New Diesel Record: 4.7-mpg!!

[slowmover]

No typo. Up from 3.9-mpg. 20%.

That was Day Three of an oilfield truck driving job in a Model 367 Peterbilt 10-speed Eaton behind a Cummins ISX 485. TARE weight with trailer of @33,000-lbs. Delivering or removing up to 45k of rock dust with a pneumatic trailer (in a 4" i.d. hose this stuff weighs 75# per foot). The gearing is to get the load moving. Pulls like a freight train from any speed with 1,650TQ at 1,200-rpm. HP is 485 @ 1,800-rpm and governed at 2,100-rpm.

Truck is brand new (6k miles; break-in is past 100k miles), and it rides down the lease roads like a Cadillac. Governed at 65-mph (to 68 on cruise). Great seats. Air ride chassis, cab and seat. Plus trailer.

Another company, another job, but the same destination -- an oilfield well drilling site -- used a 9-mpg Freightliner (ex-WalMart). Different kind of load and trailer, so different TARE as well. Cheap seats, but air otherwise.

The new truck on the new job can travel the lease roads at twice the speed of the old truck. And doesn't pound the driver to death while doing it.

It took 1'15" the other night to travel 15-miles down a lease road near Encinal, Texas. Would have taken 2.5-hrs in the old truck. With the return trip included, the five hours to travel the same 30-miles versus about two-and-a-half in the new means money in the pocket for the driver (yours truly) since HOS (Hours-of-Service) limit how much we can work in a series of days (on a day-by-day basis).

So even though the older truck got better mpg and could run 74-mph guess which one is "more economical"? Rather, which one can really make money?

The truck that preserves hours and doesn't beat itself or the driver half to death. Five hours roundtrip after waiting or working 2, 3, or up to 9-hours at the site means at least one can get to a truckstop from some of these remote areas before running out of hours. Maybe even get the next load aboard before shutdown.

Now, not all lease roads are terrible. One can about fly through the million acre King Ranch (per their speed limits) on the little I have seen of it from the edges. (Note on the map that Driscoll, TX to Rivera, TX is 28-miles. And westward to Falfurrias another 22-miles. That's the N-S & E-W boundary of just one ranch section). Other ranches are not quite as large but may be harder to get into and to traverse. If I told you that I drove 10-miles into any ranch down here to the well site you could see why it wouldn't mean much, ha!

A rancher without mineral rights to his own land may not want road grading equipment at work any more than necessary; along with other reasons that "prevent" smooth access roads. One can spend more time on these unpaved lease roads traveling only a few miles compared to the highway miles back and forth to that entrance point.



These two truck firms operated on different levels of finance and philosophy. But . . . going down the highway seen from the level of the ordinary observer they're both still big trucks hauling oilfield tools, equipment and supplies. They still only deliver and pick up. Both are weight limited.

No run by either truck is more than about 150-miles from the home terminal. In both cases the material delivered is time-sensitive. One estimate of well drilling (not the fracking) is an average of $5-million in 28-days. Divide that by the hour to see what a delay costs. Dispatch is many hours ahead of arrival.

Idle time means, thus far, about a 21-mph average. Trucks don't get shut off. One gigantic GARDNER-DENVER pos-displace blower runs off that CUMMINS with a jackshaft at a 1,050-rpm engine speed when the truck is loading or unloading.

For Diesel_Dave: I read the PACCAR Owners Manual, the CUMMINS Manual and that of EATON. I was dismayed to see that cold start idle was to be until coolant reaches 130F and oil reaches 100F that the truck is not to be moved. ???? Well, the modern emissions package (variable vane turbo) can kick it up to those temps in only a few minutes. Awesome. The shop is running CHEVRON URSA 15W-40 and it looks like PM's are at 15k miles for this HD service.

Manifold pressure hasnt exceeded 30-psi and the truck comes up or down immediately (unlike older turbos). With gigantic external air cleaners and pre-cleaners that must be able to handle an inch of heavy dust and insects it has one great set of sounds as you move down the gears to make a 90-degree slow turn, and then come back up through the low side to rest in about First/High (6th) to "cruise" the lease road (12-mph). (I followed several other trucks in to a site the other evening and lost them in the dust cloud while in the "drag" position. Had to "navigate" [stay on the road] by watching the sides where the blade piles the dirt. In turn the other drivers had to warn me via CB of narrow cattle guards and to bypass old load limited bridges to one side or another. Have to figure out how to line up the 60' articulated rig while "at speed". In the dark. In the dust).

The 24.5 lug tires on the Drive axles appear to have above 1.25" tread depth (22.5 is the common size for on-road). LRR tires they ain't. No exhaust brake requirement, so to speak, but a slightly exotic manner of engaging and locking the two Drive axles if needed.

Late spring in the South Texas brush country also means I am picking up about 126 butterflies per hour en route. Have to install the radiator bug screen and can't seem to travel 100-miles without cleaning windshield glass. Otherwise some beautiful mornings en route as the caracara's battle turkey vultures over huge dead rattlesnakes on the remote roads.

