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FUEL
AND
HORSES
• A modern 17-tonner has to be a jack of all trades. One day it might be coping with the duck and dive of urban distribution; the next could see it on the treadmill of inter-city trunking. The humble 17-tonner must take it all in its stride.
But which contender offers the best fuel economy to overdrawn operators? And which has the kind of productivity which can make light of the worst the Chancellor has to offer?
To answer these questions and more, Commercial Motor has decided to focus its 1991 Euratest on the best of the two-axle rigids.
Like our 1990 Eurotest of six fleet tractors (CM 3-9 Jan), this year's test has been staged in co-operation with our colleagues on the leading French and German road transport magazines, L'Officiel des Transports and Verkehrs Rundschau.
This time it was CM's turn to host the test, which follows neatly from our 38-tonne economy run which saw 11 artics cover 1,600km over three arduous days last summer (CM 20-26 Sept 1990). There is no shortage of chassis manufacturers in the 17-tonne sector; rather than making any artificial selections we simply invited everyone with a vehicle on sale in the UK to compete.
Eight trucks from six companies finally lined up on the day: to take account of the trend towards higher powered rigid chassis the entries were split into two categories with a break point at 205hp (151kW).
Surprisingly, the most powerful truck of the bunch was a drawbar chassis from AWD. The Cummins C-Series-powered
IL 17-27 may not be everybody's first choice as a solo rigid, but it certainly set us wondering what it might achieve.
The ERF E6.21 is perhaps more typical of the many 17-tonners on the road featuring the charge-cooled Cummins B Series unit: like several other competitors it was fitted with a cruise control/limiter system; indeed it was entered by the supplier of the system, Econocruise.
Another relative newcomer from Sandbach is the Foden 2250, which is the more powerful of the two new two-axle rigids that company launched last year. It is fitted with the Perkins Phaser 210Ti.
From MAN's M90 range came the 17.192F, which boasts the latest ECO specification 6.9-litre engine.
The two other German representatives came from Mercedes, and are in its new middleweight line-up: the 1717 and the charge-cooled 1720. Completing the field was another team of two, in this case entered by Volvo, who ran the FL617 in two power ratings.
By using the installed power ratings measured to EEC 88/195, we ended up with only the AWD and the more powerful Mercedes and Volvo in the higher power class, contrary to what might be expected from the badging.
Seddon Atkinson had a 17.21P under preparation but encountered last-minute difficulties; the Continental heavyweights Scania and Renault chose not to take part.
It was also especially disappointing that the two domestic market leaders Leyland Daf and Iveco Ford, failed to take up the challenge.