2/15/2012  On/Off Highway Tires: One Size Won't Fit All
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.

It's very similar to what you're looking at in the differences between tires designed for long-haul, on-highway service and the deep-lug tires that pull dump trucks out of muddy pits all day long.

Tires, like horses, are designed to be task-specific. When you need a tire to function in two diametrically opposed environments, there are going to be compromises. The challenge is minimizing what you give up on one front to gain something on the other.....

2/1/2012  Test Drive: Fuso FG 4x4 Goes Almost Anywhere
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.

It'd been at least 10 years since I drove and wrote about an earlier version of Mitsubishi Fuso's unique-to-North America cab-over-engine 4x4. Now updated with a refined Canter cab and other advances, the recently introduced model was even better.

The FG is unique because all other 4x4s on this continent, whether from Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Nissan or Toyota, are the conventional-cab style with a protruding nose that houses the engine. Most buyers prefer that style. The domestic Big Three all make trucks as heavy as the Fuso FG, but only the FG's a cabover. This matters to buyers who like a cabover's compactness and maneuverability.....

1/24/2012  Are Underride Guards Good Enough?
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. In most instances where new Chevrolet Malibu sedans were thrown at 35 mph into the trailers' rear ends, the cars' occupants would have been killed, IIHS's report said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has estimated that about 423 people in passenger vehicles die each year when their vehicles strike the backs of large trucks. That's a small percentage of the 32,000-plus people killed yearly on our highways. In most cases, motorists are clearly at fault in those accidents, so is it fair that truck owners be further burdened with expensive equipment requirements that offer no operational savings? Yes, says the IIHS -- and the feds seem to be listening.....

1/24/2012  Test Drive: Ram Tradesman is Quiet, Comfortable, Fast -- But Built for Work
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 after Chrysler dropped the Power Wagon name. According to the owner's manual, its 318 V-8 made all of 130 horsepower. Still, it was a tough old beast. I once used it to haul a ton of ¾-inch stone, and its "half-ton" leaf springs hardly sagged.

I got a kick out of driving it around our suburban lot, following the Ram's Head ornament on the nose. (Dodge had stopped using those by '87 -- something about the feds not wanting pedestrians gored -- but the previous owner had bought one and bolted it onto the hood.)....

1/9/2012  How Much Will the Engine of the Future Resemble Today's Powerplants?
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. Those popular configurations have been in use for many years and will likely remain most common for some time.

The more commercially oriented the truck, the more likely its engine is an inline or "straight" design. Its block is stiff and strong, and it's easy to make and simple to maintain. All kinds of advanced fuel, air and electronics systems can be applied to it.

Since the 1930s, when high-speed truck diesels began appearing from Cummins and Caterpillar, the design used has mostly been the inline six. Detroit Diesel sold V-6, V-8 and V-12 two-stroke diesels along with a few inline versions for many years, but their main attribute was shorter length in a time of strict vehicle length limits.....

1/5/2012  Test Drive: Ram Tradesman is Quiet, Comfortable, Fast -- But Built for Work
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 after Chrysler dropped the Power Wagon name. According to the owner's manual, its 318 V-8 made all of 130 horsepower. Still, it was a tough old beast. I once used it to haul a ton of ¾-inch stone, and its "half-ton" leaf springs hardly sagged.

I got a kick out of driving it around our suburban lot, following the Ram's Head ornament on the nose. (Dodge had stopped using those by '87 -- something about the feds not wanting pedestrians gored -- but the previous owner had bought one and bolted it onto the hood.)....