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Tester's impression: It may only have had some 35,000km on
Page 52
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the clock, but there was some evidence that not everyone who had driven Merc's Actros 8x4 demonstrator had shown it as much respect as it deserved. For a start, it had no sheeting system because ffs original Harsh Flipngo had been knocked off a few days before our test.
The robust steel bumper arrangements on the construction Actros gives it a much butcher styling than its highway colleagues, but the traditional long climb up to the cab is the same. Apart from the sheer height, access is easy enough, but when getting out we noticed that the swinging lower step was mounted rather too far forward. The chassis spec is suitably tough, with straight front axles and hub-reduction drive axles.
Having climbed aboard all the expected Mercedes efficiency is immediately apparent. Despite the limitations of the short day cab, excellent use is made of interior space. The majority of the controls the driver uses most frequently are mounted on chunky column stalks, and while these may be initially confusing to a newcomer, they're soon learned. The right stalk includes the cruise control and the two-position engine brake.
Despite being scattered around a bit, all the switches for beacons, power take-offs and the like were clearly marked with the relevant symbols, giving the instrument panel a nicely integrated appearance. It's only when you get used to a feature that you miss it, and such was the case with the Actros's nonexistent reversing camera a surprising omission given that so many site operators now insist on it.
Once under way our first impression was of the steering, and it wasn't good. At first we thought it was simply a misaligned steering wheel as the gentle right-hander towards the quarry gate needed a good quarter turn of lock. After a while it seems that the steering was simply vague and slow at low speed, although this might have been an effect of the variable-ratio box because at higher speeds it all seemed to tighten up considerably.
The Merc's 410 rating falls to a genuine 402hp on the Imperial scale, but it's still the only muckaway truck on the right side of 400. The 2,000Nm torque peak at 1,080rpm leads to a commendably flat curve which doesn't drop off significantly until 1,900rpm. Despite fairly tall gearing that ensures the engine is turning below 1,600rpm on the speed limiter; it pulls strongly and allows plenty of block shifting. That was just as well in light of the other sign of abuse: while the double-H gearshift was user friendly in its slap-across range-change, first/fifth was sadly weak in the synchromesh department. Thankfully, all that torque allowed us to skip it. Progress was reasonably quiet apart from some turbo whistle when it was working hard.
The Massey Multi muckaway body showed signs of serious work, with rusty patches around the top edges the inevitable penalty of a steel body Lifted by the ubiquitous Edbro front-end gear, this body looked built to last, even down to the replaceable wooden pushing block on the rear cross-member.