Best Built America Dump Trucks

Hell we would just blow out the filters at lube time. lol.

 

I would go with the truck that you can get parts for easiest.. If every time you break somthing you have to air ship it from the USA and wait... That'll be too expensive..

I've had excellent service from an old International Paystar.. that was a beefy truck that took everything I threw at it and more...

I drove a Mack.. it was old but dam.... that truck was like a timex watch.. it took a licking and kept on ticking!

Pete.. had a nice ex show truck.. Sure I sat in the cab and just pushed buttons.. BUT.. it was not ment for off road service.. It was fine for paving but that was about it.. too low ground clearance, heavy, poor turning radius, wound up taking off the alum. rims and replacing them with 5 spoke hubs.. we broke too many alum rims.. Had a nice alum. body too.. looked nice just couldn't put anything big in it or it would put a hole in the bottom of the body..

Out of all of them I liked the International.. rough, tough, and simple..

 

For Africa only Scania, Volvo, Mercedes or MAN, you wont fine any body to work on US trucks, & parts lol goooood luck.

 

I have been i the excavating business over 30 years and was in the dump truck business 20 years, i have seen every type of truck used in my area working in sand, clay mud and rock, and have been on site jobs where companies hired dozens of dump trucks only to realize some types do not work off road, a tri axle is one of them due to if it sinks the third axle holds the truck back from moving.

My choice for off road would be a Mack, 18K front 58K rears with a 188" wheel base, 8LL trans, 11/24 tube type rubber, Mack called it the Jersey spec but was also popular in New York and New England area, i owned 2 RD 688SX Macks with 14' bodies which were always used for off road use, the key to finding a Mack with those specs is "SX" it stands for extreme duty.

They are not popular today due to truckers getting paid by the yard or ton, but for off road i haven't seen a truck built better then a SX Mack.

 

buy what is most common on market, this would help with parts availability, with mechanics that can work on it,easier to sell, get better resale value etc.

also keep in mind that this bring more danger of being stolen , both truck itself and parts of it

when it comes to brand:for offroad conditions i would chose only european and nothing else,

why?

because almost no american truck have hub reduction axles, which are mandatory for anything else than asphalt,because strong chassis bogies and springs, syncronised transmissions,more clutch surface ,superior traction,better visibility, but for many other small reasons that count as well

here during 2000-2005 bechtel used their trucks to work on highway, those were mostly kw t800 and t800w ,i have no idea how old they were they were uncomfortable, much worst than anything we ever experienced, than still many of old european trucks (mostly mercedes ng and man f8 from 70s were ) were light years more comfortable than KWs, so nobody wanted to drive them, also they were loud

but real problems were with they capability to do work, they dont have axle articulation, no traction , .....

there was maybe even 100 of them, most of them did not manage to survive our conditions,about 30-35 of them survived this,

latter they were worked in romania,






7-8 of them survived romania that and we were again worked together on kosovo ,

lot of different style of trucks worked there: normal mid european trucks from croatia, with normal tipper bodies, tipper trucks from italy, with 45ton tipper bodies, local trucks loaded well, turkish build mercedes trucks,turkish build bmc fatih , those were 220hp 6x2 they loaded them with 35ton , there were even 2 scania from south korea , those KWs , holland ginaf with hydraulic suspension, british erf, narrow swiss tippers .....











same truck on our plates





cat 990 loading our 2429



those two are not mine pictures, author on picture




most probably i would chose mercedes, why? because mercedes sells over 40% of their trucks in construction/offroad segment, and no other manufacturer have such % in this, so this is important to mercedes and they invest lot of money to develop this good

i would keep away from iveco and renault , they are too fragile even for our conditions here, our 28year old mercedes work with two iveco trucks, one of them dont work at least half of time, it is 2007-8 and it spend half of week in shop mostly due electric problems, iveco is famous for this , guess what my 3.5x older mercedes never lose day , here only state owned companies buy iveco because it is cheap so it wins tender, army, forests,road services, winter service,waste collection.....

my brother says rather drive 20+year mercedes in his company than 2006-2008 iveco , he would get now new iveco

we use here man as well, they dont hold that well as mercedes, they clearly show why they are cheaper, something that would never go wrong on mercedes, often make problem with man , diffs are weaker, frames too, brakes are smaller, it is hard to find man here that never broke halfshaft, our 2x each, cabs rust more .....

scania have too expensive parts if aynthing go wrong( in africa it would) this would cost you much more than on other brands if you buy new parts , also older scania trucks had low torque on low revs, small overall ratios, hub ration on hub reduction axles were low, so more strain in diff, and in halfshaft, i would not buy scania older than 1991 for construction( than they introduce 9 and 14speed gearboxes)

volvo might be ok choice,

also in west of africa there is lot of daf trucks, daf hub reduction diffs are strong, old daf were bulletproof

 

I like Mack Dump truks

really all Mack trucks are based on Volvo Powertraine, like Renault Kerax, but Mack is cheaper than Volvo FMX ore VHD and better than Kerax, so IMO, good choise

 

Mack still offers its own heavy spec which is a camelback suspension and heavy rears which has been the same since the early 1960's.

 

Mack dm 800

 

Kenworth C500... the "secret" Kenworth product designed specifically for off-road conditions (not a road spec truck dressed up as an off-highway vehicle).

 

A few years back I tried to find a good older mack dump truck and the dealers I talked to said they sent most of them to Africa because that's way they liked there. I couldn't get any of them below a certain price because they exported them.