The Best APU

Not all TriPac models tie in to the truck cooling system. Some of them have their own coolant resevior that gets mounted when they install it. I imagine it reduces install time not having to splice in to the truck and run hoses back to the unit.

As far as the ones that do tie in to your coolant system, I was driving south on I-55 around Sikeston, MO one when the TriPac had a clamp on a coolant hose fail. I ended up putting all of my tractor coolant out thru the TriPac and ended up on the side of the road.

 

Best is TriPac , no doubt. Probably the most expensive , also. Carrier is probably second best. Lots of both out there.
Probably the easiest to get would be the Dynasys. Two or three year lease , I was offered no money down , no residual payment at the end of the lease . After two years , its mine. They had a problem with some units smoking , or catching on fire , earlier this year , but I guess they've solved it , cause there's nothing new on Google about it. Still thinking about getting one.
The absolute WORST APU , is a PONY PACK , by APUs by REX . If you want nothing but trouble , Rex will be happy to help you lighten your wallet. What a piece of JUNK !
I've run into a few who like Rigmaster , but many more who hate them.
Boomer diesel , in Oklahoma City , is , from what I've heard , the best place to get one installed . They carry 3 different ones . I've talked to them , and they can give you some good advice . I don't want to lose my storage space , under the bunk , and they suggested I go with a Dynasys , and , instead of the under bunk unit , I put a Coleman rooftop unit on .
Hope this helps !

 

Which Central, there's a bunch of them? The yellow one? Heck no! You are lucky to have cab heat, lol.

The only thing I know about Onan is their generators for boats and RV's and they are superior in quality. I guess they are moving in on the APU market? TriPac's are Isuzu motors if I'm not mistaken. They are tough little motors. I had over 15,000 hours on my last unit and still ran strong. In the years I had it I had an alternator, fuel pump and belts replaced.

You can order them either way. You should of done a pretrip. A clamp will drip drip for a week before total failure How did you lose 12 gallons of coolant? Your alarm goes off after 1. jk


I'm sold on Tripac. They are bought by fleets for a reason, they last a long time. I'd say a minimum of 10 years and just swap them among trucks as needed. They pay for themselves in like 13 months so cost shouldn't be an issue even if you had to finance one.

 

The clamp had just been replaced less than an hour prior under warranty at a TK shop due to another problem with the unit. Not replaced correctly however. The hose came off and I lost all of my coolant in about a mile. You could see a trail of coolant on the road from where the hose came off to where I ended up on the shoulder. Luckily, I had 2 cases of drinking water on the truck, and was able to use that to get to a Pilot. Needless to say, Thermo King ended up paying to fill my truck back up with coolant.

 

Anybody have a Centramatic? How do you like it?

 

The Cummins model was called Comfortguard I think, but they discontinued making them for commercial trucks. Onan still makes lots of generators for RV's. I really thought that the Cummins system was the way to go for the '07 DPF regs. Those rules said that only an engine manufacturer could connect the APU to the truck DPF system if it was the same manufacturer as the main engine, and Cummins was the only one offering to do so. The DPF option on a TriPac is around another $3K!

Does anyone's current model meet CARB specs without a DPF?

 

There were no fires on any Dynasys units. There was a potential problem at the point where the power line plugged into the HVAC unit. If it was installed with a bend in the power cord at that point the connectors inside the plug could heat up. The way this was discovered was because some guy was packing his dirty clothes under his bed around the HVAC unit and this created even more heat and they started to smolder but never actually caught fire. The way that my unit was installed I never had this problem but I still got the free safety recall done at Boomer Diesel in Oklahoma City the other day and only lost 90 minutes total.

 

Kool ! I wanted to know what happened . You're the first I've seen to say anything.
Makes me feel better about getting one . Losing all that storage space under the bunk made me not want it , till I talked to Boomer Diesel. When they suggested the Coleman rooftop unit , I was ready to get one . Then the recall happened , and there was no info available on what it was , so that held it up again.
Guess I'll call Boomer Monday.

 

With the roof top unit there would not even have been a recall.