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Helping the post get through
Palmerston North's Barry Dunn knows a thing or two about being part of a winning team.
 As a well-rated rugby halfback, he played in England for a couple of seasons in the early 1980s before coming back to New Zealand.
Back in this country, he's still an integral member of a successful team, this time in business as a truck owner under contract to New Zealand Post.
To make sure he continues to do his job as well as he can, Barry recently upgraded from his Nissan Diesel MK235 6X2, and it's his experience with the little Japanese truck that made him stick to the brand this time around.
His newest mount is a Nissan Diesel PK250, a truck that has replaced the brand's PK240 in the eight tonne full air section of the market.
The truck was launched at the RT2001 transport expo in Waikato in March, highlighting the latest version of Nissan Diesel's Euro 11 FE6TC engine.
The engine is an in-line six-cylinder direct injection unit, displacing seven litres. It is turbocharged and intercooler, and features a timing and injection rate control system (TICS). The TICS system allows for a much more precise control of the fuel injection system and timing process, which helps deliver more power, a more positive engine response, smoother engine performance, improved fuel economy and greater control of emissions.
Although one of the system's greatest benefits is improved fuel economy, Barry admits he was unpleasantly surprised by the truck's early economy figures of around 2.2km/litre (45.45 litres/100km, 6.2mpg). What probably makes that improvement more impressive is the type of work that Barry does in the truck. Although based in Palmerston North, with a regular run to Wellington, the truck doesn't have an easy line haul type run. There's usually one or two drops on the way to the capital and then, once in the city, the real action starts. There are runs around Marine Parade to the airport, regular stops in the city, and two or three trips out to Lower Hutt. Add to that, the curse of rush hour traffic in the city, the large amount of construction currently being undertaken on the roads between Palmerston North and Wellington, and you have a combination that can be difficult for truck and driver alike. Barry, however, appears to be used to the "city-mania" that accompanies his trips into Wellington's CBD. He freely admits that he'd hate to live in a big city, but put him behind the wheel of the little 6x2, and he's right at home negotiating the streets and traffic.
As well as completing a full "day" shift himself, Barry also has a fulltime night shift driver (Andrew Pedersen) and two part-time drivers (Elaine Parish and Rob Wilde) who keep the Speedo clicking over when Barry's away from the truck. Although currently in six-wheeled from, the PK250 only comes as a standard four-wheeler. Barry had the tag axle fitted as an after-market attachment behind the 11,000kg RS1A drive axle, and it was that genuine Nissan Diesel part which was one of the attractions of the new PK250. The MK235 that Barry previously owned was a 4x2 fitted with an after-market tag axle, and it often used to get hung up on kerbs and driveways, leaving him stuck with rear wheels spinning. "This axle's got much more travel in it, and I haven't been close to getting stuck yet," he says. Rear suspension on both axles is via Rayco airbags, which have been fitted in place of the standard 1600mmx80mm semi-elliptical rear springs which are fitted on the 4x2.
The suspension easily deals with most loads inside the Ian Cap stick-built curtain side body. Barry runs a 14 tonne sticker on the truck, which tares in at 8600kg. It's rare for him to run over that width but, when he does, he purchases supplementary Road User Charges to make up the difference. As Christmas approaches, Barry expects loads to increase in size, but currently, he'll likely run out of loading space before he reaches his weight limit. As we left Palmerston North, heading for the capital, we had about two tonne of cargo loaded into the body. With such a light load, we were expecting the PK250 to bounce its way along through the back blocks of the Manawatu, but it handled the roads remarkably well. Once advantage for Barry is the Isri air-suspended seat, which is something he didn't have on his previous MK235. "It's great," Barry said. "I don't drive along hitting my head on the roof anymore. "I didn't really think I ever needed one, but now I've got this one, I couldn't go back." The only negative point he does raise about the seat is the lack of an armrest. "It would be good to have one," he said. "At the moment I drive along and rest my arm on the gearstick. I try not to do it because it's a bad habit, but it just seems to happen."
