(first posted 7/23/2017) Daimler Trucks is the world’s largest manufacturer of mid-size and heavy trucks. The company’s main brand is Mercedes-Benz (Unimog included). The other members of the global trucking family are Freightliner, Western Star, Mitsubishi Fuso and BharatBenz.
Mercedes-Benz has a long-lasting reputation of building excellent heavy all wheel drive trucks with two, three or four axles. One might say that this 2008 Actros 6×6 dump truck is a descendant of the venerable L-series. The Actros series of cabover trucks and tractors was introduced in 1996, it replaced the aging SK-series.
This tough Actros, with a day cab, is powered by the OM 501 LA Bluetec 5 (as in Euro 5 emission standards) turbocharged diesel engine with an intercooler. It’s a V6 powerunit with 11.95 liter displacement. Maximum power output 320 hp @ 1,650 rpm, maximum torque output 1,650 Nm (1,217 ft-lb) @ 1,080 rpm.
In my country MAN, Iveco and Ginaf are the main competitors of the Mercedes-Benz all wheel drive trucks.
Very common, a PTO driven crane (a Palfinger, in this case) mounted inbetween the cab and the dump bed. It makes the truck even more versatile. Piet Ruizeveld from ‘s-Gravendeel built the dump bed. Repeat after me: “Piet Ruizeveld from ‘s-Gravendeel”.
Here’s the front axle, with super singles. Maximum legal axle load 9,000 kg (19,840 lbs).
Dual wheels on the rear drive axles. Still the norm.
The tandem is good for a total axle load of 19,000 kg (41,890 lbs). Add up the numbers and you get 28 metric tons maximum legal GVM.
Oh yes, did this whole setting look kind of familiar? That’s right, last year I caught a similar Iveco Trakker 6×6 at exactly the same spot. Seems to me the driver has got himself another set of ten wheels…
Your articles with pics are always enlightening, Johannes. For me, looking at European big trucks is like visiting another planet. There are so many variants that we seem never to have thought of over here. The Euro cargo van design certainly improved the breed in the US when it finally got established here.
Dynamic truck Johannes! I have never paid attention to truck tyres much, but I’m surprised how little tread pattern there is on the tyres. Is this unusual?
I’ve seen worse…
The legal minimum tread depth (on the main treads) for truck tires is 1.6 mm, same as for cars. In which case you’re almost driving on dry weather race slicks. Certainly not the case yet on the Benz truck.
With so much weight on the tyres, little sipes and grooves in the tread aren’t just as relevant.
These most likely had a few sipes and grooves in the tread, when there was still tread left. However around here people don’t normally run a rib type tire on a drive axle, in fact most would look at the remains of the tread pattern and ask why the steer tires on the rear.
I’m sure a tandem axle truck with proper drive tires and the inter-axle diff lock on will do much better in the mud and dirt than this with the front axle engaged and the inter axle locked.
Tire pressure, another important aspect.
On (or is it in?) soft soil, which we’ve got a lot, a standard chassis 6×4 truck with diff locks will never do the job. Not with the high axle loads and GVMs here.
There’s a huge armada of 4×4, 6×6, 8×8 and 10×8 trucks here, and there’s a reason for that, certainly not being bragging rights. Keep in mind that the payload capacity of an on/off-road 10×8 dump truck comes close to the maximum GVM of an interstate 18-wheeler in the US.
I myself am wondering why the ribbed front tires.
Even with a lot of weight on the tires, i would think hydroplaning is still possible, and in sandy soil I cannot think these tires will have a lot of bite.
One almost thinks they just put these tires on the beast as a temporary measure until the correct tires come in, or perhaps it’s a seasonal thing.
Do folks ever use Central Tire Inflation to vary tire pressure for different conditions?
Yes, tire de-/inflation systems are used. See Tatra Phoenix 8×8 below, with a whole different type of tire, obviously (photo courtesy of Agritruck Deurne, NL).
Meanwhile, the article’s Mercedes-Benz isn’t registered in my country any longer. Most likely, it was exported to the Middle East or Africa somewhere along the way. Business as usual.
Johannes, this is terrific for me. I used to sell light- medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Yes, I still look at trucks and I do look at tires as my guide to the capacity of the axles. There are some truck cab-and-chassis models that are not used in The United States because our overall lengths of vehicles permit longer chassis. Cab-over-engine cabs are more costly to build and, if not needed, are not used. We do use a lot of low-end medium-duty Japanese cab-over-engine trucks because they are not expensive. Unfortunately, the width o axles is a bit narrow. The result is instability if these trucks are used at high speed. We see them turned over in accidents because the driver’s are not aware of this instability or think, “It can’t happen to me.”
Again, thanks for sharing this information. I periodically see data on European trucks, mainly photos and pictures of their users and love them. Indian trucks fascinate me, too as well as the Chinese trucks. I would like to see more of the specifications, such as you shared, along with the photos underneath.
