Convince me on Kenworth vs Freightliner

a dedicated service employer

i've driven nearly all makes of trucks, mack visions, mack ch's, volvo, internationals, petes. western stars, kw's, one scania, sterlings, freightliners, white, white/volvo, REO. to name a few over my nearly 40 years.

 

I had to google what KW 680 is before shooting off my mouth.

The KWT2000 or the Studio long nose 900 are the two I would buy today if I was not worried about everything in the real world.

Freight-liner has a place in my heart too. However if you push em, abuse em and run em down, they will break down over time. Very specific Freightliners, One I bought plus a long nose day cab with a fantastic engine and transmission long ago in the days of old iron made me feel really good. HOWEVER. I think I spent too much time in them and don't want to spend anymore time than necessary, in short burned out on them.

But if you had a choice take the Freightliner. The KW680 has evolved too much. For example the upper cab fairing, is that a full habitable space by a human or is it a air dam with dead space under it to save money on a midroof sleeper? If you are going to have a sleeper back there I want it all, The T2000 has it all for example.

There is another practical reason, dead space under a fairing allows a illegal to get up in there down by the Rio. Thats not welcome. If you want to build a nice truck that high, then make it a full condo or studio, use all that volume for the benefit of the human.

Ive been told to try to keep the posts shorter. So that's the end of this one. I hope it helps you a little bit.

 

It boils down to which one is more comfortable when you are broke down with a dpf/regen issue. Go with the truck with easiest access to the tow hooks.

 

View attachment 230034 View attachment 230034 View attachment 230034 View attachment 230034 View attachment 230034 Easy-Freightliner as they can be serviced more places. They are all pretty much non-durable plastic shells ridden with electronics that malfunction every few hours lighting up your dash like a christmas tree anyway. Odd how I passed so many new trucks broke-down on the road when I drove me 89 K 100 cabover-29 years old and still pulling freight.

 

If I were ever going to pull a dry van or reefer, my FIRST choice would be a T680. I drove a few of these when I was with Swift. Hands down it is far more comfortable and handles far better than a Cascadia.

In slick conditions it was Rock solid. I TRIED to get it to yaw when practicing in icy parking lots and it refused. The controls for the Jakes and cruise control are the most ergonomically correct setup I have ever driven. You can play it like a piano.

My guess is it is very likely the only way you will be separated from that T680 is with a crowbar.

 

Trucks are a bit like people we can really like them or hate them either one will have faults and good points its a matter of choosing which one your happiest with.

 

Oh RLY? That's interesting. Hand me that please kind sir, let's make some slides out of it.

That must be some sort of active traction control or something along those lines talking maybe.

 

Yes, it did indeed have activate traction control. Whether that is specced in the OP's truck I don't know.

I will say that I was pretty aggressive with those T680's in the parking lot playgrounds, and I couldn't get them to yaw, with or without a trailer.

I made a few dozen runs over the Rockies with a T680 on I-70 in the winter. About the same number of passages with Cascadia. Hands down the T680 was the best.

 

Driven both daycabs and sleeper of the same trucks. All day every day KW. The cascadias in my opinion are just cheaply made and cheap looking overall. Although I know all trucks nowadays are not what they use to be..but between the two now hands down KW.

 

Active traction control by computer. In a big truck. Nice.

I had a auction house caddy CTS in about 2008 and took her onto the arkansas back roads with a very big lead foot and a 200+ mph speedo to see what I can do with it. I had it in complete traction control but allowed the driver a sort of sport or spirited driving.

I tell you this. There were a couple of dry curves I expected some squeal off that rubber and maybe a little power to be added to get out of way above those little yellow speed limit advised signs.

That car knew what I was trying to do and went to work. I took curves at 130+ rated for 50 with just a little bit of grumble here and there with that thing. I just did not have room in the Ozarks to really open that thing up.

If that is what active tractive control is, in a semi on ice would most certainly cut down on the slides and dancing those things do in my time. Im sorry I missed having one like that.

I too enjoyed a few acres of ice with a bobtail to break em loose and drift either a circle or a figure 8 at will. Now if the boss or owner ever caught sight of me doing that to his equiptment... I would not be here lol.