Im in the process of finding a medium duty truck with a 250 hp motor and 33,000gvw. I have come up with several with automatics and i was just wanting to see what people with experience have to say about them. This truck will be used as a roll off truck but will spend alot of time on the highway. Any thoughts on durability, power to the ground, etc would be great.
If the trucks you're looking at have an Allison tranny, and it's properly matched up (factory) with the rear end ratio, I don't see a problem. Allison is top notch when it comes to automatic transmissions. No issue with durability, and the lock up converter makes it pretty much like a gear transmission on the highway, and works well with exhaust brake programs with the engine and ECU. And considering how many drivers actually know how to use a manual transmission and clutch brake nowdays, the auto is becoming more popular. I know of one big dump truck outfit in my area that's replacing their fleet with Allison fitted dump trucks because they have so many problems with drivers and manual boxes and clutches.
I have a gravel hauler friend with 12 trucks that went to automatics 10 years ago. Claims he will never go back to standard transmissions. U-joint failure and twisted gears and shafts have completely gone away plus less getting stuck from clutch jumpers, according to him.
I agree with this 100%
Almost every front discharge ready mix truck runs a Allison! They are great off road, they just dig down and keep pulling.
Thats good to hear! I have one in a Freghtliner box truck but its got a smaller 170 hp engine and is like a giant sail going down the highway. Didnt think that was going to be a fair comparison. I like the idea of the automatic with a couple of the guys not the best at driving a manual shift. I think i will keep looking and if the right truck has an automatic i wont shy away.
I love them. They are more cost upfront but they require less maintenance (seems like manuals always need one thing or another, often driver error or abuse), they are easier on fuel supposedly in anything but long haul OTR where they are not really necessary anyway, they might save tow truck bills from not getting stuck, they allow the truck to get from point A to point B faster due to not having to row through 6 or 7 gears to reach 35 mph, no clutch to replace, less chance of broken drive line parts, etc. If you do buy one see if you can get the high performance shift program put into it by the Allison dealer because they often come with shift programs that are just plain bad and don't match the motor very well. Don't go for the kiss-the-windshield automatic call for 2nd gear on throttle lift, let the driver select low gears if he wants to but get a Jake or exhaust brake if you can.
One more question..... I found a truck that is set up the way i want with the 33,000gvw and 250hp engine. Its not spring suspension though its air bags. Will that be a problem? Good or bad?
I think it will really depend on how much off roading you do. I've never had air suspension but everyone I've spoken to said to avoid it if you need to go off the road much, I don't think it articulates very well. I'm sure someone on here will do a better job of explaining with some more detail.....
We just got a cat truck with auto. Seams like every one is going that way but I'm old school. Just read below lol
Take it your not driving it! LOL.... Yeah, i have heard the same thing on the bags being a bit unstable. I just wasnt sure if someone would say to stay away from one in this application or not though
As a mechanic who deals with a lot of Allison "Check Trans" lights I can tell you 9 times outta ten it is a wiring harness rubbed through on something leading to the trans and not actually anything in the trans thats broken
Guys I work for have a Freightshaker tandem with an Allison Automatic and a Mercedes engine. It's pretty nice to drive and a bit faster off the mark and nice for short little hauls. We pull a tri-axle trailer often with either a Kobelco 210LC or a Hitachi ZX160LC it sometimes feels like it could use a bit more power in the top end but not bad over all. The bad part of that truck is the electronics always seems to be a sensor putting up a code.
I have spent extensive time off road in almost the exact same truck, Kenworths in my case, and they all had air suspension except for one old L8000. I never thought the suspension was a hindrance at all. It seemed like a pretty non-issue to me.
Most of the newer log trucks around here have air ride. They are as much off-road as anybody and speak quite positive about it. Many of these guys are old school Hendrickson suspension guys that expected the air ride to be problematic but they changed their tune after using them for a while. But they are not raising boxes to unload either.
