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AUTOMATIC SUPERIORITY
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Long-distance and distribution drivers have had their go, now it's time for tippermen to go auto. Its going to make their lives that bit easier...
Are tipper drivers getting soft? Yours truly passes too many tipper yards on the way home to express a personal view, but consider the evidence. First they had cloth seats; then it was air-con. And now, for goodness sakes, these hard men of haulage are getting automatic transmissions, This test is something of a landmark in Commercial Motor's 100-year history, being the first full roadtest of a tipper with an automated transmission.The tipper in question is Volvo's FM9 and the transmission, the I-Shift, is widely acclaimed as the best of its type so far. It surprised us to learn that 15% of Volvo's UK tipper orders have the 1-Shift box ticked —but it shouldn't have.
While it's the long-distance tractor unit that generally gets the sexy new labour saving devices first, is that really how it should be? Who'll get most benefit from not worrying about gear changes, the artie driver running up the M1 on cruise control, or the harassed distribution or construction driver who probably has a hundred times as many changes to make during the day, while being continuously surrounded by the mixed bag of hazards that make up urban driving? Thought so. However,there's more to our roadtest than a gearbox. even a very good gearbox.The 380 8x4 is the top dog of the small D9A-engirted FM9 family, trading 1501\fin of torque fora weight saving of 170kg compared with the FM12 380. In any case the current line-up is about to be consigned to history, with a revised D9B unit and the all-new D13A taking over in readiness for Euro-4 and beyond (CM 15 September).
Suspension is the B-Ride system, with a single inverted steel spring on each side of the rear bogie, running on rubber pads and located by V-bars. Nothing controversial there, and the actual test truck might look familiar too, as it was featured in our recent tipper group test. Its spec includes a PPG asphalt/aggregate body lifted by the ubiquitous Edbro CX15 front-end ram with a tidy Transcover .1 sheeting system.
Productivity
Look at the Volvo's headline fuel figures and you won't be overly impressed 7.74mpg is a bit behind the class best — but the A-road part of the run was in far from ideal conditions.The monsoon on the AS was bad enough, but then we came across a closure of the A422 at Farthinghoe that sent us on a backroad diversion that was far from suited to an eight-legger.The resulting figure inevitably dragged the overall numbers down. Journey times were reasonable, though.
At 9,273kg, the Volvo won't win any outright victories for payload, either, but it's just about in the middle of a scale that only differs by a quarter of a tonne from best to worst. If you needed every last kilo you'd start by losing the sleeper cab and its 32kg penalty While fuel economy and payload can be measured, the Volvo's biggest advantage can't be so easily quantified. But you don't need a stressometer to realise that removing such a large part of the driver's workload must be a good thing. All you need is to try it for yourself. What makes it even more irresistible is the fact that at £1,466 it will set you back little more than the cost of five tanks of diesel.
If the driver can be educated in when to use the M button and when to leave it alone he should still have enough energy left to have a life after work, and the operator can be sure that the last run of the day will be as good as the first.
On the road
One of the criticisms levelled against automated manual transmissions, especially by those who haven't driven one recently (or at all) is the lack of fine control at low speed. However a growing number of asphalt hauliers are specifying I-Shift, and we can't think of many applications that require finer throttle control than tipping into a moving Barber Green. It's true that early automated manual transmissions did have gaps between the points where drive was taken up and where it was disconnected.That led tojerky progress if trying to maintain a slower than walking pace especially on less than flat terrain. But that's no longer the case.
As our Midlands tipper route approaches Banbury from the north, we have to negotiate Sunrising Hill. With a slope that increases immediately after alight, almost hairpin, righthander, it provides a challenge to any driver in an unfamiliar truck. Get it wrong and you either waste time or grind to a halt, with a restart often impossible.
On the Volvo man's advice, we selected 'power' mode and kept the pedal to the floor, resisting the temptation to give some manual help. In adverse weather conditions, it would probably be prudent to stay in one gear, but in the thy it romped up, changing gear as required.The whole test revealed that in virtually every situation there's little point in trying to out-think I-Shift.The exception would be on site, up to its axles in muck.
Left to its own devices, the Volvo's gearchanges are perceptibly quicker than any manual shift, and there's no real benefit to trying to help it.We tried on the test track but the stop watch soon said 'don't bother'.The only time the I-Shift feels sluggish is when getting back on the power after slowing for a roundabout, for example. but we suspect that the feeling is only because in a manual the driver would be busy changing into the right gear to power away rather than waiting for a few milliseconds for the electronics to catch up. You soon learn to anticipate traffic flow to make the most of the transmission, which must surely be a good thing.
Clever transmission or not, the FM9 has a relatively small engine in a sector where conventional wisdom reckons that anything less than 10 litres is not enough .True, the first few moments from a standstill feel a bit sluggish, but it becomes quite lively once it's rolling.
As might be guessed from the subtle signwriting on the boot lid, the FM9 comes with a grand's worth of electronically controlled disc brakes. Sadly, the MIRA tipper curse came into play once again, and the heavens opened just before we reached the brake test area.As it happens. in conditions as bad as you can get in the summer, the Volvo stopped from 40mph in 33m. but the ABS earned its keep as we pulled up in a perfectly straight line under full control. If the track had been dry enough to have maintained the 0.86g peak figure we recorded, we'd have stopped in less than 20m. A salutary lesson that not even Volvo can rewrite the laws of physics.
Back on dry roads the brakes are strong enough to j ustify the hype, and felt rather more progressive than we remembered from our previous encounter. Operated by a column stalk, the VEB engine brake can also be operated by the brake pedal in the A' position. Its brake blending qualities are good, and although it's a bit noisy the VEB does a good job of saving the service brakes for real need.
Our initial view of the handling was a feeling that the front axles had insufficient grip, verging on serious understeer. But an encounter with one extremely slippery roundabout had the rear end losing grip first, revealing that the feeling was simply down to excessively light steering.The ride is generally good for an all-steel setup, even handling the notorious Brackley to Buckingham stretch without too much discomfort.
Cab comfort In estate agent's parlance, the FIVI9's cab "offers compact yet spacious accommodation within a quadruple aspect environment". Or, in English, a low-roof sleeper with windows on every side. In fact, the only panel without glazing is the offside bunk side wall, greatly enhancing on-site visibility. The big mirrors give an exceptional view backwards, but their location at eye level means they do create a significant blind spot that the driver needs to be aware of. On one occasion, a car approaching a roundabout from our right was going at just the right speed to be hidden for longer than was safe. By way of compensation,Volvos now conic with a front vision mirror. Rear vision is further helped by the integrated reversing mirror display on the pop-up Dynafleet screen, engaged automatically with reverse or via an over-ride button.
The low roof sleeper means space feels limited compared with a Globetrotter. But there's still plenty of room for the needs of the average tipperman, with the added bonus of somewhere to lie down at lunchtime. The space beneath the bunks is occupied by the external lockers, but the central storage box/tray keeps daily paraphernalia in order. There are also decent door pockets and some fair sized lockers above the screen.
The driving seat is a high-spec air suspended item, while the passenger gets a reasonably comfortable fixed and folding set-up. The I-Shift gear quadrant is mounted on the seat and also folds flat to improve internal movement. Although light and airy, the interior trim is perhaps a bit too light for grubby off-road work, but it all helps to improve the working environment. •