Is volvo with Cummins good choice

Go with the Volvo engine.
I bought mine last December..no problems at all..other than a wheel seal which was covered by warranty.
Pulls good with great fuel mileage.
It's a 730 midroof..has the work station..very comfortable truck. View attachment 157009

 

I drove Volvo 780, freightliner, longstar, my choice would be longstar or kw 680 i hate freight shaker or Volvo the are not my favorite no power n cheaply made just saying

 

-Reliability Detroit
-Comfort Volvo (d13)
-Style but still reliable peterbilt/kenworth(Cummins)

Lone star junk

 

Well, that midroof looks really good, I can tell where there is the air dam screws along the bottom though. I did have a couple of Volvos in my time out there on the road, one was a 1989 E Intergrated sleeper with a 350 Cat I think it was With that one I became very good at maintaing schedules in two or three foot powder across Sandstone because we had to keep rolling for JIT, assembly in GM with auto glass from KY for GM Astro vans.

My second volvo was a midroof with the N11 (OR was that the M11?) cummins I think 400ish if not more. That one hauled the covered wagon ravens model very well, ten foot spread back there. It did however lose the entire AC system once (About 1700 dollars replaced brand new at the T/A in Savannah... the shop howled, then screamed that they will kill me. They had to pay the comcheck bill though... best AC in the south after that...) Alternator twice. And a variety of electrical problems up to and including a complete bricking and total failure of the ECM Block that manged the engine back then, it had defaulted to a air breathing mode which drank a little more fuel and drove the company crazy. And a episode of a loose oil filler cap that cost me 4 gallons on Babcock Ridge mountain pull near Alltoona. A female star driver tossed down three gallons from her storage box later that morning without reservation. So it worked out well. But ever since that day, I carried 5 gallons rotella T always, no matter what.

My third and last volvo was a classic cabover model. It did have airride in like what I call dwarf or pinched in half bags. That thing was the hardest riding tractor ever. Riding that thing was like riding a cement block if such a description in words I could find for myself. That thing pissed me off soooo much when it stabbed me in the kidneys after a brutal rock... I made sure I parked that thing and grabbed another tractor and gtfo outt of there.

Im led to understand the 780 is a very nice Volvo. Literally an apartment back there complete with table. That is another reason I was drawn to that nice blue midroof in the previous picture. It's such a nice truck.

Now that I got it all out of my system, you need to examine KW, Pete and Freightliner in that order. KW has gotten very, very nice in my later years. So has Pete but not everyone relishes being squeezed into that little 379 cab. And I will always be loyal to the FLD 120's But if you provide a KW or Pete etc, you need to have a studio sleeper first of all and big horse second of all.

 

Junkins stay away ... over 30k on rep in one year

Now volvo d13 with i-shift.

 

I had T680..it was a nice truck.
Build quality was subpar..squeaks and rattles all the time..the paccar engine was just ok.
I never had a major breakdown in the 18 months I had it..I see lots of people with paccars are having ALOT of trouble.
Glad I dodged the bullet.
The Volvo is hands down the most comfortable truck I've driven in 22 years.
As for reliability ..we'll have to see.
I'm warrantied for 4 years..extended out for the term I'll be driving it.
I plan on retiring at age 56..so this is it for me.

 

Ergonomically, Volvo is hard to beat, especially with big cabin 770. But those new ones...they like mortgage and might be liability. That's from my observations. If I had a choice I'd go with Cummins, but am biased for my 15 years I've always been on Cummins. The mpg not good at all but all the cummins trucks I have been on, you could easily get over 1 mil before overhaul, and that's after hard exploitation. I'd stay away from Volvo engine as there are still very few shops while on the road with very limited know-how. Being 6foot6 in any other truck I sat on I felt squashed and crooked.

 

I know nothing about volvo engines. I know that Cummins traces bloodline ancestry to Maritime Engines that requires a steady rpm rate for weeks at a time at sea. CAT is construction and what comes up with high horse power that is hard to beat. Detroit is my blood, a 500 or 600 Detroit on a mountain is a joy. You can lug em down with a 13, 15 or 18 and they just won't quit running. And it seems like a huge Jaking on the downgrades to match.

Now Im learning about freewheeling as a computer setting with autos etc. And if that happens to you while you are on downgrade, it should kill you and everyone around you. Frankly it's flat stupid when you consider the second commandment in trucking, thy shalt not put tractor in neutral when under a load. Always have some kind of power to the drives coming or going. Then you have the Mack Engines for which I have a enduring love and loyalty. It's not much to look at, but you can take em places that will break a normal truck.

 

Yeah the ishift has that..it's called ecoroll.
I don't have it on my truck..always power to the wheels.
Jake works with cruise on downhill..set to 67mph..with overspeed of 69mph and it will brake you down automatically.
Of course I only use it on small grades.
Bigger grades I'm off cruise and watching.
As for the Volvo engines..they are proven in the marine sector as well.
They're actually built by Mack.
I like the Cummins but the newer o rd have more trouble then most..my buddy works for a company that has 30 Pete's with Cummins..they have so many problems they were assigned there own full time service rep by Cummins .
Its idling that kills these newer engines.
I have a apu..so no more than 15 minutes of idling and I shut it down.
I have had no trouble so far.

 

Sheesh, you all got me looking at a mortgage for 220K to deck out a full Volvo plush to the max.