Cabovers

Do you guys over there in Europe understand that in America the trucks didn't offer electric windshield wipers till sometime in the 1990's? They were air wipers and in the winter wen moisture froze the pneumatic motors you had to basically run a rope trough the dor vents from one side to the other in a close loop and tightened it to the wiper arms and move them by hand. The heater core was so small and the blower so weak, besides that you froze like a popsicle, you had to lighten a candle in the window to have a little place that would kip defrosted enough to see outside.
Do you understand that power steering and steer axle brakes became a reality in American trucks only in the 1980's? Before than most of the trucks had no power steering and in the 70's some truck offered air assisted steering that was kind of crappy and no use in slow maneuvers.
The clutch pedal remaind even to this day in The Peterbuilt 379 directly mounted to the shaft that comes out of the clutch housing, via a curved rod that exits the cab trough a holle in the floor and then bent 90* towards the clutch housing. Air over hydraulic clutch pedal it's unheard of to this day here in America. Most trucks have a mechanical or hydraulic via slave cilinder linkage between the pedal and the clutch assembly. Synchronized transmissions are unheard of in class 8 trucks in America to this day.
So, for you truckers in Europe, if you want to see something that you only heard from your grandfathers, then take a Trip to America and take a look at the present day trucks here. It,s like going back in time!

 

Don't know what COE's you have been in, but the ones built by paccar have great heaters in them.

 

Sure enough, if you run in the lower 48 only and preferable below I40 in the winter months. But if you run across Canada into Alaska during the winter months then you'd know what I'm talking about. I drove freightshakers, international and KW's COE,s and conventional the same, and if the heater gave some heat on your right leg then your left leg was frozen stiff because the stupid door design allowed allot of wind to come trough. The freightshakers and the KW,s were notorious for crappy doors.
Listen, I don't like allot of things about Europe, but when it comes to trucks and especially COE's, I think that we might just learn a thing of two about it from the Europeans. They, in retrospect, should learn to respect the driver a little more and loosen up on restrictions and allow those guys that do long distance trucking to have a little more room and a bigger bed.

 

Listen y'all, there's a huge difference between American and European truck makets mostly due to the mentality of the operators and drivers. In America brand recognition plays a big role in the way truck builders are classified. Back in the day Peterbilt was very successful in building a grat reputation with a few slightly better aspects of their products quality and support then the rest of the pack. That got stuck in the psychology of the consumers. Even though virtually all truck builders in America sheared the same drive train components and technology with the only difference being in the design of the cab, the brand recognition still stuck strong regardless of the fact that, from the point of view of quality, all are just about the same. If Peterbuilt was to build the worst pile of crap, they would still be considered "THE BEST" in the industry because of the burgundy oval emblem saying "Peterbilt" and the 8' of hood, the 6" to 8" or even 10" pipes on each side and lots of shiny chrome.....even if you'd have to squeeze your a s s trough 6" of space between the seats and through a hoole into the sleeper from the narrow cab that makes it possible to get a suntan on both hands.
In Europe things are a little bit different. There looks, ergonomics, comfort and ease of operation are just as important as quality and good product support. That fact created a fears competition between the truck builders that are trying their best to capture a portion of the market. Even if Scania somewhat is enjoying an excellent brand recognition it would quickly go down if they would disappoint the consumers of their products with poor quality or a non progressive attitude towards advancing technologies applied in truck building. Chrome is not as important as a comfy and silk smooth ride and attention to the smallest details in design. In Europe drivers and operators switch really fast from one brand to another iff the later would offer a better product then the first. Over there brand is only as good as the product quality they produce.



And in the end ($$$$$) that's what drives the truck markets on the two continents that in many ways can't be more different one from the other and in other aspects very similar.

 

Yeah u are right in a sense, when scania introduced the 4 series back in '96 they had lots of 'teething' problems, it took them over a year to sort them out, in that time it done wonders for volvos sales! On the otherhand DAF and Iveco sell lots of trucks here and both are rubbish, Iveco possible cos of the 5 year bumper to bumper warranty, DAFS build quality is pretty good but engines and gearboxes are very unreliable!

My local Scania dealer is about $60 an hour, also they garuntee to have your truck back on the road within 24 hours no matter the problem with it or they will give you a replacement free of charge. It's one of the reasons I've stayed loyal to Scania over the years, having said that I've never availed of the service, I've never had any major issues with the scanias, that's another reason I've stayed loyal!

I drove a feightliner century class, hats off to guys that drive them but nobody here would! The ride was shocking, it was very noisy, build quality was questionable and the visibility outside was terrible, small windows combined with terrible mirrors left lots of blind spots, clutch too was very heavy. Here cabs have 4 point suspension that makes them very comfortable, engines are barely audible, big deep windows and good mirrors reduce blind spots however, our lawmakers sure could learn a thing or two from yours, we really could do with some extra room inside especially when there's two drivers, our cabs are fine for one guy but for two it's a joke, Scania did sell the biggest cab on the Market ( both sides of the pond ) but had to discontinue them due to poor sales because of the restrictions here.

There are some safety aspects you guys could do with, disc brakes with ebs can stop a truck loaded to 97,000lbs as fast as a car can stop, retarders should be mandatory on all trucks, better than jakes (which I know are very good) and easier to use and have 'antilock' built into them. Because our trucks are coe's cabs are designed to be really strong so rollover protection is excellent, Scania - Volvo can take a 15tonne static load on every pillar in the cab. Once again we could learn from you guys here, having the engine out front offers far superior protection in a head-on. Also a longer wheelbase is more stable and reduces the risk of jacknife even more.

There's no reason why our innovations can't be adopted into your trucks, likewise if our politicians would get their heads out where the sun don't shine we could have trucks that you could actually live in and a truck you'd be relatively safe in while in an accident.

 

The euro scinced trans works great ! For local , low milage jobs . The ware quickly ! Had a F7 volvo that we rebuilt the trans 3 times in million miles ! Other trucks in our fleet the trans had not been touched in 4 million . What we think of in us as regional , is their otr. And our otr is unheard of . Volvo and merc (freightliner ) make trucks for both markets for a reason! If they could use same spec/ platform, truck it would save them hundreds of millions .

 

We use both American and European trucks.
The American drive-line (motor , gearbox and diff) is good but the rest really cant compare to the European stuff in terms of quality.
It is however cheaper so it does compare from business perspective.

 

this is terrible


so than our trucks were at least 20years ahead?

how much was normal annual millage at that time?
here in 1980s and until mid 90s 80000km or 50000mille was normal year millage,and when drivers today talk about those trucks they always complain how uncomfortable and bad they were only they always told how they were able to live excellent in that time

we have old mb ng based on 1973 model , but it have all normal things 4point cab suspension ,air seat , powersteering , automated lubrication , electrical wipers , electrical mirrors and window relativly good ergonomics and visibility noise inside is more than today but it is still quite enough, have air assisted clutch but since it is twin clutch plate it is not that easy to press i think about 25lbs of pressure is required , heating is not at level of today trucks it is quite noisy , but there is no leak on doors or something

 

first two pictures are from mercedes web other two are from my , first picture shows mercedes eps automated gearbox it is second worlds first was scania cag

my have extednded day cab , i have two bunks for it but dont use them , also i have auxiliary independent heater for winter and refrigerator for summer but dont use refrigerator because it use lot of space

 

Point I am trying to get across is , The two markets are very diff ! What works great in the eu most likly stink here , and our would truly , truly stink. My 2011 freightliner was put in service april 2011 , today has 197k on it Ran solo . Home weekends