Let’s talk about trucks: Which is best suited for the job?

Hello Baraza,

We continue to quench our curiosity in your never-ending pool of vehicular knowledge. Keep it up. Our brothers from the frontier counties have a penchant for the Mitsubishi Fuso, which they use to transport their livestock to the city and ferry back consumer goods on the return journey. The Sand merchants plying the route prefer the FVRs and CXZs. From the face of it, the Fuso looks and acts sprightly. Would there be a factor to each preference or is it just peer confidence?

The sand merchants are now attaching trailers to these FVRs and FVZs to maximise on load carry during the trips to the river. Do these lorries have the tractor power to haul the extra 10 to 15 tonnes and what long term effects will this have on the trucks?

Regards,

R. Mwangii

Hi Mwangii,

Now, I could have delved into a lot of technical comparing arcane details and say one is better than the other, but I've had it up to here with unknowing, entitled PR departments imagining I'm on their payrolls and should therefore extol their respective and frequently non-existent virtues, who then blow a fuse whenever I uncover some uncomfortable truths. So I decided not to go this alone. I decided to hear the gospel from the horse's mouth. I went to the truckers themselves and asked them outright. The results are very interesting to say the least.

While there are some disparities in the finer details, which we will get to in a bit, the general consensus is Isuzus are made of sterner stuff, literally, which is why they are tasked for jobs such as ferrying sand. This doesn't mean Fusos are soft, far from that, and it is at this point that we go into the details.

Isuzus are cheaper and so have a steeper ROI (return on investment) curve on the revenue versus time lapsed graph. This in turn means deploying them on relatively low-paying missions such as construction and ferrying sand makes more sense than using a Fuso, which costs more - we are talking of a million shillings plus, like for like - and is better suited for the higher-returns role of passenger and livestock transport. This makes a lot of sense. Also sensible is the explanation that some of these choices are cultural: river sand collection is a highly localised operation which started back in the era of the (in)famous direct injection Isuzu HTR (a.k.a the "TX") which was so overqualified, a large number are still in operation to date, 40 years later. Having established its impeccable and unflappable street cred not entirely dissimilar to the kind of belief people have about the invincibility of Toyotas, it only followed that the brand enjoyed and continues to enjoy a cult following expressed as sales in that specific field.

And now the details. Someone mentioned diffs, while someone else mentioned Eaton Fuller 10-speed transmissions and turbos, but the essence was speed. Fusos, having taller driveline ratios and (lately) turbos, are perfect for high speed, low-load work such as traversing the hundreds of kilometres one is required to pound through to get to the far frontiers where insecurity is a way of life. They're simply faster by a considerable margin with the added bonus of reduced tyre wear and better fuel economy. Isuzus may be slower and thirstier, but with shorter ratios and easy torque in the form of massive displacement*, they are more ideal for back-breaking sand-toting off-road duty.

The hardiness of the Isuzu, particularly the clutch, transmission, suspension and axles coupled with readily available and pocket-friendly parts makes it an ideal mule. It seems Fuso parts are eye-wateringly expensive - how does Sh1.2 million for a Fuso gearbox sound? - and the dealers lack the versatility of their General Motors rivals in response to market. A specific instance of this is in the tipper segment.

So where did I learn all this? From the planet called Trucking Network Galore where all kinds of truck addicts from owners to drivers to watchers like me thrive, where opinion is free, experiences are honest and feedback is immediate. I take their word seriously so I will vouch for what they told me.

(*The Isuzu Giga, for instance, comes with engines ranging from 12,000cc to 30,000cc in V8, V10 and V12 configurations. Yes, you read that right, these things can pack 30-liter V engines.)

Sorry, but I don’t have a prescription for the underwhelming CVT transmission in your Mercedes Benz

Hello JM,

Thanks for the great work you’re doing helping us navigate the sometimes murky waters of motoring and car ownership. Now, not so long ago my mum acquired a Mercedes Benz B180 YOM 2011. It so happened that I became her chauffer, a job I don’t mind at all. So far, the car has been brilliant in every aspect apart from its underwhelming CVT gearbox. My dubiety in the gearbox was further increased when I recently went onto Mercedes Benz forums online and found that the car is plagued by a failure of the transmission sensors that read engine speed and relay the information to the gearbox. When the sensor gives up, the car goes into limp mode and you get a transmission message on the instrument cluster. Those who’ve experience this say it happens as the car nears 100000 km and the fix usually costs between Sh50,000 to Sh75,000. I would like to know how much the fix would cost locally as the car is nearing said mileage, also, is there any preventative maintenance that can be done to avoid this problem?

