When it comes to buying prime mover trucks, fuel efficiency is one of the main factors you need to consider prior to making the final decision. In fact, what any business needs is a truck that will provide optimum performance and save on fuel costs at the same. For this reason what you need to do is to choose the prime mover truck that will meet the requirements of your business in the most efficient way possible.
Finding fuel efficient prime mover truck that will meet the needs of your business doesn’t have to be a daunting task. All you need to do is to familiarize yourself with the factors that determine the fuel economy of the prime mover trucks. This said, the factors that you need to consider are: the size, the weight and the shape of the truck. More specifically, these segments are determined by the features of the parts of a truck. Given this the most important parts of the truck that determine the final size, weight and shape of the truck are: chassis, cab, engine, body, tyres and transmission.
- Chassis – The chassis holds all the other parts of the truck; it conjoins parts such as the body, engine and the axles of the truck. It is the base part that determines the distance between the wheel axles of the truck and the distance between the back of the prime mover truck and its back axle. These two distance determine the type of truck body that you will be able to attach to it and the capacity of the loads that you can tow. Given this, you should choose a chassis that will best suit your needs. On the other side, if you choose a chassis with wrong wheel arc, you will have to spend more on fuel costs.
- Body and Cab Type – Prime mover trucks are available in different size and type of cab and body. If you want to maximize the use of your truck, you ought to choose truck with a body that will match the requirements of your business. If you buy a truck with much larger body than you actually need, you will need to spend more on fuel, since moving half-full body requires almost the same amount of fuel as moving a full body. Also, if you buy a truck with too small of a capacity, you will have to make more trips in order to transport the loads and with that you will end up spending more money on fuel.
- Engine – The engine is the part that produces power output for the operation of the prime mover trucks. When it comes to the engine, you should look for a truck with an engine that can deliver the most torque even when the truck is moving at the slowest speed. The truck with this type of engine will provide the optimum performance on low speeds, while saving on fuel at the same time.
- Transmission – Prime mover trucks are available with two types of transmission: manual and automatic. This segment has a huge impact on the fuel economy of the truck. If you want to save on fuel, then you should choose manual transmission. Manual transmission is more efficient because it doesn’t require additional amount of energy that enables circulation of the automatic transmission fluid. Also, manual transmission repairs are easier and cheaper, which is not the case with the automatic transmission.
- Wheels and Tyres – To get the most out of your truck’s performance you should opt for tyres that provide the least possible rolling resistance. The recommended type of tyres for reaching high speeds and efficiency during the long distance hauls, are the single wide tyres and aluminum wheels. Unlike the traditional pneumatic tyres, these tyres provide maximum performance during long distance hauls, enabling driving on high speeds while not affecting the fuel consumption of the vehicle.
