Kenworth, not the truck it used to be

A couple of things come to mind for me regarding trucks becoming more complicated as well as what I think of as "less like a truck and more like a car" (integrated systems, car-like instrument panels instead of the traditional separate components).
First, we can probably blame excessive emissions regulations more than anything else for the engines getting more complicated. The more stuff they mandate, the more engineering is required just to get them to run right. The more engineering required, the more opportunity for technical issues. I actually feel somewhat sorry for the companies and their engineers, they have a lot of pressure on them to comply in one end, and us drivers complaining on the other (and believe me, I've done my share of complaining).
As far as some of what I and I assume some of you feel are nice comfort features, but impractical in the real world, in my view today's trucks are being designed by people who have never been in a truck, and I question exactly how much input they get from drivers when designing them.
As for my company, we're driving leased Cascadias (2014-2016), most of which at this point have around 200,000 miles, and we've actually had very few problems with them. I swore I would never end up liking a Freightliner, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoy driving mine.

 

I have to say also JReding, I had no love for Freightliner either, but after having two classic style and a new Coronado 122SD that are used as tractors, logger and a dump truck, they had better build quality than my much more expensive Western Star?
I was really surprised at how they held together off road.

 

Nothing pleases me more than seeing a DPF truck belch out more unburned fuel smoke in 5 minutes, than a 3406b puts out in a year.

I'd venture to say an old mechanical probably pollutes less and costs less to operate in 5 years than any new truck, when you factor in downtime cost and the amount of pollution generated when the aftertreatment system screws up.

 

According to my ECM, my DD15 burns 4 gallons of fuel doing a 30 minute parked regen.
Ridiculous.