I know some of the older tandems I've driven in the past they were all converted highway trucks and usually only had an Inter-axle differential lock and if you had to haul off-road as we were in the basement excavation business so we were always hauling mud and dirt to places that were bumpy, soft and just altogether nasty for a highway truck. The older leaf ride trucks always seemed to handle the conditions much better, when they bought their first air ride tandem a Freightshaker FLD120 with a Cummins N-14 and a 10 speed manual whenever it was empty an got on a bump or in a hollow it would be 'stuck on nothing' as we would often say usually this was in winter when the ground was frozen hard. The problem appeared to be a combination of things first of all the heavy N14 engine kind of counterbalanced the back of the truck so there was no weight on the drives and second of all it seemed to be a lack of suspension travel. Other outfits had trucks with three or four way lock up and that seemed to help a lot with the problem with these converted trucks. Maybe the purpose built vocational trucks have better suspension travel or articulation?
Thats the thing i was thinking about! Also, when we use the flatbed it might be just a little top heavy but i didnt know if that would matter with air ride or not. Seems like it wouldnt matter being that every semi flatbed and van trailer on the road runs air bags. I see them hauling the larger steel coils standing on end. I couldnt be doing anything more top heavy than that.....
We had a couple tri axel dumps with bags and just set them up to dump air when pto is engaged. Never had much trouble after that. Update on the cat truck it shifts funny on the 2 3 shift. I guess they know about it but have not come up with a fix yet. Was told so do it and some don't.
as far as air ride goes the RIGHT air ride makes all the difference. Don't expect kenworth 8 bag or regular airliner/ air leaf to be that great. Get a true off highway air ride like hendrickson primaxx. Had it on my KW-T800 heavy haul with 52K rears and it was a dream. Never let me down, very rarely had to throw the axle locks in sand or slick conditions, usually the inter axle was enough to get me through.
Back to the topic of auto trans. Had several Allison autos in the past in hook lifts and dumps, wouldn't buy another truck without an auto trans. All I want a truck to do is go from point A to point B (whatever it may be) in the quickest and most efficient means possible. Had 2 - '07's Mack Granite MP7 425 with Allison auto, one hell of a truck. Power to spare and a breeze to drive.
Myself, I can go either way. Yes, and auto is way more "less laborious" to drive, just one of the benefits. But I'm just as happy with a crash box, I cut my teeth on a fuller 5 x 4 Quadraplex. But speaking from a mechanic perspective, I've gnawed the arse of more than one driver for allowing his clutch pedal to have no free play and not letting me know so I can adjust it. After all, I'm not in the cab driving that thing, but it's me that's pulling the tranny to replace a smoked clutch because they drive it with no clutch free play. Likewise, too many drivers have no clue how to properly use a clutch brake. These problems are eliminated with a properly set up Allison.
When I was driving if a truck went in for clutch/transmission work or any chance I got, I would have them fix the clutch brake if possible. Nevertheless I estimate that my time in a truck with correct clutch brake and clutch adjustment was about 5-10% of the time, otherwise something was always wrong with it and you had to just deal with it. Such as finding which gear position was easiest to grind into to get things stopped when the light turned green so you could take off. Or remembering if you were going to be stopped for a short time to always come to a stop with the transmission still in gear and move it to the takeoff gear quickly if the clutch was one of those that did not release 100%. Another driver could wreck my clutch brake in just one day of driving. That is one major reason I prefer automatics.
Birken Vogt, you just brought up another layer to this...a mechanic who knows how to properly set up/adjust a clutch and clutch brake, or, the lack thereof. Another feather in the hat of an automatic.
A buddy of mine that runs transfers has started specing the primaxx, he used to run Chalmers. He said the Hendrickson isn't quite as good as the beam off road but the drivers are way happier at the end of the day lol. Most of the on highway air ride doesn't have hardly any travel, Pete air leaf is about 1.5", low air does way better. The on highway Hendrickson does pretty good.
Sort of the same but different, are automated manual transmissions. What's been everyone's experience with them? Iam thinking for mainly lower speed tipper application. Cheers, Greg
I can't bring myself to trust them, my only experience with them was when they first came out and they did some goofy stuff. I know a guy that got stuck across 2 lanes of traffic and a turn lane because the computer forgot how to shift.
