Fleet Notes
Rod Simon, manager, maintenance & equipment, TMC Transportation, Inc., Des Moines, Iowa
TMC is a flatbed operation with about 500 Freightliner tractors. Rod Simon specs Jake Brakes because they make the truck "a lot more driveable" and "in today's market, I don't know that you could have a truck without a Jake Brake. It's for resale, driveability, and I guess a reduction" in maintenance costs.
"You wouldn't be able to get up and down mountains pretty much without it anymore. It does save on brakes and linings and drums," Simon says, and he has justified the initial cost of these auxiliary brakes economically.
Simon says that he has not heard TMC drivers complain about the growing number of "no engine brake" signs municipalities are "planting."
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Dennis Stem, president, Stem Trucking, Inc., Hanover, Pa.
Stem's operation includes 22 Kenworths, hauling dry and frozen food products in vans and reefers in all but 13 western states. He specs Jake Brakes in the tractors to make them safer to operate and to reduce maintenance costs for service brakes.
He has bought Cat 3406Es and now C-15s, and says he's "pretty satisfied with the Jakes. If they come out with something comfortably priced that works better and the quality's there, I'd look at it."
His drivers are running into more and more signs prohibiting the use of engine brakes as they enter towns. "Pennsylvania's putting a lot of them up, but I have started to hear drivers say other places.
"What has happened here lately is that you're seeing 'no Jake Brake' signs in town. Now, they're being changed because I guess Jake had a law suit about using their name and it could have been a C Brake or something else. If you had a C Brake on your Cummins, and a driver gets ticketed for a Jake Brake, well, you don't have a Jake Brake, so the ticket is invalid," Stem thinks.
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Jack Wolfe, secretary/treasurer, Wolfe Trucking, Inc., Van Nuys, Calif.
Wolfe's 55 Peterbilts are powered by Cat engines with BrakeSavers — an "engine suppression brake," as he calls them.
"If you've got an 18 wheeler that goes across country, you want a Jake Brake," Wolfe says. I wouldn't want to come down a mountain without one."
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Ken Stephenson, vice president,equipment, Star Transportation, Nashville
Star hauls general commodities across country using about 425 Freightliners, powered by Detroit Diesels equipped with Jake Brakes.
"We have engine retarders, engine brakes, and I think that's the prevalent brand," Stephenson says of the Jacobs product. "Safety comes into it to some degree, but also brake life and driver satisfaction."
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Farren Flynn, maintenance supervisor,Watkins & Shepard Trucking, Missoula, Mont.
The company runs about 480 Cummins-powered Volvos with Jake Brakes in a coast-to-coast operation out of 24 terminals. It also has about 200 owner-operators.
"We'll haul just about everything we can get a hold of," Flynn says. "We've got flatbeds and dry vans and we go after primarily LTL, furniture, carpeting and things like that."
Watkins and Shepard specs Jake Brakes because they are reliable and add safety, Flynn says. "You can't run mountains without 'em, really. You're going to have some wrecks if you try it."
"Engines are getting more precise" and so can the retarders' controls, he believes. "The newer engines can stage anything from 1 through 6. They stage off of miles per hour. They'll come on automatically in different stages, depending on the speed you're running. We're pretty happy with the preciseness of 'em."
If Jacobs were to improve their brakes, "it would probably be the speed on which they come off. They could probably turn off a slight bit quicker."
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David Williams, director of maintenance, Knight Transportation, Inc., Phoenix
Knight, a truckload carrier of general commodities, runs about 1,800 Volvos and Freightliners, most powered by Cummins and about 98% of them equipped with Jake or C brakes.
First of all, David Williams says, an engine brake is a necessary safety feature because they run a lot of hills and mountains, especially in the West. Resale also comes into the decision to spec them, but mostly it's safety and functionality. They probably help a little bit with brake life, but that would be a peripheral benefit.
What a driver wants is braking power, and with different engines you're going to have a different amount of braking power, he says. As to "no engine brakes" signs, he hasn't heard drivers complain. If they're in an area where there are signs, they probably don't need the engine brake anyway because it will usually be an area where there are no significant hills.
