Equipment

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 Jim Beach, Contributing Editor

It's fairly well established that keeping track of untethered trailers improves a fleet's operations

Tags: Trailers

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

If the health of the economy is tied directly to commercial medium-duty truck sales, as is the historical case, then the sky has clouded a little. It isn't falling, though, because sales are still trending up. All builders we talked with reported decent and sometimes robust percentage increases over last year, which in turn was up over 2010

Tags: Light & Medium

By Engine Smarts Commentary Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Who'd-a-thunk that mile-per-gallon numbers would be important to macho owners of pickup trucks? You can thank spiking prices of gasoline, even before Hurricane Isaac finishes making a wake in Louisiana

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

One of the hottest segments of trailer building is flatbeds. The freight they carry is moving briskly, especially in the automotive and energy sectors, but prosperity is somewhat spotty, say fleet managers.

Tags: Trailers

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 Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Over the years, advances in trailer materials and design have added life, cut maintenance and operating costs and even improved safety. Based on our observations at trade shows, new product announcements and conversations with manufacturers and fleets, we came up with the following list of significant trends

Tags: Trailers

By Engine Smarts column Tom Berg, Senior Editor

"Why buy new when you can reuse something that still has value?" That's the mantra at Detroit Reman, which has been remanufacturing engines and engine parts since 1966. And after touring its western plant at Tooele, Utah, one comes away wonderin

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Engine Smarts column Truckinginfo Staff

One of the key factors limiting the use of compressed natural gas in trucks has been the question of range. A commercial vehicle body and trailer manufacturer based in Germany may have a solution -- putting extra CNG tanks on the trailer

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Are truck and trailer aerodynamics new? Not exactly. Labatt's Streamliners like the one shown on the right were built in the 1930s and might be the most aerodynamic looking tractor-trailers ever produced.

Tags: Trailers

By Engine Smarts Tom Berg, Senior Editor

A band wagon powered by natural gas seems to have begun rolling, but most of those aboard talk about brand-new heavy trucks with special gas-burning engines. Why not convert existing trucks and engines to use cheap and clean-burning gas

Tags: Engine Smarts

By EngineSmarts column Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Prices paid at the pump for natural gas by truck operators won't rise much even if gas's basic price doubles, said an executive with Clean Energy, a company now setting up retail NG filling stations and selling the fuel

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Engine Smarts Rolf Lockwood, Contributing Editor

Volvo just told the world about its LNG engine coming in 2014 at a recent press gathering in Miami Beach and discussed the future of DME fuel - that's dimethyl ether - in North America

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Engine Smarts Rolf Lockwood, Contributing Editor

As we head into summer vacation season, it's worth noting that hybrids are being used in a somewhat unexpected place - California's Yosemite National Park

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Engine Smarts Tom Berg, Senior Editor

A chrome-plated exhaust stack emits a muted whoosh as this truck's turbine engine spins at tens of thousands of RPMs, drawing the curious among attendees at this ride-and-drive event in downtown Long Beach, Calif.

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

"Box" and tank trailers can carry any number of things, and their interiors are specially designed for durability, long life, low maintenance and light weight. We found a number of interesting examples at the recent Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky., in late March

Tags: Trailers

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

The medium-duty world is dominated by the rental and leasing sectors and the pickup and delivery sector, at least in terms of the Class 5-7 trucks using 17.5- and 19.5-inch tires. What they want dictates what the tire makers deliver

Tags: Tire Report

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 Rolf Lockwood, Contributing Editor

Bet you didn't celebrate National Biodiesel Day, did you? March 18 if you were wondering

Tags: Engine Smarts

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 Engine Smarts column Rolf Lockwood, Contributing Editor

Three weeks after the Mid-America Trucking Show, while I munch on very small, very rich chocolate eggs that were left on my desk by some generous rabbit, I find myself at the keyboard pondering a few things I learned and heard in Louisville. And one in particular

Tags: Engine Smarts

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

A few years ago, Steph Sabo looked at the latest truck diesels and didn't like what he saw

Tags: Equipment Issues

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

When you're delivering temperature-sensitive cargoes, things can get nasty if the produce, meat, ice cream or whatever's in the trailer shows up too cold or too warm

Tags: Trailers

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Talk about transmissions in commercial trucks, and you'll talk a lot about Eaton. The Michigan-based manufacturer continues to dominate the business in Class 8 and remains strong in Classes 6 and 7. However, there are other names in the busines

Tags: Equipment Issues

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

Chances are, within the next five years you'll be in the market for a regional-spec tractor or maybe a whole fleet of them. The North American supply chain is changing

Tags: Equipment Issues

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

The powertrain is a necessarily large part of the spec'ing exercise, and a great deal goes into the decision: anticipated lifecycle; annual miles; average horsepower per mile; vehicle weight; terrain and more

Tags: Equipment Issues

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 "Engine Smarts" Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor

From a seminar on sustainable transportation at the Sweden House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, a glimpse over the horizon, such as a camless engine and turning waste into fuel

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Detroit's Big Three light-truck builders are embracing compressed natural gas, if not as the dominant fuel of the future then as a major alternative to gasoline and diesel

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Engine Smarts column Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Some clean diesels of the 2000s have been disruptively unreliable and most are discouragingly expensive, but performance has improved as manufacturers try hard to fix them, said fleet executives at last week's annual meeting of the Technology & Maintenance Council

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

A racehorse would do about as well dragging a plow through a muddy field as a plow horse would do plodding down the back stretch at Churchill Downs.

Tags: Tire Report

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Driving this Canter FG was like seeing an old friend who's aged gracefully

Tags: Light & Medium

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 Jim Park, Equipment Editor

You can hide a multitude of sins inside a van trailer, but with an open deck trailer, any indiscretions are out in the open for all to see - including DOT roadside inspector

Tags: Trailers

By Engine Smarts commentary Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Does it make sense for a truck builder to limit customers' engine choices to just one line of products? It does if the engines are its own, because it makes more money. That is among the assertions made by Navistar International Corp.'s top executives to stock market researchers during the company's annual Analysts Day Feb. 1 at its shining and sprawling new headquarters in Lisle, Ill., west of Chicago.

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Last March, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced results of crash-testing of several van trailers whose underride guards did not perform well, except in a couple of cases

Tags: Trailers

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

Tags: Light & Medium

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

The engine of the future is probably similar to the one in your current truck. It's an internal combustion engine with pistons, valves, crankshaft and other familiar parts, an inline 4 or 6, or a V-6 or V-8

Tags: Equipment Issues

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 Berg, Senior Editor & Deborah Lockridge, Editor in Chief

A lot of truck owners aren't particularly happy with some of their EPA-emissions-spec engines from the past decade, and that could spell aftermarket opportunities as those engines come out of warranty.

Tags: engine

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