Fleet Notes
Benjamin T. Curtis, Maintenance Supervisor, Whitehall Co. Ltd, Norwood, Mass.
In Class 7s or 8s, I'd spec only Eaton Fuller transmissions," says Curtis. His preference is either the 10-or-18 speed in his Kenworth tractors.
"The 18s are a fabulous transmission to drive. It is expensive and it's much more of an owner-operator transmission. So if you're putting a fleet guy into it, maybe you'd think twice. But for my own purposes, the 18-speed is a beautiful transmission with a tremendous amount of options. There's no situation you can put your truck in where you don't have a gear for it."
Whitehall runs 10 Kenworth tractors and 40 Peterbilt straight trucks in a wholesale liquor distribution business. "So outgoing, it's all within Massachusetts. In coming, we send our over-the-road trucks to upstate New York, Tennessee and all over the place."
In the Peterbilt midrange trucks, he specs a 6-speed synchronized Eaton Fuller transmission. "I'd prefer to go to Allison but the cost is prohibitive. Because of the level of drivers you're putting in the straight truck, he's much less a truck driver. He's much more of a delivery person. So it's more important that he be able to deliver our product and be good to our customers than it is he drive the truck and so the truck takes a beating."
"The owner of our company allows us to purchase a well-spec'd vehicle and we keep them a long way. He's willing to pay for proper maintenance. It makes all the difference. There's no excuse for a company that's profitable to send a truck out that's not safe."<
Bernard W. Feldhaus, president, Feldhaus Trucking, Inc., Howard, S.D.
Feldhaus runs four Freightliners hauling livestock in 44 states and three Canadian provinces. Each unit piles on between 90,000 and 130,000 miles a year. He specs 13-speed Fuller transmissions because of their flexibility under different conditions.
In the spring especially, running on gravel roads can be tricky, he says. "It gives us a little better combination for running these gravel roads, we get that half-gear and then we don't have to have such a big split. It's just a better combination for what we do," Feldhaus says. "On about every load we're off on a gravel road someplace.
"In the past over the years, we've had some 10-speeds. We got some 15s but for our particular application, the 13 is about the best we've found."
More Fleet Notes
