KW's Updated T300
Tom Berg
Equipment Editor
Kenworth trucks, including the T300 medium-duty model, tout their "premium" features. These include traditionally solid construction and, for the 2005 model year, updated exterior styling and interior trim that make a driver's day brighter.
I certainly felt that solid KW feel on a recent drive in the Seattle area.
As with most Kenworths, you need to crack open a window in order to close a door. That's because the cab is air-tight, and it stays that way well into a KW's old age.
Its mostly aluminum construction makes it particularly immune to the ravages of road salt. This is a major selling point and is another trait shared with the "370 family" cabs produced by Peterbilt, KW's corporate sister.
This "Coke Red" T3 was the first truck built with the new complex-reflector headlamps, a redrawn grille, plus new interior details. The latter include a between-seats "work station" incorporating a storage box wired for two 12-volt outlets, space for paperwork files and other stuff, plus a writing surface and a cupholder. Seat covers are two-tone grey, and are color-coordinated with the rest of the interior.
The dash on this truck had the characteristic Kenworth flat panels, a "real-truck" sort of look that many drivers prefer. The entire dash was swathed in monotonous medium-grey plastic, which a discriminating buyer might replace with the optional Australian burlwood facing.
This truck was just within a Class 7 rating, with a 12,000-pound steer axle and a 21,000-pound drive axle, both from Dana Spicer. The 22-foot Morgan van body held a stack of concrete blocks and we weighed maybe 22,000 pounds gross. The engine was the standard-equipment 240-hp Cummins ISC, mated to an Eaton Fuller FS6406A six-speed synchronized manual transmission. The peppy engine had a wide rev range, from 1,300 to 2,400 rpm; and the tranny needed long lever throws but was otherwise easy to shift on a run to downtown Seattle, where we found sun and big-city sights amid lots of traffic on streets and freeways.
There was a lot of glass in the cab and those on the right seemed larger, due to the comparatively narrow but sufficiently roomy cab. The hood sloped down steeply, so I never lacked good visibility in any direction but straight back. What I couldn't see directly I spied indirectly, through the large motorized Aero Mirrors with both flat and convex surfaces.
I purposely took several hard-right turns just to test turning ability and never had to do a backup. Ride was good, even with the partial load and even though the rear axle sat on steel springs. Front springs are 64-inch-long taperleafs so we didn't bounce much.
Dunn Lumber, a local building supply chain, runs five late-model Kenworth T300s, plus trucks of other makes. Trucking Supervisor Mark Geyer let me drive one of the T3s on a run to a house in a hilly neighborhood nearby. This truck was even easier to drive because it had an Allison automatic behind its 250-horse Caterpillar C7. Its good maneuverability helped as I backed into a narrow driveway to make a delivery of plywood and other items for a remodeling project.
So the solid feel one expects from a Kenworth comes through in the T300, along with the nimbleness one needs in an urban delivery truck.
