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.)....

12/27/2011  Trailer Report: Preventing LED Theft
By Tom Berg, Senior Editor

They've pretty much taken over the vehicle lighting business, and they don't cost nearly as much as when they first appeared about 20 years ago. So LEDs - lamps made with light-emitting diodes - aren't stolen like they once were. Anti-theft devices can get in the way of repairs and replacement work, so in some cases are dispensed with. But there are places where LEDs still are targets for thieves, say two major makers of the products.

Risky places include border crossings into Mexico, still a Third World country where many things aren't safe. Mark Blackford, Grote's national fleet accounts manager, points to Laredo, Texas, as one such place. Brad Van Riper, Truck-Lite's chief technology officer, says intermodal operations can constitute another black hole where objects enter but don't return. Fleets that send trailers and container chassis into such places often buy LEDs with hard-to-remove mountings, or stick with incandescent-bulb fixtures. ....

12/14/2011  Test Drive: Kenworth T800 Dump Truck with Latest Powertrain
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.

It had Paccar's MX diesel, now in its second year on the market, bolted to an 8LL UltraShift Plus, one of Eaton's Vocational Construction Series automated mechanical transmissions that I hadn't driven before.

We were near Columbus, Miss., at Paccar's engine plant, where MXs like this one are now assembled. The plant opened early this year and is taking over North American production from a factory in The Netherlands.

The MX is quiet and pleasant to drive. Its size, at 12.8 liters, is just right for a heavy vocational truck. Like similar diesels from competitors, it can make healthy horsepower and torque.....