NOT SO DUSTY
Page 35
Page 36
Page 38
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Seddon Atkinson is nose to nose with Dennis for pole position in the refuse collection sector. We put Seddon's Pacer through its paces to see what life's like in this least glamorous of working environments.
We're spoilt at CM: most of the vehicles we test are bright, shiny and new, with hardly a scratch or scrape to prove that they belong in the real world. And so we dream of epic transcontinental journeys, gruelling Alpine climbs or mercy dashes to the ends of the earth.
It was about time we got down to the nitty gritty by testing a truck that does the rounds day in, day out—a dustcart.
Well, even dustcarts have their pride: this Seddon Atkinson Pacer is actually a Refuse Collection Vehicle, or RCV It's designed for the basic urban round of domestic or industrial refuse collection, and is compact and narrow enough to handle the tightest city streets. It's a 14-tonner that can handle a true payload of 4.5 tonnes with its Jack Allen body.
CM tested the Seddon round a twisting mix of rural and urban routes, and at the test track, to see how it shapes up against mainstream vehicles, and what makes it especially suited to its job.
• PRODUCT PROFILE Seddon Atkinson is one of the UK's top builders of refuse collection chassis, in a perennial struggle against Dennis Eagle for the biggest market share: in the first eight months of 1996 the two shared 68.7% of the market up to 15 tonnes GVW with a straggling Leyland Daf taking 13.5% and no other manufacturer topping 10%. This year Dennis has been beating Seddon, but only by a couple of dozen units, while last year the positions were reversed.
Yet despite this ultra-close rivalry in a market that seems to be driven by fashion as much as any other, the two firms have quite different design philosophies. Dennis builds bespoke cabs to its own design, and can offer low-height or crew-cab variants, while Seddon relies on existing cab designs from parent company Iveco. This makes them cheaper and probably simplifies type approval but needn't limit their flexibility—Iveco's own range of crewcabs can be adapted, and Seddon showed off its own prototype lowheight design (the Viewline) last year.
Meanwhile, this particular Pacer is at the bread-and-butter end of the market: a straightforward daycab with a short wheelbase and a familiar Cummins engine. Common as muck, you might say. The N14.160B is the smallest of the Pacers, a 4x2 chassis rated at 14 tonnes GVW The Pacer range is extensive, going up through 17-tonne 4x2 chassis to 25 and 26-tonne 6x2 and 6x4 versions and the 32-tonne 8x4 Pacer. Euro-2 power is supplied by Cummins throughout, from the B-Series fitted here through the 8.3litre C-Series to the 340hp MI 1 engine available in the 32-tonner. All come with Allison MD automatic gearboxes as standard, with Eaton synchromesh units optional. The drive axle is from Rockwell, a single-reduction 1 SI ME model with a diff lock. This is the N14 Pacer rather than the M14—the N is the narrow version with a cab width of 220m, and a front track of just 1.86m. There's no weight saving: Seddon's spec sheet rather mysteriously makes out that the N14 is 20kg heavier than the M14.
As well as being narrow, this vehicle is very short: the wheelbase is just 3.20m, so with its full-size 22.5in wheels it looks a little toy-like and the bright green-painted running gear only reinforces the effect.
The Pacer's certainly built like a Tonic' toy: the chassis frame is the same thickness (8mm) as the 32-tonne Pacer's with a slightly smaller section, and the massive three-piece steel front bumper looks like it will brook no nonsense. Even the mesh headlight guards could ward off anything short of an anti-tank round. The cab offers no nonsense, either: it's very sparsely furnished, without even a rev-counter to watch. Though the Pacer is very narrow (the M cab is 285mm wider), it's still a 'proper' truck cab with room (just) for three crewmen.
The Seddon Atkinson's conservative specification and bulletproof construction promise to meet the needs of most municipal buyers— but they won't have to drive the vehicle. What's it actually like on the road?
• THE BODY
This particular vehicle is operated by Jack Alien as a demonstrator: it's fitted with the company's Super Gem refuse body, a straightforward 8m3 compaction unit designed for a 4,500kg payload.
The Super Gem incorporates an integral tail-mounted comb-type bin lift suitable for bins from 120 litres up to 1,100-litre wheeled trade bins, with a lid opener. It's not Jack Allen's smallest refuse body: the Compact Gem is a 6m3, 2,500kg unit designed for operation at 7.5 tonnes GVW. Both Gems are based on designs from Wayne Engineering of Iowa, but adapted for EU operation. Similarly, JA's bodies for vehicles of over 17 tonnes GVW are licence-built versions of I Ieil products.
The body's not cheap: finished and painted, it comes in at around £47,000. But Jack Allen claims the best after-sales service in the industry, and the body is certainly nicely detailed: it's not so much the flash features like the intercom between the cab and the rear of the body, or the rear-vision camera, but thoughtful touches like having traffic-friendly moulded plastic mudwings rather than the massive, over-engineered steel affairs of some municipal vehicles. Then there's the mesh basket on one side of the chassis (for sacks and the like) and the standard-issue Rubbolite lamps all round, with individually replaceable lenses in the rear array. Another welcome feature was a Tecalemit chassis autolube system.
