Four legs good

摘要

Casting my eyes over the registration figures for four-axle rigids, looking for a representative brand, I couldn't do much better than select Volvo's current FMX chassis. And with a proven heritage in tippers, it proved to be an interesting ride. Perhaps the first point to note: as with fleet tractors, it's the transmissions that have brought the biggest change. That said, the inexorable creep of AMTs (automated manual transmissions) has taken longer to gain traction here. Martin Tomlinson, transport services manager at Volvo, in Warwick, agrees that's mostly been due to a fear of getting stuck off-road. "When the first AMTs came out they weren't perfect, no matter who made them," he recalls. "Anyone in tipper operations would have been unimpressed and dismissed them as only for the long-haul tractors."