Regards,

Biko

Hi Biko,

Part of me is very tempted to spew verbiage about the pitfalls of not buying a real Mercedes, but let us not be petty. That said, next time buy a real Mercedes, just saying. The B Class is not it. It is very clever of you to research about the car. Your sense of initiative would save many people a lot of grief if only they shared it, and perhaps the content of this column would be very different from what it is now ("My car won't start, how come, answer me now and stop trashing Nissan-Mitsubishi-Peugeot because you know nothing anyway..."). With the correct knowledge, or at least a semblance thereof, preventative maintenance such as the one you want to follow up will go a long way towards making your automotive life easier.

There is a caveat here, though. While I strongly endorse preventative maintenance, I cannot speak for the practitioners and executors thereof. Garage pricing varies wildly, ranging from insignificant near-favours where the work is done under a tree or at the roadside, no guarantees are given, payment is in cash (small notes, please, we don't have change) and the vehicle may come out worse than it went in, through the official franchise dealership route where you are asked irrelevant questions such as why you imported a vehicle model and yet the dealership is right there, conveniently overlooking the fact that they don't sell that model at all, all the way to “executive” high-end operations stashed away at exclusive addresses where you are given coffee, croissants, magazines and good conversation before being hit with an invoice that gives you sweaty palms and you start having dark thoughts about indebtedness, repossession and the dreaded CRB. Owning a (German) car is not for the lily-livered.

The short answer is: no, I don't know how much it costs to pre-empt transmission troubles on a 2011 Mercedes-Benz B180.

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Steps you can take to discourage thieves and dishonest mechanics from stealing your car parts

Dear Baraza,

Trust you are well and keeping safe. Your column, as well as the Seeds of Gold magazine in the Saturday Nation is a must-read. I have an issue that I have noted with jua kali garages such as Grogan and some established ones, especially those taking on insurance contracted accident repairs where majority of Kenyans have suffered in silence. I would like to request your help in informing the general public that you cannot find a replacement of this part (see accompanying photo) anywhere and that the general performance of the vehicle becomes poor once components from the exhaust muffler are removed. (I don't know what the components are used for)

Removal of the parts increases exhaust emissions and the exhaust system cannot attenuate the noise output from the engine.

Regards,

Ken

Hi Ken,

The part you refer to is called the catalytic converter, and much as it behooves me to be more circumspect with potentially damaging open secrets, cars can be made to run normally without them with no performance penalty. However, the Motoring Press Agency has, as one of its many departments, a division of environmental boffinry if you could call it that - a think tank tasked with addressing matters to do with climate change in general and the impact of the automotive industry in particular, so it is both our moral and professional duty to decry the removal of emissions control devices from motor vehicles so fitted.

Theft of these “cats”, as we fondly refer to them in the industry is becoming rampant to the point of trending on social media locally and it’s for a very simple reason: precious metals. Borrowing a leaf from their shady like-minded TWOCcers in foreign lands, local opportunists are going after these devices to extract exotic elements from the far end of the Periodic Table with names like palladium, platinum and rhodium. The rarity of these materials make them insanely expensive and therefore lucrative for changing hands on the black market.

Now I said a car can be “decatted” and still run fine, but it depends on a few things, first of which is what car we are talking about. Some will not even register the missing component while others will light up the dashboard and throw histrionics in protest at the environmentally damaging manoeuvre the owner is attempting. Decatting a car may or may not need to involve a remap of the ECU to delete the emissions control codes, but a thief has no time to clear Check Engine lights for you, he is there to (wrongly) get his and bug the hell out before he is caught.

Which brings us to my conjecture about this whole nasty business. While foreign cat burglars are after the metals contained therein, local pilferers are less sophisticated. They steal them so they can simply sell them back to you especially if your vehicle malfunctions upon an unsanctioned converter-ectomy. As you said, replacement converters are very hard to find, which makes them very pricey. These semi-enterprising thieves could even export them back to the country of origin if the market demand there is worth the effort.

Unfortunately, the most targeted vehicle brand for this theft is Toyota, which begs the question: what to do?

There are a few steps you can take as an owner/driver.

Installing an undertray will deter street theft, but at the garage they have all the time to remove the tray, get the cat and fit the tray back. This brings us to step two: inspect your vehicle and take photos of the undercarriage before and after garage time. This should be an easy tell if the cat is gone and you can take it up with the personnel on the spot. Some say stamp a serial number on the cat itself but I don't see of what help this is since the cat is invisible until you go under the car. There are other methods such as welding the cat in place or shearing off the bolt heads to make theft more frustrating. Remember, a thief is always in a hurry.