Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/599511
38 commercial carrier journal | november 2015 Y ou'd be hard-pressed to pick better proving grounds than the mountainous Pacific Northwest, Kenworth's home turf, to test a new 11-liter diesel engine and a GPS-driven cruise control system. The new MX-11 was, like its big-brother MX-13, designed by Paccar's DAF subsidiary in The Netherlands. It has seen extensive testing on the European continent since its debut there in 2013, where it eventually logged 250 million miles, with another 2 million in North America. Paccar now builds the new engine in Columbus, Miss., and sends many of them back across the pond to Europe. The MX-11 features new design points that were not available when the MX-13 was on the drawing board. There are new mod- ularly designed components, including an innovative water pump that features cartridge-style sections that can be replaced without removing the entire system. If the pump's impeller or the belt as- sembly goes bad, a technician can simply replace those modules. A glimpse of the future also can be seen in the MX-11: The engine has been designed from the ground up to be quickly updated with software and can be programmed to meet specific customer requirements. The engine displacement is 10.8 liters. That works out to 355- to 430-horsepower options, with torque ratings ranging from 1,250 to 1,500 lb.-ft. Paccar says the new MX-11 is 400 pounds lighter than comparable MX-13 or Cummins ISX12 engines. The engine has an impressive B10 life of 1 million miles. That means testing shows that MX-11 engines can run for 1 million miles before 10 percent of them need an overhaul. On Interstate 405, the main north-south freeway through the Seattle area, the MX-11 proved to be superbly quiet with plenty of low-end torque. My test truck, a sharp Kenworth T680 with an Eaton Fuller Advantage automated manual transmission, was loaded with about 34,000 pounds in the trailer. The MX-11 had no problem handling the load, even on the steeper grades. Predictive cruising It was no coincidence that my second test truck, an MX-13-pow- ered T680, also featured Eaton's Fuller Advantage AMT, which is the key controlling component of Kenworth's new Predictive Cruise Control system that uses GPS data to anticipate changing road conditions and deal with them as efficiently as possible through gearing and speed. One of the drawbacks of a conventional cruise control system is its inability to judge terrain conditions. Every driver is familiar with experiencing the sudden burst of throttle as cruise control encounters a steep grade, or with scrambling to disengage the system as speed picks up once a grade has been crested. Kenworth's new system identifies these terrain conditions in advance and adjusts throttle settings or gear selections appro- priately. This holds true going up or down, when the system automatically shifts into neutral, or what Kenworth calls "Coast Mode," to deliver exceptional fuel economy. Should the down- ward grade steepen considerably, the system seamlessly engages the engine brake to hold the truck at its desired speed. The system worked exactly as advertised during my run across the Cascades. Even in steep terrain, you can flip the system on and forget it, with full confidence it will handle any topography. Kenworth will begin selling the MX-11 for its vocational and regional-haul trucks in the United States and Canada in January 2016; the engine will be available for the T880, T680, T800 and W900S. Predictive Cruise Control is available now as a facto- ry-installed option. CompaCt strength MX-11, Predictive Cruise offer glimpse of Paccar's future By Jack RoBeRts T E S T D R I V E : P A C C A R M X - 1 1 E N G I N E Paccar says the MX-11 engine offers enough horsepower to tackle most long-haul Class 8 and medium-duty vocational applications while boosting fuel economy numbers. Kenworth's new Predictive Cruise Control system uses real-time GPS data to identify upcoming ter- rain conditions and instantly match throttle input and gear selection.