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E GA 1

• In April 1986 we tested a mighty continental haulage tractor. We said it could "stand comparison with the best of continental rivals and stands head and shoulders above some of them". Fitted with its optional air suspension and air deflector kit, the truck looked an impressive sight, silhouetted against the night sky. The road test was a story of things to come, of hopes, and of lucrative sales on the continent for long-haul work.

How the mighty have fallen. Our test this week is of virtually the same truck. It too has a Perkins Eagle engine, albeit of slightly less power; it too has a striking air-deflector kit, and it too is an impressive performer.

But three years have passed since we tested the Leyland Roadtrain 17.34, the great white hope (literally, and figuratively), of the then ailing Leyland Vehicles Truck organisation.

Since then of course there has been the merger with Daf and, perhaps more importantly, the market has moved on. The Roadtrain 17.30 tested here is unlikely to ply its trade along the "motorway corridors" of Europe. There will be no proud TIR plates for this truck. Instead it will lead a useful but comparatively humdrum life in UK fleet service, with a hawknosed fleet manager closely examining its fuel economy and whole-life costs. The Leyland Daf 95 Series is now the Roadtrain's continental stablemate.

In truth, the TIR market now demands premium trucks of the specification offered by the 95 Series: the Roadtrain is no longer considered suitable for this sort of work. Whether Leyland Daf (or for that matter, Iveco Ford and Renault) can afford to continue to offer two species of trucks for the different markets remains to be seen, but some pundits see the practice as similar to that of the Sunday papers offering endless supplements for the dog to chew on. It is a marketing plot, they say, and it will end when one of them gains supremacy in market share.

The truck tested here is the 38-tonne GCW 4x2 sleeper-cabbed Roadtrain 17.30 fitted with the Perkins 800 (300) engine and the Eaton Twin-Splitter gearbox. Extras include alloy wheels all round and Interlube chassis lubrication. The Interlube system is the new XL derivative which delivers the grease with a variablespeed electric motor, powered from the trailer brake-light circuit. Beneath the extras, however, the 17.30 remains a nofrills bread-and-butter, honest-to-God, "gaffer's motor".

• DRIVELINE

The Perkins 800 Eagle engine fitted is the second lowest powered Perkins engine to be fitted to the Roadtrain range. The Eagle engine started life as a Rolls Royce unit, and the RR legend is still conveniently cast into the cam cover on the engine, lest anyone forgets. The 800-Series was still in the planning stage when Perkins bought out the rights to the engine, so the Shrewsbury manufacturer continued the 'development and launched the unit in November 1986.

It has since been partially superseded by the new Eagle Tx range, although whether Leyland Daf will fit this unit as a replacement for the 800-Series remains to be seen. Apart from doubts about the Roadtrain's future, Leyland Dafs policy over buying in engines is likely to come under even greater pressure.

The gearbox is the popular Eaton TwinSplitter unit, which has just been offered as an alternative to the ZF all-synchro 16-speed box in left-hand-drive Daf 95Series vehicles (as yet, there's no word on it being fitted to right hookers).

• PERFORMANCE

The Perkins engine is a low revving unit, which delivers about 206kW (27'7hp) when installed. Maximum power comes in at around 1,900rpm, and peak revs are governed at 2,100rpm. What the unit offers as an alternative to high revs is a peak torque of around 1,357Nm (1,001lbft) at a lowly 1,050rpm, also net installed. One unwelcome result of the unit's low-revving nature is that the exhaust brake is a most ineffective device. The model on the 800Series engines is a butterfly unit, which has been replaced with a guillotineoperation exhauster on the Tx engines. Perkins says the new type of exhaust brake works much better.

Driving the Roadtrain to its best means keeping the needle in the 1,200-1,700rpm green segment. The engine's torque will pull the combination along nicely, but it takes a bit of getting used to, especially for those who are used to the acres of free-revving between the green section and peak revs on engines like Iveco units.

What happens with the Perkins is that the exhaust note adopts an old-fashioned lets-get-on-with-it character, and the rev counter holds its position in the green sector. Once the revs fall below 1,200rpm a gearchange is needed as the specific fuel consumption starts to increase in line with the engine's labouring note.

The governor installation in the Roadtrain is unlike that in the similarly-engined Constructor tipper. In this case the RQV unit (as opposed to the RQ unit on the tipper) will not manage the engine's revs as quickly as the tippers. A spot of pedal pumping is called for which can, if unchecked, lead to wasted fuel.

With its four-position gearlever and three-position splitter switch, the Eaton Twin-Splitter gearbox suits the laid-back style of the Perkins engine to a tee. The installation provides for light lever movements, and the revs die away to allow adequate gear synchronisation.

The potential pitfalls with the unit include a large number of neutrals that lay in wait for the uninitiated. At this point the quiet idling note of the Perkins is little different to the dead engine silence that follows the ignorant application of the exhaust brake when in neutral.

The neutrals occurs when the box is changed using the splitter button, after which the revs are either allowed to die away or brought up, depending on whether the change is up or down. In this way the arrival at a road junction like a roundabout can entail several downchanges if the exhaust brake is to work effectively. Care must be taken to make sure the revs are increased for the gear selected to engage before applying the exhauster for the above reason. It is only a small point that takes a lot of explaining, and after killing the engine twice we soon learnt to take the necessary care.

