Thoughts on a Day-use AG truck

You know, my best friend used to haul milk, doing farm pickup, and delivering to the dairy. His routes were pretty long, and most times he waited a few hours at the dairy.

The company he was working for was mostly any brand of truck, but there were no Freightliners to be found. And no sleeper trucks either. Well, he whined and dined the boss for a small sleeper truck. He wanted a W900 with a small bunk. Instead he got a brand spanking new Freightliner M2-112, just like the one in the picture above. He wasn't thrilled to say the least.

His first night out with it he ended up waiting at the dairy for a couple hours. So he crawls back in the sleeper.

I called him, curious how he liked his new ride. Well, I got quite an earful when he answered. In between the cussing and swearing, I was able to decipher that he sat up, came out of the sleeper and whacked his melon off the CB. Put a pretty good gash in his fat bald head too.

He ended up growing to like the truck in the end, other than the Mercedes engine. Said it was as light as the T800 daycab he previously drove.

 

What part of the valley do you live in? The carrot haulers in Bakersfield seem ro stay busy.

 

Just north of Sacto. I've talked with a few guys that head south to bakersfield for a week here and there to do intermittent harvests, part of the reason I'm interested in a sleeper as an option.

 

LOL! So other than headroom... he liked it?

Those double-tankers I see rolling on I-5 with milk, is that an 80k lb load? I imagine they maximize the capacity on those things, but I haven't gotten the chance to talk to anyone that does it. Not a whole lot of dairy around me, but an hour or two south there is a lot. Might look to pick up some of that work if it's lucrative.

 

Yeah, he liked it for the most part. Actually the truck had adequate head room, it was just the CB was mounted in a dumb spot.

 

The M2 isn't a medium duty chassis, it's a small class 8 like the International 8600. When I was in the oilfield, we had several triaxle water trucks (1 lift, tandem drives). They had 475hp Mercedes motors, and while they didn't have the torque of the Cat or Cummins, they weren't awful. My current employer has quite a few M2's with tandem drives, none at my location though, but they're all full 80K lb class 8 trucks.

 

JPenn, thanks! Would it pull a full load (80k lbs) OK? My AG loads are usually 80k or a touch over, but no hills to speak of just flat, flat valley land.

I wish I could test-drive a truck like this with a load behind it, haha.

 

Our M2's are usually equipped with the Cummins ISL-G CNG motor, at 320hp/1000tq, so no, they do not like 80K loads much at all. We only have one rig with that motor at our facility, a Volvo VNL single axle, and in NY/PA it struggles on hills even with a load of 12-14K on the trailer.

The truck you're looking at, I wouldn't think it would have any trouble, with a 450hp DD13. Plenty of national carriers have similar power ratings and go everywhere at 80K gross.