Yeah CM ... All of my heavy trucks have clutch & crash box transmission's in them . I'm used to it . Grew up with it & so on . I'm always impressed how well a front dump concrete truck with Allison auto & torque convertor can crawl around a job site in less than better conditions . Few guys in my area running auto's in tri axil trucks . Seem to get along fine . On yore next truck .... Will you go with a Tandem / tri axil with Allison auto & tag trailer to move equipment ?
I've had both TD. An International tandem (C13 Cat, Allison) and a Mack Granite tri (MP7, Allison). Both trucks pulled my tag trailer. The tri-axle was better at pulling the tag just because you could lower the lift axle to smooth out the ride and ad an extra set of brakes. Both Allisons were the HD 4560's. The Mack would launch from a red light unloaded, it was fun every once and a while leaving the 4 wheelers behind in disbelief..
Not to swerve the topic, but if an A/R truck struggles when off road, adding a leveling valve can help. A separate valve for each side does wonders for certain suspensions.
Thanks for all the replies so far..... very helpful! I ended up losing the truck i was interested in that had the automatic, so its back to the drawing board. New question...... I have located a very nice Hino 338 thats 33,000 gvw 260hp and automatic. Any comments on these trucks? I have absolutely no experience. How do they stack up to a Freightliner M2 or International 4400. Which of these three would you rather have? Ive come to the conclusion that the Kenworth is out of my reach! Cant bring myself to write that bigger check!!
Our first hook lift truck was a 2007 single axle Hino 268A, 26K chassis. Great truck, had very few problems with it. I drove that truck as a C&C to Nulife Environmental in SC to get the hook put on, that was a long ride but it was comfortable. Really liked the layout of the truck and the cab. If I was in the market for a single axle, I'd look at them. Hino is owned by Toyota.
local wrecker company took a loss of 20K each to get rid of five hinos because they were more problems than they were worth.
I have a good friend who has been a propane truck driver since the early 90s. He says the Hinos are extremely reliable and trouble free. Propane is rough on a truck, lots of dirt roads and starts and stops. I have never driven one myself, though
I've heard good things about hinos. Big comfortable cab with lots of visibility and toyota reliability is hard to beat.
What were the issues with the wrecker companies trucks? That seems like a lot of money to lose! Would you guys rate a Hino above a similar International or Freightliner?
Yair . . . Certainly in the Australian context Dualie's observations are atypical of the marque. I can only imagine there must have been some wrong specification or operational problem as here the Hino's have (or had?) an excellent reputation in many applications. Cheers.
they were having big time Regen problems mainly, and a turbo and injector issue. The owner is a tough stubborn SOB so it wouldnt surprise me if he had a couple of problem children and dumped the lot. He bought half new M2's and half new Paccar products to replace them.
We've had a terrific run out of our Hinos. We still have two from the mid eighties that are worth next to nothing on the used market but are still very reliable trucks so can't bear to part with them. Also have a little dual cab work truck with all the regen crap, two years old and no problems yet, touch wood. Cheers, Greg
Although not a giant issue, Allison's are really happy with clean filters and scheduled fluid changes.
Anybody run one with the J08E 260 HP engine? Wondered if they were good on power?
I don't remember the engine model in the one we had but I think it was 220HP. Peppy little truck with the auto, it would move down the road.
We have one with the J08C motor, I believe essentially the same, but with in line fuel pump instead of common rail. It is 250 hp with 9 speed Eaton manual trans. The truck is rated at 16.5 metric tonnes gross, it will happily carry that all day at the speed limit. Also rated to tow a 16 tonne trailer, for a 32 tonne gross, but you have start shuffling gears if you point it at a hill, so we don't do it very often. Been a very reliable truck though. Cheers, Greg
Tow truck application and Tier 3 emissions are more than likely the culprit. Wreckers will more than likely do a lot of idling. But, they could have been Monday trucks.
I had a retired Ryder box van (GMC Topkick) with a 3126 Cat matched to a 4-sp Allison. I drove it from the Oregon coast to Montana and bock, then from Oregon to Alaska and it did not miss a beat with over 300K.
they were rollbacks and hes a real salty bugger and they ran hard, Id say 15% idle time would be a fair estimate.