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Mercedes Axor
Page 62
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An unpleasant encounter with a slap-over box left us more than a little cautious about driving the Axor, but we persevered and managed to get to grips with it, aside from wrestling with the gearbox once or twice on our test route.
As with the Daf, this is a straightforward truck which has no automated gadgetry to make the job any easier Mastering the slap-over gearbox entails being precise with gearchanging and holding on to the gearstick between changes let go and you'll almost certainly end up in the gear range you don't want.
This is a particularly torquey truck to drive: put your foot down when you're starting off and you'll be surprised how quickly it moves, even at 44 tonnes. It also romps up steep hills, once you've mastered the gearchanging technique. Going downhill the engine brake comes into its own; it works better than the service brakes, which weren't as responsive as we would have liked.
Overall, we felt that this is a fairy easy truck to get to grips with, as it provides a good, firm ride with plenty of space inside. Our main criticism of the driver environment is that it's rather dark and gloomy with a lot of dark grey plastic.