway tractors, and now it wants to dominate the vocational truck business. Its recently designed Severe Duty products are meant to do that, and a big marketing campaign will support them. Will they be up to the task

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Steep hills can be tough on trucks, even if their manual transmissions have sufficiently low gearing and drivers are adept with the clutch

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Does the world need another Class 4 and 5 vehicle in a market already crawling with trucks

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

What's this foreign truck doing in the hands of an agency of one of these United States? Helping West Virginia's Department of Highways maintain roads and bridges, and plowing snow and spreading salt in the winter.

Tags: Test Drive

By Steve Sturgess, Executive Editor

In line with an emerging trend to migrate air suspensions up to the front of the truck, Kenworth has introduced the AG130 for T660, T800 and T2000

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

You can't argue with the design, engineering, and manufacturing synergies of improving on an existing product

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Sometimes a marketing department's claim of "all-new" approaches the truth. That's the case with General Motors' Heavy Duty pickups and cab-chassis trucks, which were extensively upgraded and refined for the 2011 model year, even if GM doesn't call them all-new

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

So there I was, westbound on Bow Hill Road in Skagit County, a few hours north of Seattle, wondering if I'd ever find a place to turn around

Tags: Test Drive

By Steve Sturgess, Executive Editor

The first impression on being presented with a line-up of trucks at the Paccar Tech Center is that Kenworth's new T700 - unlike its T2000 predecessor - is recognizably from the same stable as the highly popular T660

Tags: Test Drive

By Steve Sturgess, Executive Editor

Last week's ride 'n drive at the Mount Vernon, Wash., Paccar Tech Center was set up to experience over a day both the new Kenworth T700 and the Paccar MX along with other Kenworth models and optional Cummins engines

Tags: Test Drive

By Steve Sturgess, Executive Editor

Last week's ride 'n drive at the Mount Vernon, Wash., Paccar Tech Center was set up to experience over a day both the new Kenworth T700 and the Paccar MX along with other Kenworth models and optional Cummins engines. Several hours with Kenworth's redo of the T2000 show the new T700's way better

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Primitive batteries and limited range caused electric cars and trucks to lose a technology battle with the internal combustion engine in the early 20th century. But electrics have come a long way, buddy

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Well-attended educational sessions and an ever-larger trade display marked the National Truck Equipment Association's annual meeting and Work Truck Show, held in March at the St. Louis Convention Center

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

There apparently was never any question whether Ford Motor Co.'s new Power Stroke diesel would be another V-8 because, as an engineer explained when it was announced last year, "V-8s are in Ford's DNA.

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Paccar, the corporate parent of Kenworth Truck and Peterbilt Motors, should print up some new stickers that say, "Low Revs 'R' Us," then smack 'em on the dashboards of all trucks equipped with its new MX-13 diese

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

One of the things we expect from 3/4- and 1-ton pickup trucks is a stiff ride. Strong springs are needed to haul heavy loads, so when the truck's empty it's got to ride a little rough

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Premium is as premium does, and at least for the driver, Freightliner's Coronado does things very well

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Eaton's electric-drive system is the one usually used by truck manufacturers who offer a medium-duty hybrid, including Freightliner, Freightliner Custom Chassis, Kenworth, Peterbilt and Navistar International. One builder that doesn't make hybrids is Ford Motor - but it does suppl

Tags: Test Drive

By Steve Sturgess, Executive Editor

If it hadn't been for the development of copper zeolite as a catalyst to use in reducing nitrogen oxides (NOx), Cummins might have been right alongside Navistar in using increased levels of exhaust gas circulatio

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Municipal trucks have to work all year round, and they work especially hard when heavy snow falls. "Plow trucks" keep motorized civilization moving, and for this task and others that demand strong specifications, Kenworth has the T470

Tags: Test Drive

By Steve Sturgess, Executive Editor

Eaton's UltraShift has been updated and upgraded with a new, two-plate, electronically activated clutch and revised logic for the electronic controller that makes it a much sweeter transmission that will learn - or coach - according to driver deman

Tags: Test Drive

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

Call it pre-need planning. When Detroit Diesel rolled out its DD15 engine in October 2007, the company said it was a clean-sheet design, birthed EPA-'07-compliant and 100 percent ready for EPA-201

Tags: Test Drive

By Steve Sturgess, Executive Editor

Opportunities to evaluate natural heavy-truck gas alternative power have been few to this point

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Testimonials are fine, but repeat business is the best endorsement for a product. Wayne Klink, founder and president of a fleet with his name, likes his 90 Volvo trucks and the latest component in three of them, the I-Shif

Tags: Test Drive

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

One look at this truck tells what it is - a big hauler of large and dense loads - and what it's not - a posh over-the-road freighter

Tags: Test Drive