Yours,
Tom in Valley Cottage, NY
Glad you liked it.
Some extra info: a 9 metric tons front axle, which has become quite common around here, always has super singles. Plenty of on-highway trucks and tractors have them too. 100% cabovers here, with only a handful of non-factory custom-built conventionals.
Chinese brands of trucks are becoming more usual here, as yet I havent driven any but they are used on logs which is hard on any truck and Chinese brands are cheaper to destroy than European brands and do the job just as well, Too many operators arent complaining about them for them to be no good.
Thats what we call a six wheeler truck two wheels have single tyres four wheels are twin tyred a common configuration just choose your brand of truck.
Yes, every truckmaker builds 6×2 and 6×4 trucks and tractors. But a factory 6×6, let alone an 8×8 or 10×8? Try DAF, for example. They don’t offer them.
If you want a heavy all wheel drive truck based on DAF technology you have to call Ginaf or Tatra.
And it’s not only about the AWD aspect. Purpose-built on/off-road trucks also have a stronger chassis than their highway-only brothers and more steel parts instead of plastic. Like the front bumper.
Brands with a very good reputation in this field of work: Ginaf, Tatra, MAN, Iveco and Mercedes-Benz. Some legends from the past: Terberg, Steyr, Saurer, Magirus-Deutz and Hanomag-Henschel.
Yeah the tandem drive axle and single steer axle was commonly called a 6 wheeler back in the day in the US. somewhere I have a scan of an IH brochure for their new “6 wheelers”.
A wheel can be single or twin tyred its still just one wheel
WTF? Bryce, you’ve spewed a lot of stuff here over the years, way too much of it nonsense, but this takes the cake. How do you mount two tires on a single (“one”) wheel/rim?
Interesting truck. I believe International offers a factory 6X6 version of the WorkStar, not sure if Freightliner or PACCAR has any factory all-wheel-drive models at present it the U.S..
I am a little surprised Mercedes-Benz has not spun off their commercial truck unit yet. With practically no synergies between automobile and heavy truck manufacturing and very different ROI and earning expectations it doesn’t make much sense anymore for auto manufacturers to be in the commercial truck business. The Wall Street types will harp on ‘unlocking shareholder value’, much as I hate to admit it there is probably something to that thought.
Daimler AG’s (the mothership) truck division is called Daimler Trucks, the car division is Mercedes-Benz Cars. Last year the truck division, I mentioned its brands in the article, sold 415,000 trucks worldwide (real trucks, minimum payload capacity 6,000 kg). And that is an almost unbelievable number when looking to other manufacturers of mid-size and heavy trucks.
As long as Daimler AG will be around, Mercedes-Benz trucks will be around.
Things are done differently in Germany. Spin offs are not that common there. They tend to have a longer range perspective than in the US.
I understand that, but actually a spin-off may actually be better in the long run. Not that Mercedes should actually divest it’s truck operation, just separate it from the automobile business and issue specific stock in the truck operation. This is what Exor did separating Iveco and CNH from Fiat automobiles, though no question in that instance the automobile business was dragging down the value of the truck and machinery operations. That is not currently the case with Daimler.
In any event Daimler is no stranger to spin-offs, remember Adtranz and DASA?.
https://www.autoblog.com/2017/08/24/daimler-report-restructure-break-up-mercedes-divisions/
It happened. Driven in part to ‘enhance shareholder value’ (which it did), spinning off Daimler Trucks from Mercedes Benz will allow their respective enterprise values to be more accurately reflected in their price per share. It should also help Mercedes and Daimler Truck to raise capital for electric/fuel cell technology. In other news, Daimler Trucks will, over the next 8 years or so, switch to Cummins mid-range diesel engines for both Freightliner trucks in North America and Daimler Trucks in Europe and the rest of the world. Daimler will even go so far as to license build Cummins engines in Germany. Interesting to note that Freightliner is by a wide margin the largest and most profitable part of Daimler Trucks. 80% of new Freightliner medium duty trucks sold are Cummins powered.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-trucks-divestiture/daimler-to-spin-off-truck-unit-sharpen-investor-focus-on-mercedes-benz-idUSKBN2A329T
https://www.ttnews.com/articles/daimler-truck-ag-taps-cummins-supply-all-medium-duty-engines
Sounds like Daimler Trucks does indeed have a long range perspective.
Yes. I’ve been following it for some time. The time they are a changing!
Interesting truck Johannes – what would they mount to the front? A grader blade or similar? Also I don’t think I’ve seen a solid folding lid for the dump bed (for want of a better term) out here, they tend to use sliding pvc covers to keep the dust in.
A snow plow or sweeper broom. Typically this kind of dump trucks (4×4, 6×6 and bigger) is also used during winter months for salt spraying.
