VIGILANT MAN
Page 34
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• Once again 1 find it necessary to highlight certain inaccuracies in one of your test reports, this time the Volvo FL6 (w/e 30 May). Specifically I would refer to the comparisons made at the end of the test where, for reasons which I cannot understand, you choose to compare the Volvo and other manufacturers' 16 tanners with an MAN 16.170 which was tested way back in 1985.
You have since that time completed a full road test of another MAN 16.170 curtainsider (w/e 20 December 1986), the results of which you have chosen to ignore. This effectively misleads your readers, especially in the all important areas of fuel consumption and body payload allowance.
Taking the relevant figures from the December 86 road test would show an overall average fuel consumption for hte MAN 16.170 of 23.5lit/ 100km, considerably lower than the Volvo on test. Both vehicles, incidentally, being equipped with curtainsider bodies.
While body payload allowances are difficult to compare, the stated figure for the 5.9m wheelbase MAN (as provided for you in December 86) is 11,437kg which would in fact only just fit into your chart, being about the best in its class.
Finally, you make reference to the low in-cab noise level of the Volvo and show a figure of 72dB(A) at 64km/h — very commendable. The equivalent figures for the (December tested) MAN 16.170 were 66dB(A) at 65km/h, effectively less than half the perceived noise level experienced in the Volvo!
I believe you have a duty to your readers to provide the most accurate reports possible. Accepting that you will only take information from your own road tests, then I must ask you to be more vigilant in ensuring the correctness of such features. For the record, you may care to update the Roadtest Summaries Above 7.5 Tonnes table to include the latest MAN 16 tonne test. Geoff Morgan Product Manager MAN The earlier MAN 16.170 test results should be seen as no less representative as those results were obtained without the advantages that acrrue with an optional splitter box, non standard low energy tyres and a steed limiter, as fitted to the later test vehicle. Ed.