6 days on and 2 off. I look forward to how "my" economy improves. I'm guessing it will be mainly about "progressive shifting" as truck idle time is pretty well set

And it's a rather funny image as I get back in my Cummins-powered pickup and have to remember another shift pattern and to use the clutch after a tiring day, ha! Rookie doesn't describe it. Ugly is more like it, but it's only about 7-miles to work each way.

So, remember: we'll drill till the day we die. The money is good if the hours are long. Guys arrive to find work here even without a place to live. However one thinks or feels (despite the major reasoning flaws of either a Daniel Yergin or a Bill McKibben) it's better to eat in the meantime. And fascinating to observe from any angle.

What I drive is just one of the little boys in these parts:

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Pneumatic Steel 575 c/f Trailer

Some of the trucks one see's are beyond mysterious. And some gigantic with equally gigantic loads. Not exactly with descriptive signage to them. When in doubt, just call it (some form of) a frac truck:




For another angle (and for someone owning an RV and wanting "easy money") look into gate guarding. Each well site has one. Here's a blog of one couple working with pics and descriptions. Retired folks and others wanting a few months, or a few years, of solid bankable money.

You won't none of you be surprised that throughout the "industry" that ex-military has significant representation.

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[slowmover]

The alumnum wheels (ALCOA) are rated at 7,300-lbs/ea. Tires are to be run at 95-100 psi, but currently are at 112-psi. The shop says they'll soon have in stock the kind of flow-thru valve stems that will permit rapid checks of the inner tire on dual positions. Last time I went through and corrected all eighteen of a big trucks tire pressure readings it took over 45" of crawling around while at a truck stop at a slow moment in the day. So I'll wait a week or so until those extensions come in as the first PM is still 9,000-miles away.

The trade-off, here, of pressure versus load, is for the very tough lease roads. A bit of "give" is necessary (according to company experience). I'll check the calibration of my air gauge against that of the shop. A PCL brand gauge is something I've wanted for a while. My present truck stop gauge is off by at least 3-4 lbs.

I scraped the fifth wheel one day last week and re-applied fresh grease. The single predictor of a truck jack-knife isn't weather or traffic or driver skill, but a "dry" fifth wheel. Once the jaws are closed on the trailer kingpin, this becomes a steering device. The winds here -- along with a tractor front-end & steering optimized for limited off-road -- make for less precise steering than would be found in a highway only tractor. As the grease ages it takes just that much more throttle or time on the throttle to get the trailer around a corner. Maybe while backing at slow speed, but that would be hard to quantify. Some drilling pads have more room than others, thus some backing operations to the hoppers we either fill or drain can can have extra-tight 90-degree turns. Most of all, a "draggy" trailer is no picnic to smoothly move down the road.

The Driver Information Center screen can be set to tell all sorts of info as one goes down the road. I, up to now, use the Trip Info that tells me about Instant nad Trip Fuel Economy. It'll range up to 30-mpg when all is released, and it is quite interesting to see the effects of winds on this read-out. I might only see 3.7-mpg on the outbound trip, but see 6.6 on the return.

Travel speeds are pretty well set. This is not a dawdle-along-at-55 proposition. A long haul driver on a full day of Interstate driving can have more room to experiment. Our job is to deliver, and as quickly as possible. "Vocational" work trucks, as this is, also include construction types that you would see on any capital intensive job (road building, mining, etc).

I spent a little time with the shop supervisor yesterday. The Cummins Manual tells me that a Re-Gen cycle may take 1.5-2.0 hours, but he said that thus far they're seeing around a half-hour. The driver can control the cycle by shutting it off (1,500F exhaust temps aren't going to be happening on a drilling site), and I plan on manually setting a cycle on a long return leg to see how the question of time works. Having an idea of how it works, how often it may operate, and how long it may take might enable me to predict if whether or not to "run" a cycle to pre-empt this happening while at rest in a place I'd have to shut it off. And then have it go through the cycle again.

As I become more accustomed to the job, and to the different sorts of loads and places of delilvery I'll probably see a more consistent fuel burn and can then try the smallest changes in styles to accommodate a slight rise in the average. I'd like to have one of the better sets of fuel consumption numbers along with other gauges of driver performance that a company tracks. There will always be "better" and more experienced drivers than me. So I'll strive for across-the-board consistency.

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[mechman600]

How much DEF are you going through? Instead of fuel economy, we now need to use the term "fluid economy" and include DEF usage.
Regen intervals for these 2010+ engines seem to be 20-30 hrs, which is much better than the 8-12 hrs of the 07-09 products.

Nice truck. I work at a Pete dealer.

[slowmover]

This is a very nice truck. No comparison between a 367 Pete and an old Freightshaker for this duty. I'm very impressed. Going down those rough roads and in every other consideration.

I'll have to note hours, etc, more carefully. I filled the DEF tank at the shop on Day One and have filled the main tanks twice. The gauges are a bit "off" from actual capacity readings (move faster than necessary). I'm not the only one who drives this tractor, just the main driver.