• PRODUCTIVITY
CNA standard test routes mix motorway, Aroad and urban driving to various degrees, and clearly none of them was going to be relevant to a vehicle like this. Designed for stopstart collection work, with a large proportion of PTO operation, the Pacer's "typical" fuel consumption will vary so widely from application to application that we haven't tried to estimate it.
Average speed is pretty much irrelevant, too: the Pacer is geared for crawling along at walking pace, so its maximum speed of about 50mph hardly allows it to make the most of dual carriageways. But we took the vehicle along Milton Keynes' A-roads as well as Buckinghamshire B-roads, and the compact proving ground at Chobham, to see how it behaved at different speeds and on different surfaces.
Payload is much easier to assess: with a full tank of fuel, the chassis weighs in at 4,680kg—not had, but not much less than the 4,855kg of the equivalent 17-tonne Pacer, the N17.215B. The heavier model sits on a 4.0m wheelbase, with a 7.1-tonne front and 11tonne rear axle. Still, the I4-tonner offers a cheaper, more compact alternative where ultimate payload is not critical.
And in this application, where the body has a nominal payload of 4.5 tonnes, the chassis and body are ideally matched.
• ON THE ROAD
Despite a high-mounted cab and an undeniably truck-style driving position, the Pacer wouldn't be too much of a shock for anybody with experience in driving a large panel van. The wheelbase is short and the track is narrow—the only really startling feature is the enormous rear overhang of 2.45m (around a third of the overall length). It's not a problem on the open road, but low-speed manoeuvring has to be undertaken carefully Another feature which takes a bit of getting used to is the automatic gearbox: the push button-operated four-speed Allison is straightforward enough, but it took all of a couple of days' driving to get accustomed to operating the switches on the move without glancing at them. With electrical control of all functions as standard anyway, it might repay Allison to develop switches that were integrated into the steering wheel.
The Allison certainly functions predictably enough, though it seemed a little too keen to remain in -first and fourth, paying only the briefest visits to second and third—but then, with this gearing on the open road it was bound to spend most of its time in fourth. The engine's characteristics are disguised by the transmission setup, but the Cummins B-series is hardly idiosyncratic in any case, and functioned as well as expected.
Anti-roll bars fitted as standard front and rear are certainly welcome, and the Seddon's sizeable tyres gave it plenty of grip round the twistiest parts of the test track, but it would be nice if anti-pitch bars could be fitted— bumpy surfaces made the unladen Pacer lurch around uncomfortably.
The springing didn't feel too strong, so it may be that the dampers could be turned up a notch or two, or it may be an unavoidable consequence of the short wheelbase and sizeable overhang. The anti-roll bars might limit ground clearance, though that's by the way: the rear overhang is likely to be rather more of a practical hindrance.
With such a short wheelbase, the Pacer's turning circle is naturally pretty good, though the standard-track M14 version (built on the same chassis frame) has more wheel clearance and consequently a tighter turn diameter-14.5m kerb-to-kerb rather than the N14's 16.5m. The TRW steering is precise enough, if lacking a little in feel—understandable in this application.
• CAB COMFORT
Cab access is pretty good, with two sizeable "bootscraper" steps—a grab rail would be welcome at the rear of the side door, though, as otherwise you tend to hang from the forward rail like a gibbon. The driving position is comfortable enough, with a mechanically suspended seat, although the short wheelbase compromises ride quality The "dual" passenger seat suffers rather from the narrowness of the cab: it inevitably favours the thinnest passengers, and can only offer lap belts.
We've said that the cab is spartan, which is appropriate given the Pacer's role, but the all-grey trim is also typical of a cab with Iveco origins. After little more than 10,000km in service the grey trim of our test vehicle looked pretty tired. We don't know why this should be—materials, perhaps, or just the colour choice?—but Iveco's interior mouldings seem to show their age more than must.
The vertical exhaust is a necessity in kerbside applications, but it does create a lot of noise in the cab; unfortunately, there seem to be an awful lot of mechanical thrashing from the driveline even at the lowest speeds, so overall sound levels in the cab are too high for relaxed driving. The Mitsubishi rear-vision camera is neatly installed, with a manual switch on the monitor, or automatic operation when the driver engages reverse. It's clear enough to check for people in motion behind the vehicle, but it's no substitute for mirrors when manoeuvring— fortunately the mirrors fitted to the Strato are pretty good.
• SUMMARY
The Pacer's a pretty basic vehicle, with as few frills as you can imagine, but does it really need any more? The driveline is proven and easy to get used to; the chassis is built to take a fair amount of punishment; the cab interior is grey and can be hosed down without a qualm. Our main criticism is of the chassis—the ride quality and sound insulation could be rather better. But this isn't just a test of the chassis: as a combination, the Seddon Atkinson and the nicely built Jack Allen body seem to work together well. It's a manoeuvrable, solid vehicle with a clear role in most municipal operations.
0 by Toby Clark