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On the road with 580hp at 60 tonnes
Page 63
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So much for the theory but the proof of the pudding's in the eating... and these puddings were remarkably tasty.
During our visit to Sweden we travelled the long way round from Arlanda airport to SOdertalje in a selection of Scania's latest products. First off was a compact R420 six-axled artic tipper; 14m overall and weighing in 35 tonnes. The 6x4 steel-sprung tractor was running on semi-off-road tyres which didn't help noise levels, but that apart it was a refined and easy-to-drive outfit.
The end of the first driving stint revealed the clout Scania wields in its home locality With no suitable motorway stopping area the local traffic police not only allowed their vehicle inspection iayby to be used for a driver change, but even closed off one of the two lanes to allow us to rejoin safely.
Soon after the start of our second run we were driving on unfamiliar country roads in the dark, with a few tricky junctions thrown in. All well and good except that our mount was an R580 V8 6x2 rigid pulling a B-double combination at the full 60 tonnes and 25.25m. This is the type of operation that 16-litre engines are meant for, and it coped admirably. The few notable hills on our route were dispatched with one full downshift, while the retarder and the new downhill speed control combined to keep the descents in rein. Although seemingly in the next county, the marker light on the far corner seemed to follow the front end faithfully even on tight junctions and motorway slip roads. Our only criticism concerned operating the cruse control in the dark.
A note to the UK authorities: we were driving this 60-tanner on normal single-carriageway roads at a legal 50mph in absolute safety. If Sweden, the home of safe motoring, with the lowest accident rate in the world, accepts that 50mph is safe, why can't we?
We began our second day's driving with an excursion through the neighbouring towns and countryside in a rather less glamorous vehicle. This was a P3104>2 tractor pulling a 12m city trailer, with a single steering axle; the combination totted up to 25 tonnes, As you'd expect, the manoeuvrability was exceptional, while doing the work of a rigid six-wheeler, The last truck we drove was one the f irst Euro-4 V8s, brand new and about to be dispatched to an operator "somewhere in Europe" for real-world evaluation. You may recall that cooling limitations dictate that the 16-litre V8 can use exhaust gas recirculation to reach Euro-4; instead it relies on SCR Outwardly, there's little to distinguish it from a Eurc-3 model apart from a neatly packaged tank for the urea solution.
The driver's only other clue to the system's existence is an extra urea-content monitoring stage on the dash information panel at start-up. And that's it; the driving experience is indistinguishable between Euro-3 and 4 versions, with 580hp propelling 40 tonnes equally effortlessly.