The Regen activity has only shown up on me twice that I have noted (my concern over being parked and idling near combustibles). Todays weather forecast for Catarina, TX is of 100F by 1400. Plenty of waiting via going Off Duty at a rig, thus heavily extended idle time. Truck was "on" yesterday from 1000 to past 0200 today.

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[Diesel_Dave]

Interesting, have you compared your fuel consumption in terms of gal/ton-mile between the two trucks?

The temperature thing perplexes me. Is that info from the Cummins manual or PACCAR? I do know that many of the newer diesels with SCR systems have a "warm-up" mode. The issue is that the catalyst doesn't work until the temperature gets above a ceratin threshold (just like conventional 3-way catalytic converters on gasoline cars). Basically, the engine is trying to get the cat hot ASAP so it can start using the DEF to cut down the NOx. However, there's no reason that the truck can't be moved while it's in the warm up mode--if anything it helps it warm up because adding load helps it warm up sooner. So I'm not sure what that's about.

[mechman600]

Yeah, I'm agreeing with Dave on this one. Paccar is out to lunch on that one.

The ISX15 is ALWAYS in an aftertreatment warmup state (VGT nozzle fully closed to create lots of backpressure and help build heat quickly) when the engine is idling and the coolant temp is below ~150F. Easy to tell because it sounds like a giant vacuum cleaner. Driving during this time will not hurt anything. As soon as you step the throttle, the engine reverts back to "normal" anyway.

I deal with ISX15 engines in Paccar products on a daily basis on the service department side of things. Your citing of the manual is the first I have heard of this.

And don't worry about regenning near combustibles. Exhaust out temps are much lower on SCR engines. Besides, it will never regen when the truck is stationary and you haven't forced a regen with the regen switch.

[slowmover]

The coolant and oil temps come up almost immediately. It was the CUMMINS Manual that was specific about warm-up. Really surprised me. It's pretty well a non-issue as it turns out. I can hardly pre-trip the rig that it isn't ready on these two readings.

Interesting, have you compared your fuel consumption in terms of gal/ton-mile between the two trucks?

The previous truck was a low[est] roof Freightliner FLD with a 12L Detroit and 10-speed. Recent in-frame. Pulling a 48' flat.

The present truck TARE is 18,100. I'd guess higher than the above, overall, with the ISX-15 & 10-speed. Both have similar weight ratings. The latter, though, is pulling a tall pneumatic trailer where a single or triple hopper is suspended in a framework. Catches wind and is top heavy (demanding slower corners).

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One might be able to compare when pulling an empty flatbed (as both did/do) and in this case the FLD easily hit the 9's consistently. I drove back the other evening down the Interstate and saw low sevens with the 367 pulling an empty 52' flat. Both were governed at 65 and 68 respectively. With only 8k miles on it, the 367 is brand new. The FLD had over 700k. I also topped up this morning in Edna, TX after returning last night from filling in Encinal, TX where the truck pulled either an empty single or triple hopper at 68-mph on cruise (broken by being parked overnight). MPG appeared to have been nearly 7 (I'm still experimenting with tank fill to see how much it can hold. The low fuel light comes on with both tanks at 20-gls remaining (40-total).

So the trade-off is on those runs where the FLD took two hours for the one the 367 needs to cover a section of rough "lease road". It might the difference of making a second load under HOS regulations, even more, by the end of a drivers 7-day/80-hour workweek maximum.

Etc, etc. Hard to make direct comparisons as the customers are different, the operating philosophy is different, the loads are different and the time pressures are also different. The truck differences are magnified by age, etc, also.

The FLD burned less fuel, no doubt, but the 367 is the champ where the rules are all strictly observed. The runs are "about" 150-miles or less (an area of oilfield HOS exemptions, etc) so the 70 miles to the site are at the same arrival time . . . but the last 12-miles is at twice the speed for the 367.

Ton/mile is a calculation that is fairly far out from the reliability that matters more. (I'm pretty tired tonight, so mind is circling the drain just now). I don't keep records on this truck, but for the most part am reading from the dashboard Driver Info Center.

14-gauges, 19-switches (not including radio, HVAC or multi-function stalk or DIC), a PTO hooked to a gigantic blower . . . it's a fair amount to learn even though much is "familiar" (each truck job is just that much different). Then there are the trailers. And the different pneumatic loads.

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[drmiller100]

i enjoy reading these posts - something very different than anything i've ever done.....

thanks!

[JasonG]

Really good write up SlowMover.
After break in it should go up some more.
4.7 isn't terrible, I've been in Cats that get 5s on the hwy if going boogetty and 6 if turned down.

Above all the lowered stress from the better ride is more than worth it.
I used to drive and non CDL drivers don't get the body stress the older vehicles put on you by the end of the day. Bad memories of an International that always sat behind the barn. Nobody liked driving that beast. Bad steering wheel angle, harsh suspension and noisy. Best thing about it was when you shut it down and got out.

[mechman600]

slowmover, PM me if you ever have any ISX or Peterbilt foibles popping up. No doubt you will. More so on the ISX I'm sure. I deal with them every single day. Major and minor.

It is an absolute shame that this is the only Paccar option for a 15L engine now.