DRIVERS' VERDICTS
Page 34
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CM visited an ARC Tarmac plant at Didcot and talked to some ownerdrivers about the 75.300 as they finished their shifts...
Sam Smith is a big guy who needed to adjust the steering column and the seat after he climbed in. "The steering wheel is bigger than on my Volvo FLIO 320 8x4," he told us. "1 like to sit up tight." Outside the plant we drove on parts of his regular routes. "It pulled up there well...that's not at all bad, just dropping one gear. I wouldn't want more gears than this for a six-wheeler," he commented. "It's as quiet as mine anyhow. The ride is not too soft and it seems to corner all right. I could sit in this seat all day. There's a lot of vision up close to the front and I can see the cars coming up behind OK in those wide-angle mirrors. It's got good brakes—they've got a bit of bite at the top of the pedal." Smith tried out the retarder on a particularly steep section of the A34. "T at's more effective than the exhaust brake. Does it save much on brake wear?" We told him ZF says it could increase service-brake life by as much as 250%.
Tony Greenaway has just moved from an eight-wheeled Constructor to a new 75.300 6x4. He said: "I'm very impressed with the ride when it's empty and when it's loaded the ride is very good. It's very stable on corners and the brakes have improved a lot over those on my old Constructor.' We asked him to try out the exhaust brake and encouraged him to change down so that it would work at its optimum at about 2,500rpm. "I'm just getting used to using the exhaust brake more but I wouldn't normally take it as high as that," he said. "Won't it use more fuel?" We told him that the fuel feed is cut off when the exhaust brake is working.
Sam Smith; "I could sit in this seat all day."
On the downhill approach to a roundabout using the ZF Intarder he pulled the speed back from 30 to 15mph without touching the service brakes. Coming out of the roundabout quite slowly he said: "As long as the wheels are rolling it will pull away on the level in fifth. The hill has to be quite steep to use the bottom half of the box." We asked what he thought of the cab layout. miss the side window behind the seats but otherwise visibility is great. The shelf over the top of the screen is OK for paperwork; it doesn't bounce out. The door pockets are a bit too small. I can't see to adjust the radio—it would be better if it was swapped over with the central warning system display on the dash. The heater works well, especially early in the morning, and the windows stay clear all the time. I chose the 300 for performance on the hills. It's much more relaxing to drive than my old truck; I'm not nearly so tired at the end of the day."