"The Strait() was at the right price at the right time."
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Owner-driver Colin Taylor runs out of Hailsham Industrial Estate in the north of Lincolnshire with his Seddon Atkinson Strato 17.380 pulling a 57m3 bulk powder tank.
"I ran a Volvo FLio before and wanted something bigger. The Strato was at the right price at the right time. I bought it from Direct Commercial Sales at Brigg but I have it serviced closer to home," he says.
"I've had it for two-and-a-half years now. I get a 25.5 tonne payload at 40 tonnes. Running with the extra weight hasn't made a lot of difference to my fuel consumption. It takes me 45 minutes or so to discharge the load and that has the biggest effect on fuel economy.
it has a big compressor pushing out two bar and the engine ticks over at 9oorpm. If I have short runs and several drops in a day it has a bigger effect on my fuel return then a longer run with a single drop, but I can get 8.3mph and more," he adds.
"We travel all over the country and I have clocked up over 360,000km. At first I had a few problems with the exhaust brake sticking on. The mechanics couldn't find the cause and then it dropped off one day. When they put it back it was a different engine and I haven't had any trouble with it since.
"It's heavy on front tyres. They last about r4o,000krn but I got over 3oo,000km out of the rears. I'm still running on the original brakes. The clutch packed up on me about three months ago. I was going down the Mt when the engine gave a little blip and then I couldn't depress the clutch pedal. It's a single plate but it wasn't worn out—it had just collapsed inside. "I get on all right with the r6-speed box. You don't need to use the half gears on the flat. It's quicker to use whole gears, except you need to split top. Otherwise you only need to split gears on hills. "I've got the narrow version of the high roof cab. I don't sleep out in it a lot but when I do it has enough room. The shelves above the screen are not a lot of good. If you put anything up there it just falls down again the first time you go over a bump. I see on the later ones Iveco has enclosed them with doors.
"The charge-cooler radiator split just as the truck was coming up to two years old so it should be covered by warranty. The dealer put on a new one. I had to pay for it while they sent the old one back to the manufacturer: I'm still waiting to get my money back."