• FUEL CONSUMPTION

As can be seen from our comparison charts, the Roadtrain has shown most of its rivals the way home in the fuel economy and overall speed stakes. When seen in terms of the hill-climbing ability of the bluff-fronted truck, these figures are really rather good.

A closer look indicates that the Roadtrain was beaten by the lveco Ford Cargo on the severe gradients and easy A-roads sections of the test, and by the Cargo, Mercedes-Benz and Renault on the tough motorways section. It is this quirk of the fuel consumption figures that must lead one to suppose that the Roadtrain is at its happiest, and most economic, on motorways with few gradients, where the gearlever can be left in 12th.

The gentle run up to Gretna under the golden evening sun was made at 96km/h (60mph) where legal, and the Roadtrain was barely sipping fuel at this point.

Mention also should be made of last year's Volvo FL10 roadtest (CM 27 October-2 November). The FL10 is aimed. firmly at the UK fleet sector, which makes its overall figures of 40.53lit/100km (6.97mpg) seem somewhat thirsty when compared with the Roadtrain's 38.02fit/ 100km (7.43mpg). To be fair, however, the 17.30 escaped the appalling weather that dogged the FL10's road test and its figures reflect this.

• PAYLOAD

Fuel consumption, however, is just part of the equation, and inevitably payload comes into the argument. On that count the 17.30 Roadtrain does reasonably well with its 24.35 tonnes as tested — enough to beat the 1729 Mercedes, but down on the Renault G290, Hino SH283KA and the lightweight Iveco Ford 3828.

Clearly the extra iron of the 17.30's

12-litre Perkins engine adds to its kerbweight, when compared with the 10-litre Cummins-powered Cargo, as does the optional sleeper cab.

• HANDLING

All-round leaf springs, telescopic dampers and anti-roll bars combine to soak up the bumps. The combination is hest described as tried and tested, and while the Roadtrain holds the road well with little body roll, there is room for considerable improvement in the ride. This is at its worst on bumpy A-roads, where the driver's experience of the choppy ride was intensified by the extraordinary antics of the test vehicle's Isringhausen suspension seat. The seat squab twisted and squirmed with the road bumps in a fair impression of the snake dance. We were not impressed.

The Roadtrain's brakes and steering provided us with further evidence of the mysteries of life and truck design. While the brakes are sensitive and progressive, the steering isn't. In fact the brakes are even better than our test figures indicate, as the pedal encourages a fast progressive build up of foot pressure rather than the pedal-to-the-metal approach to dropping

the anchor.

The ZF power steering feels too heavy at low speeds, and far too light at high speeds. It has an imprecise feel when in the dead-ahead position, and reversing the truck uphill, with the weight of the load thrown consequently onto the front wheels, was a job best left to bodybuilders (of the rippling thews variety). Again the system is at its worst on bumpy A-roads, where the steering instructions from the driver seem only part of a proportional representation system of directional control. David Owen would love this truck.

• CAB COMFORT

Never doubt the triumph of function over form in cab design. Where function is

easy-to-clean and long lasting, form tends to be fiddly bits of plastic that soon break, or an interior owing a great deal to the cockpit of Thunderbird Five. In the case of the Roadtrain there is a little too much function, which leaves the overall impression of a blueprint for a minimalist lifestyle.

Once the storage cubby holes are shut the dashboard is a sea of grey plastic with little merit. The dash instruments introduce the dreaded kilo pascals for those trying to work out the air pressure, but the rev counter is well placed and commendably easy to read.

Asymmetrical mirrors are pretty much a complete disaster on this truck, and apart from a marketing standpoint there seems little reason for retaining them. The driver's side mirror is too small, and the passenger side convex mirror is partly obscured, by of all things, the bodywork. There are four non-interchangeable mirrors on this truck which, considering the lack of storage space in the cab, is a profligate use of room if a driver wants to carry those mandatory spares.

Things we do like about the cab interior include the low interior noise levels at all speeds and the superb interior lamps.

• SUMMARY

Pundits said that the Roadtrain would never survive the Leyland Daf merger, and they are still saying it. True, the Roadtrain has not survived the merger in its original form, and we will probably never know if it would have been a success as a truly continental haulage truck.

What it does have, however, is a good payload, excellent fuel consumption, reasonable average speeds, and a tremendous reputation.

This is the sort of vehicle that will certainly appeal to those hawk-nosed transport managers. It will pay its way more than handsomely if our fuel-consumption tests are any indication. What's more, drivers will find the Perkins engine coupled to the Twin-Splitter gear-box a pleasure to use, even if the cab lacks the glamour of its continental rivals.

Of course price always has to be considered. At £.38,925 for the sleeper-cabbed model, the 17.30 compares well with the Renault G290 (28,760), as well as the 3820 Cargo with Twin Splitter (38,470) and it's certainly cheaper than the 1729 Mercedes (41,150). But when it comes to bargain prices, consider the Hino (237,750) and, more importantly, the Cummins-powered ERF E10.295T (236, 750).

What Leyland Daf will do with the vehicle now is a matter for speculation. What it has done already is to create a benchmark by which any replacements will be judged, and it looks as though those replacements will have to be very good just to meet the mark, let alone sit on the bench with the Roadtrain.

El by Andrew English