 The remainder of the all-steel cab, while quite stark and functional, is remarkably well appointed for a light-duty truck. It has a small bunk fitted behind the seats, which is ideal for stowing assorted bags, jackets and other sundry items. Between the driver and passenger's seats is a fixed central seat, which has a storage tray and cup holders attached to the back rest. This allows the seat to be folded down and used as a desk when not being used. Overhead storage comes by way of a pair of shelves above the driver and passenger's side, while and overhead central console is fitted with a courtesy lamp and map light. The adjustable soft grip urethane steering wheel fronts a dash that houses only the basic instruments. The driver display has a large Speedo in the centre, flanked by a tachometer on the driver's right hand side. It also houses air pressure, fuel and oil temperature gauges as well as the warning light clusters. Access on the PK250 suffers from the same minor problem as many cab over trucks, with the non-slip aluminium steps mounted right on the front corner of the cab, just below the door. Nissan Diesel has addressed the problem with a number of well-placed grab handles, but it's still possible to find a pair of work-boots getting hooked up when climbing into the cab.
Once inside, vision from the driver's seat is good, with quite a deep windscreen and "daylight" glass panels fitted in both doors. The mirrors give good vision, although they aren't standard PK250 manually adjusted units. Nissan Diesel salesman, Ian Renner, had a set of electrically adjustable Nissan Diesel units, which had been removed from another truck, and Barry saw them and had them fitted to his PK250. It's that type of service, which sees Ian come in for plenty of praise from Barry. "He's really good and is always ringing me up to see how things are going," Barry said. He refers back to the night, shortly after purchasing the truck, when he got a phone call from one of his relief drivers one morning at 3am. The truck had ruptured a fuel line and was stuck at the bottom of Ngauranga Gorge. Within the hour, a Nissan engineer had repaired the problem and got the ruck back on the road. "Their service really is pretty good," Barry said. "At the end of the day I'm looking for the reliability factor and, I don't want calls in the middle of the night to say it's not going." He says his MK235 gave him 600,000km of trouble-free service and was snapped up within a day after it went onto a used truck sales yard. "That was a bloody good little truck," he says. "It was really peppy and went really well. "When I got this one I put my foot down and wondered why it didn't go as well... then I looked at the Speedo and I was doing 105(kmh). It's really deceptive, and you can't feel it go nearly as much as the other one.
Trundling down the motorway towards Wellington, the truck registered noise readings of 80-83dBa, which is probably a little higher than we would have expected. However, the sound is not overpowering or distracting, and it certainly didn't become a nuisance after a day in the cab. The sound increased slightly when Barry flicked on the exhaust brake descending the Ngauranga Gorge, but it certainly didn't echo through the cab and assault the ears. I've found the exhaust brake on this to be really good, and I've really been pretty impressed with the Eaton gearbox as well it's really smooth, and has been since day one, Barry said. While he comments on the smooth performance of the Eaton 6109 nine-speed gearbox, Barry says the first six gears are quite close together, and he finds he hits a small dead spot in the truck's power band when he grabs seventh. It's nothing much really, but you can notice a flat spot after the first six gears. When negotiating the city, Barry doesn't often climb out of the first six gears, and we didn't get any higher than sixth when heading up the Ngauranga Gorge back towards Palmerston North that night. The FE6TC engine spun happily at about 2000rpm as we climbed the gorge in sixth gear at a steady 50kmh, with an all-up weight of just over 13 tonne. The engine was ticking over just outside the 1800rpm range where it produces maximum torque of 666Nm (49lft/lb), although well below the 2800rpm where it produces peak power of 184kW (247hp). As a whole, Nissan Diesel's PK250 is a good package. It has a wonderful engine and gearbox, appears to have been engineered with the driver in mind and, in Barry's case at least, the manufacturer's backup service and support also rates highly. In the case of this New Zealand Post-contractor, this Nissan Diesel really does deliver. « back |
