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  Lkw (in general) - 3




The manufacturers are doing everthing they can, to maintain a certain amount of acceptability for their vehicles and if possible, to improve them. Did you know, that a fully loaded 40-ton truck can keep within the braking distance of a normal motor car? The splits between particle emission and economy have also been mastered, thanks to Ad-blue. The utility vehicle producers haven't yet managed to prevent the trucks from tail-gating each other. Indeed, they are working feverishly to find a solution.

Historically seen, utility vehicles are closely related to the general vehicle development. Already Daimler and Maybach installed their combustion engines in utility vehicles of up to five tons. These were of course, petrol engines and only after about 1923 were they complemented by Diesel engines. Thereby, there were three manufacturers on the scene, the Daimler-Engine-works, the Benz company (they were not yet united) and MAN. The latter in fact, built direct-injection engines right from the word go, the same as Rudolf Diesel aspired to do.

No, for many years, the Diesel truck could not assert itself. It was actually only after the the second world war that it started its unstoppable triumphal march, first in buses, then in utility vehicles. By the way, before and even after the first world war, the trucks had to be satisfied with hard-rubber tyres. This reduced the particularly high breakdown frequency of the time, however, they were also not without problems, e.g., when they got hot. Apart from that, speeds of 50 to 60 km/h were out of reach for them.

In this respect, one can be be more than satisfied with the modern trucks, the manufacturers estimate no more than 10 days p/a for maintenance or repairs. E.g., Oil-change intervals of 100.000 kms are an example of their undemanding character. There are apparently, any number of truck drivers who haven't had a puncture in ten years, If then, the trucks are as also comfortable as a middle-class motor car, what more could one ask for?

A feature of the first trucks were the open chain-drives. After the turn of the century, the remedy came in the shape of the cardan-drive (drive-shaft). Knorr and Westinghouse first installed their compressed air brakes in railway coaches, before these systems also made a substantial contribution to the safety factor in utility vehicles. In the meantime, the argument, whether to use the unit description of kW/tons or rather hp/tons, has been settled. Older motor car drivers know the feeling very well, stuck behind a truck on a hill and having change down, one gear after the other, indeed, with the power that the trucks have nowadays, this is a thing of the past. 05/12



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