Equipment

By Sven-Erik Lindstrand, HDT European Editor

What makes a truck and engine manufacturer want to launch a 750-horsepower engine for standard trucks? Volvo already offered its 16-liter inline six cylinder engine with overhead camshaft, four valves per cylinder and unit injectors, capable of 700 horsepower

Tags: Equipment Issues

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 Tom Berg, Senior Editor

It's a story we've heard before, but a pretty good one: Sales are up, products are improving, and buyers have many choices of trucks to do their hauling job

Tags: Light & Medium

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

Hybrid drive systems usually have to be part of a new car or truck, and usually they're expensive. But XL Hybrids of Boston is coming up with one that can be installed on new or existing vehicles at a moderate cost

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Sales of flatbed trailers have revived along with the rest of the heavy truck business

Tags: Trailers

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Depending on how the segment is counted, the market for full-size cargo vans is up about 12% over last year, which in turn was up 14% over 2009, builder sources say

Tags: Light & Medium

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 Tom Berg, Senior Editor

How important is saving weight? It's vital in some operations, such as hauling bulk commodities, especially if trailers are always loaded to the max and tare weight must be cut to enhance payload potential

Tags: Trailers

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 Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Almost left idle by the high cost of fuel in 2008 and the recession, sales of pickup trucks are now recovering

Tags: Light & Medium

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 Commentary Tom Berg, Senior Editor

The scene was a frozen lake in central Sweden in the early 1980s. On the ice in the midst of powdery, freshly fallen snow sat a municipal snow-plow truck, a Volvo N10 conventional-cab dumper fitted with a V-plow up front and a wing plow on its right side

Tags: Equipment Issues

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

So maybe you're thinking something like this: "The market is improving, getting credit is easier, business is looking up. Maybe it's time to retire a few older rigs and get some new iron into the fleet. Maybe we should go to wide-base single tires while we're at it

Tags: Equipment Issues

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

Spec'ing tires is a lot like photography. It's a series of trade-offs and compromises. Let's say you're after a night shot of a city skyline. Because it's dark, you have to use a long exposure, which could make the photo blurry

Tags: Tire Report

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

If there were an 11th Commandment, it would read: "Thou shalt not cut into thine wiring." Cutting and splicing and probing with pointed circuit testers can and do cause electrical grief

Tags: Light & Medium

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

2010-model diesels are running well and turning in better fuel economy than their EPA-'07-spec predecessors, according to reports we've heard at industry meetings and in conversations with fleet managers

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

How does the fuel-fed regeneration of diesel particulate filters affect overall fuel economy?

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

There's no such thing as a cookie-cutter utility body anymore.

Tags: Light & Medium

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 Truckinginfo Staff

The National Transportation Safety Board says more needs to be done to make tanker trailers less prone to rollovers, including mandatory stability control systems, following its investigation of a 2009 rollover accident involving a tractor and tanker trailer

Tags: Trailers

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

New federal "roadability" regulations that clear up who's supposed to be responsible for intermodal equipment infractions - basically, the owner of the chassis in question - have been in effect since December 17

Tags: Trailers

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 Jim Park, Equipment Editor

Need another reason to sweat your tire pressure? How about CSA? It would be hell explaining to your grandkids that you used to run a trucking company until the DOT put you out of business because of poor tire maintenance

Tags: Tire Report

By Commentary Rolf Lockwood, Editor at Large

Volvo Trucks in Sweden is about to be the first to market a methane-powered truck for long-haul operations in Europe

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Commentary Rolf Lockwood, Editor at Large

Amidst endless chatter about electric power and even fuel cells, the good old internal combustion engine clearly isn't going away any time soon

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Transport refrigeration units - TRUs - are the main thing separating temperature-controlled trailers from dry freight vans. But insulation is just as important.

Tags: Trailers

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 Deborah Lockridge, Editor in Chief

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Noting that fuel economy will be key to competitiveness among engine makers in the next decade, Cummins says real-world data has confirmed that its EPA-2010 spec ISX15 engine delivers 6 percent fuel economy improvement over its 2009 product. Some customers could see even better results thanks to "significant calibration improvements

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Commentary Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Why do the Japan-based importers continue trying to sell low cab-over-engine trucks when North America is conventional-cab territory? The short answer is that LCOEs are what they have to sell

Tags: Light & Medium

By Commentary Rolf Lockwood, Editor at Large

You'll be hearing a lot about the 'OPOC' engine in the next little while, and maybe for a long time to come.

Tags: Engine Smarts

By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

Rush Enterprises is probably best known as North America's largest Peterbilt dealer. But realizing they could only go so far with their franchises from the Paccar manufacturer, leaders saw midrange trucks as a way to grow and to diversify in products and operations

Tags: Light & Medium