Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

A lot of the road maintenance companies ditch the front, belly and wing plows during the summer and run them as dump trucks (the bigger tandem and tridrive trucks, not so sure about the smaller ones). Some will actually pull the box off as well and pull belly dumps or end dumps for construction work too. I've even seen a few that have water tanks that slip inside and get chained to the dump box.

 

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Of course you have, but no truck. I saw same photos , 5 years ago.

 

I get your point, but these huge trucks are very expensive to buy and to operate. Compare that with the mining trucks I showed in the video. The front end of such a truck, the engine, transmission, cab, is standard, en relatively cheap. The rear end of the truck is a heav, y chassis with three or four massive but standard axles. These are all standard components, easy to maintain, and the parts are relatively cheap. The fuel consumption per tonne is also far less. So in order to know what is better suited for a mine, you have to make your calculations!

Yes, they do. The first time I saw such a truck I couldn't imagine how anyone could design such a thing. Now I understand, it is just to add as many axles as possible. However, that foldable super super dumper axle is the most idiotic thing I've ever seen. I understand why it is there, but when such a ludicrous contraption is presented at the DOT, you might hope that they should realize that the bridge law needs a bit of a modification, so that normal tippers can be build in the US. These things look like they were made by a mad 19th century inventor.

67,000 lbs is not that much for a four axle truck. In the Netherlands such a truck could weigh 50% more, assuming the axles of the tridem are at least 6 feet apart (which means steerable rear axle(s) ).

 

It seems there is a prototype now, but I'm not sure.

 

Here is a photo from my job today.

 

For that kind of work we have small tippers based on a van chassis. I don't think you have those kind of small trucks in the US. You do have Euro vans, but not these kind of trucks. Instead you will have pickup trucks, but those things are not very fuel efficient.

This is a Sprinter truck, possibly a tipper. The crane is optional of course:



These things are much cheaper of course, and you can mount a snow plough:

 

Lots of (smaller) municipalities in Netherlands and Belgium uses small 4x2 or 4x4 trucks as well for same purposes. Often with crane behind the cab. Maybe quite not as small as the one CAT SDP showed.

In winter they attach a snowplow and put on a gritter/salt spreader. Very common in the more rural areas, not so much on the main highways.

 

Assuming the 18 and the 13 both have 0.73 overdrive, overall ratio is not that different from what is common in europe nowadays. 0.73 x 3.72 = 2.72.
In europe 2.4 - 2.6 is pretty common for long distance trucks, some even lower. Also depends on tire size of course.

Your tires are probably a bit taller. Engine revolutions per mile is very similar.

 

Sprinter and cheap usually dont go in same forum post.

Spriter is 25-30% more expensive as big van and even like 40% more expensive as small van than competition.

However if you are looking for serious product than there is no alternative as new crafter is no longer as good as it used to be....

For price of sprinter you can buy cheaper brand 7.5 ton truck