Carrier or TK

Honestly its dealers choice. TKs are in my opinion and experince FAR more reliable on average, cool better and are a lot easier to work on and diagnose when they do break. They have a lot more very good options such as a larger altinator or standalone system. They also have a lot of aftermarket parts that make them even better.

However they are a lot more expensive to maintain, getting parts can be very hard, and they require you to stick to the maintaince schedule if you want that reliability. They require a laptop to be able to access the computer diagnostics and they tend to eat altinators if you max the load out a lot.

Carriers well they are a lot cheaper, easier to get parts are a tiny bit more fuel efficent and are smaller overall. They can handle going without maintaince better then the TK models and are a bit more strudy in construction.

However they tend to break down a lot. Can be hard to diagnose, dont cool for #### from my experonce with the 5 i have used, have a nasty habbit of eating rings from what i am told are way louder and tend to vibrate the truck a lot more then the TK models do. Also this is subjective but i can smell a lot more unburned fuel when im around a carrier then my TK.

 

My experince has been the reverse on the TKs BUT i also have an older used unit so it could just be mine is old and has lost efficency compared to the brand new carriers i have used in the past. As for the warranty i think so yes. But i am unsure as like i said mine is pretty old and was used when i got it.

 

If you have a condo, the Texas heat makes any APU work half well. Actually any hot summer heat. Just doesn’t have enough cooling. Better off with a gas generator and some type of higher BTU AC set up. Just my opinion.

 

I have a 2018 T680 and there is plenty of room with the TK Evolution behind the tanks to check the oil and open the hatch. I will try and get a pic tomorrow when I'm back in the truck. It may be the fuel tanks I have are smaller as the TK came factory installed. As for service all I've done is oil changes twice a year.

 

The TK’s run colder but IMO carriers are more reliable. Also when I had a TK it was just a knob while carriers had an digital thermometer that also showed the current cab temperature. Carriers are louder so I opt to have it run the whole night instead of having it on start stop so it can be filtered out. I personally like the carriers more cause it comes with an alternator and a generator while the TKs is just a bigger alternator. Another issue with the carrier is the way it was engineered you can’t have any Joe Shmoe touching that thing they will break it. If you do opt for the carrier when it’s a hot deal pre cool the cab with the main engine’s ac unit then use the apu engine’s unit to maintain the temperature and shut the sleeper curtains

 

Book says service every 2k hours but I will tell you if you don’t want problems with the carriers do it every 1k-1.4k hours.