HX Test Drive

Well just tried out a new HX. I gotta admit, I was pretty sour when International replaced the Paystar with this and went to the Cat truck style interior.
I am currently running a DD15 powered Western Star 4900 and an ISX powered Coronado 122SD before that. Both are fully loaded units, not plain fleet spec.

And I can say this HX is the nicest truck I have ever driven. International has a winner here.
Obviously I can't speak of reliability, but just driving feel. We all know it will have issues, it has an emission motor after all, LOL.

I don't know if it is the truck or the new X15 Cummin's, but this truck is quieter inside than my Star. And my Star is one of the quietest trucks I have ever driven except for my old Mack CH highway tractor.
All you can hear is turbo whistle. Very quiet.

This truck has 52,000 pound Primaxx rear suspension and it rides smoother than my Star's 46,000 Air liner.

Steering is firmer, which I like. It's more sports car feeling. But the shifter is way more rubbery feeling than my Star. And longer throws. But wasn't as hard shifting as my Paystar was until it broke in.

This truck has the air assisted clutch. Very little travel and effort, but you want to hope it never fails because it is very hard to push when it had no air pressure.

Visibility is excellent and I think International has the nicest looking hood/fender mirrors.

Only thing I didn't like about this one was dealer failed to order the 150,000 pound center tow hook.

I thought I would be thrown off by that big combined speedo/tach but I didn't even notice that while I was driving.

 

$205,000 Canadian. It was ordered when the exchange rate was not as bad as it is now.
Another Star like mine is $220,000.

This HX is nicely equipped. It's only single stack and doesn't have all the fancy light bars like my Star has, but has the heated dump box with an electric vibrator also, on board axle weight scales (which is about a $2500 option), heated seats, 50 ton pintle hitch and wetline to the rear, etc.
And of coarse, my provinces mandated SPIF self steering weight equalizing lift axle.
We are allowed 9,000 KG per axle with this spread, so like my Star the allowable gross is 36,000 KG (or just about 80,000 pounds.)

It's set at 505 h.p./1850 torque which is fine because I rarely pull the pony dump anymore because no one ever wants to pay you for hauling double the load.

 

Didn't buy it yet.