I can just imagine one of these heavy duty Mercedes Benz trucks reconfigured as a four door with a hatchback rear complete with all wheel drive, blackened stylized rims, yards of stainless steel trim, leather trimmed seating and high gloss piano black wood accents throughout; there would also be the latest driver distracting electronic gizmos dotting the cabin to enhance the driving experience, and a standard 1000HP biturbo gas engine that would achieve an estimated 5MPG so you can shoot from lane to lane (without using your turn signals), and blast to 60 miles per hour in 4 seconds while in a 35 mile per hour posted speed limit zone. If Mercedes built it I’m sure they’d sell boatloads of them to the vanity conscious-mega wealthy in California.
We won the war, but the Germans and Japanese and a bunch of other countries won the peace. It seems like every iconic American brand name is owned by someone else than an American company today. We ended up being globalized rather than us globalizing the world.
I would really like to read an article about the reasons behind the take-overs in the US trucking industry during such a short period of time, that’s roughly the early eighties. I mean Renault/Mack, Daimler/Freightliner and Volvo/White-GMC (meanwhile also Mack since Volvo took over Renault Trucks).
There’s been some takeover in the opposite direction, with Paccar picking up Foden/Leyland and DAF.
Right, in 1996. I’d say a match made in heaven. DAF was too small to survive as an independent truckmaker in the long run (they already went belly-up in 1993), and now PACCAR has become a global player. With their own line of engines, something they didn’t have before the take-over.
Now also Volkswagen (TRATON) has taken over Navistar/International. So there is only one U.S. owned heavy truck maker, PACCAR (Peterbilt/Kenworth). Mack and Volvo are both owned by Volvo, Freightliner/Western Star by Daimler, International by TRATON. Oh, I forgot, there is one more U.S. owned truck maker – Autocar, which was spun off out of Volvo/White and is a small maker of mostly refuse trucks.
With the Cummins joint venture I wonder whether that jeapordizes the medium-duty engine supply
Which raises the question: what caused all this?
This is my understanding, but those “who were there” probably have a better understanding than me.
Each of these takeovers was for a different reason, but many of them were spurred on by the upheaval in the American trucking industry caused by the stagflation of the 1970’s combined with the deregulation of the trucking industry in 1979, which led to huge changes in the market for heavy trucks. Kenworth and Peterbilt probably did the best of all the American truckmakers during that time period because they marketed especially to owner-operators and smaller firms, which saw rapid growth during this period.
Mack – Mack had become part of a conglomerate, Signal Industries, in the late 1960’s, highly fashionable during those times (think LTV). Mack was hurt by the big downturn in the commercial truck market commensurate with the stagflation of the late 1970’s, at the same time that Signal was looking to deconglomerate and Renault was looking to expand (remember they bought AMC around the same time, the late 1970’s). Eventually Renault took full control in 1990.
Volvo/White – White trucks had purchased a number of other truckmakers in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but overall their market share tumbled, and they never developed a successful medium-duty truck line. Again, the stagflation of the 1970’s only accelerated their decline. Volvo trucks, looking for an entrance into the American market, purchased their assets in bankruptcy. In 1986, looking to exit the heavy-duty truck market, as Dodge had done earlier and Ford would do 10 years later, GM sold it’s heavy-duty truck line (but not medium-duty trucks, those would continue until the 2009 bankruptcy of General Motors. When Volvo merged with Renault, it was forced to divest Autocar trucks because of the dominance the combined firm would have in the refuse market.
Freightliner – Freightliner had always been owned by Consolidated Freightways, a unionized common carrier which saw it’s business rapidly changing and disappearing after deregulation, and looked for a lifeline by selling Freightliner to Daimler-Benz, looking for an entry point into the American market.
International Trucks – After arising as Navistar from the ashes of International Harvester, which sold off it’s agriculatural division in the early 1980’s, labor issues, stagflation, a recession in the agriculature industry in the United States, and the effects of deregulation all contributing. However, International had done well since then, but fell again on hard times around 2010, partly because of issues with their attempts to use EGR technology instead of SCR, causing huge regulatory issues/fines and warranty claims. They turned to Traton (Volkswagen) as a partner, and that has now turned into full ownership by the latter.
Thanks JM for this comprehensive reply, much appreciated!
I didn’t even know that Mack was part of a conglomerate in the decades prior to the Renault V.I. take-over.
PACCAR has always been a solid and financially very sound (family) business. Thriving right from the start and ever since.
Yes, a very good brief summation. I remember seeing this all happen in real time.
In 1964 Chrysler attempted to acquire Mack trucks, but it was shot down by the Justice Department, which said the acquisition would lessen competition. I don’t see how that could occur, since Dodge was barely in the heavy truck field, and Mack had no light or medium trucks. GM, Ford and International all built full ranges of trucks, and Brockway, Freightliner, White, Diamond Reo, Kenworth and other heavy truck manufacturers provided plenty of competition.