New owner torn on a new truck.

So after a couple days with the new APU heres my initial thoughts. First its some how both much louder and much more quiet then the thermo king. Best way i can discribe it is that its got a pitch you can tell should be VERY loud but is somehow well muffled....and just not. A big part of that is likely that the engine is VERY well dampened so little/no vibration transfers. For comparison the thermo king dampners were about half dollar size and vibrated the truck as bad as the main engine. The ones on this unit are grapefruit sized and i cant even see water in my mesureing cup for oatmeal move so big plus.

Next the pitch of the 3 cylender is much lower and actully very soothing to listen to if you grew up around diesels like i have. Puts me directly to sleep because it sounds like old farm equipment in the distance. Weird thing to notice i know but still. Its a positive in my book.

Next is the air it kicks out is very very dry. More like a home AC then a car one. Not a bad thing as i imagine you wont smell any mildew from moisture like the thermo king. It does consume a bit more fuel though as a trade off. I have a fuel meter hooked to the line and the TK in its prime used about .18-.20 GPH. This is using .25-.27 an hour. The heater also is a heater core style instead of espar so it gets less hot overall but heats much more evenly. No burning my left leg. As it comes out all 4 vents.

One downside to the above is it has more....range before it heats or cools for lack of a better explination. For example due to the temp being so evenly spread there are cold/hot spots so even if the cab is actully 70 degrees if the wind or sun for example is hitting the back of the cab there will be a cold spot so you need to actully set the to to 72 or 73 to be comfortable or set the cooler to 65 instead of 70. Not a huge deal and the apu handles it fine and is still better then the TK in many ways but something to be aware of. The unit also never shuts off. So unlike a TK thats always starting and stopping trying to conserve fuel and in some cases causeing wild temp swings and waking you up. The green is always at a stable even pitch.

Lastly the unit itself is a wash over the TK in terms of weight. im normally 33020 with a full fuel load on the cat scale. I was 33040 on the scale this time. Same scale before and after. And its likely to go down a far bit as there were some parts of the TK they couldnt take off at green due to it being welded or bolted directly to the cab and removal highly likely to damage the cabs skin. Thats going to be a pete body shop issue to resolve and not greens fault at all. Oh and the control unit looks outdated but is VASTLY better them the thermocrap version and on par or better then a carrier in terms of accessiblity and also much more user friendly and gives a ton of good info including time to next service.

So overall im quite happy with the purchase. Ill keep you updated as time goes on.

 

So far so good. No hiccups at all and npt a lot has changed with it. Only recent things are one of my wiper arms decided it wanted to be free and flew off my truck after a nut rusted off.

 

Lol it was my truck busting one knowing i only buy paccar direct or better parts but yea never had a wiper fail there before, was a new experince and not a great one because the arms are $320 a pop XD looked at the $50 aftermarket one and it was 80% hopes 10% dreams 9% chieseium grade plastic and 1% metal like fakeium.

 

So i finally did find one downside to my apu. Found a major airleak in my new trailer i had to get unborked today. Started as a tiny leak when i picked it up and evolved into a bad airbag 2 broken valves and something else they will try to find in the AM. So the apu and truck have both been off all day while they tried to track down the leak.

Well unlike an espar which heats a cab instantly, in the green if the coolant and fuel are both cold just like the truck engine you gotta wait for the coolant to get upto temp for heat to happen which takes about 20 or 30 mins from 24 degrees.

To clarify this is only an issue if you cant run the engine temp maintainer program due to being repaired and techs not likeing hot exhaust in their face while under your truck and trailer looking for air leaks.

 

Well this took forever to find. I swapped my trailer in to lease a MUCH less beat up bones trailer for a better rate. And it started with a tiny air leak that developed into a big air leak over about a day. Found a burst bag on the trailer and figured that was the issue since the trailer has been sitting a while. Big fat nope sandwhich. 2 leaking valves also nope. Found a mouse nest and some chewed wires too but i fixed that myself with spare wire i carry. So we kept digging and found a bag on my truck was bad as well as a leaking airline still nope. Tech finally got frustrated on now day 2 and full on pulled the entire line and sure enough.



Yay for dry rot and rubbed lines!

 

I lied it wasnt dry rot, tech found a friend while he was threading the line through when it jumped onto him.