Review: Mack Super-Liner

Bruce Honeywill tackles the Longreach to Cloncurry run in Mack's Super-Liner, with 600hp of angry MP10 engine hauling an A-B triple combination

I first got my hands on a Mack Titan powered by the then new MP10 engine back in 2011. Pulling triples through South Australia, it was a pretty impressive beast. The automated transmission and high torque levelled out hills like the Pimba Jump-Up on the Stuart Highway. However, this was a factory truck, tweaked and tuned for media testing. I wrote that review in a national mag published in March, 2012.

Since then the MP10 engine – the first new Mack engine in more than a decade – has, according to Mack's salespeople, caused a national deficiency in the company's order books. As in, all orders were quickly filled.

Sales have improved by a whopping 200 per cent according to the head honcho of Mack Trucks in Australia, Dean Bestwick. It seems Mack's traditional industry approach of vertical integration – i.e. making its own engine – is working.

Using OEM engines never sat comfortably with Mack and the removal of Caterpillar and Detroit from the spec sheets gave Mack buyers the choice of one: Cummins. So there were many reasons for celebration when Mack’s own engine, the MP10, began eating the kilometres on Australian highways.

Touted as a genuine all-American Mack engine, like all truck components the MP10 has hybrid heritage. The blocks are all Swedish steel. Nothing wrong with that; some might suggest Sweden produces the best steel in the world.

I have witnessed the blocks emerging from the foundry at Skovde in southern Sweden glowing furnace-red. The same blocks go two ways. Some go to the Volvo factories where they will become the 16-litre big-boys for Volvo fleets. And a percentage of the blocks are crated and shipped across the Atlantic to Hagerstown, USA, where they become all-American Mack engines – with all the build-up engineering and computer management being 'stars and stripes' to the core.

The MP10s have been running on Australian roads for a couple of years now and it’s rare to hear a bad word about them. "Jeez, they can pull" and "Bloody good fuel consumption" seem to be among the more common comments.

The MP10s are available in Mack's heavy-duty models: the Super-Liner and Titan.

It’s all very good to experience a new truck for the first time in the setting of a well-prepared media launch, accompanied by flash hotel rooms and even flashier restaurants. But two-and-a-half years down the track it’s a different world to find myself driving one of these things through long, dark winter nights, in the gritty life of reality on the road.

I drive in what is pretty much an all-Kenworth fleet. Current-model T909s. Good gear. So I was surprised on my first run a couple of months ago to see a bulldog roll onto the pad where we change drivers on a shuttle run. A Mack Super-Liner with an MP10 rated at 600hp. I drove it on the 1100km round trip from Longreach to Cloncurry and back again. A 14-hour shift under BFM.

My feelings about the Super-Liner were mixed after that trip. But it was the first run for me after quite a break and there are many things to concern a driver pulling a quad (or A-B triple combination, for the purists) on northern roads.

Following that trip it was all Kenworths. So, after something like 15,000 clicks knocked up in the T909s, when the Super-Liner turned up for my stint a week or so ago I was ready to take an objective look at the Mack and its MP10 powerplant. A driver’s perspective…

I hinted at not being too happy with that first run. Taking into account the fact I was unaccustomed to the truck, I found it rough and the steering ‘hunted’ across the road – an issue with multiple trailers and easily explained away by suspension and wheelbase length.

After that first run, getting into the Kenworth T909 was like pulling on a comfortable old boot. The MP10 pulled like a D11 on speed yet here I was comfortably slipping into the 909 with a feeling of 'coming home' – and that’s from a bulldog tragic!

So I climbed into the Super-Liner for my second run keen to see if my perceptions had changed. Seating is good and the visibility with the sloping hood is great, especially compared with the tennis court that sticks out the front of the T909s.

All the controls – automated transmission buttons, cruise control, engine brake – are all at the end of your left arm right where they should be for any old Mack hand, where the Dynatard used to be. I figured out the three stages of performance: Economy, Performance and HD for heavy duty. I was told the HD was the sweet one for heavy multi-trailer outfits.

There is a little weirdness in the dash layout. The maxis are swapped about (trailers and prime mover) in reverse to what we have become used to. And the trailer brake lever is amidships on the dash, to the left of the wheel – as opposed to the traditional place as a lever off the steering column, where it's easily accessible by the right hand. Nothing you can’t quickly get used to.

Indicators on, release the maxis, foot on the brake so that ‘D’ will engage and pull out. This is certainly one easy truck to drive; you can forget about the gears and focus on where the front wheels are, so your back trailer is on track as you sweep around the roundabout on the northern side of Longreach.

Straighten out and punch the cruise control. Watch the gears change: seven, nine, 11, 12. No need to wait for top gear to engage cruise control, as it works through the gears automatically. By the time I reached the bridge over the Thomson River, the truck was humming at the limited speed, 90km/h, at around 1650rpm.

The MP10’s power output is a flat curve with maximum horsepower attained from 1500 to 1900rpm. Maximum power in this spec is 600hp (441kW) over this range. The six-cylinder 16.1-litre (982 cubic inch) engine has a flat-curve maximum torque of 2800Nm from 1000 to 1500rpm. The engine is managed by V-Mac IV and has an overhead cam with multi-valve direct injection.

The engine’s emissions are controlled by Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), which means there needs to be a Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) tank (AdBlue) on board. We’ve seen something of a market battle going on in this country between the two main emissions philosophies, Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) and SCR. The EGR engines seem to run hot and flick on the grumble of ‘burn offs’ frequently, even in heavy applications. The SCR engines run much cooler and there seems to be significant fuel savings outstripping the cost of AdBlue.

The engine brake on the Mack engine has come a long way from the old Dynatard days. The PowerLeash system pumps back 570hp (420kW) at 2200rpm. There was a time that an engine brake was as useful as the proverbials on a bull with combinations over 80 tonnes. Not so PowerLeash; there is reasonable retardation with GCMs over 100 tonnes.

To further enhance the cooler-running engine, the Super-Liner has a 48-litre cooling system with a 1757-square-inch frontal area. One big difference to the T909s and the roaring fan clutches on the Cummins engines is the Mack's Behr Visco drive. This is an electric-over-viscous fan clutch that works in small increments. You barely notice it working.

Much has been spoken and written about the Mack automated transmission. The TmD12AO23 (sounds like some cryptic password) transmission handles over 3100Nm and has 12 gears that I found more than adequate with a 130-tonne highway application.

The MP10-powered Super-Liner is targeted at the B-double and Type 1 road train vocations. The Super-Liner’s chassis and driveline spec, and the truck I am driving, show that it is suitable for Type 2 applications including A-B triples. No doubt the market targeting is angled to preserve market space for the big fella of Mack’s range, the Titan.

On my second run in the Super-Liner my one overpowering reflection is, 'it’s so damn easy'.

Not that handling the 18 speeds in the Kenworths is an issue. I don’t have any macho hang-ups along the lines of, 'if it ain't got a gear stick it ain't a truck'. Putting aside any Freudian phallicism, auto (in particular automated) transmissions have come a long way over the past decade or so.

However, in this particular spec the Super-Liner is rough – shudderingly rough over culverts. But on the run I'm on at present, with multiple trailers and high tonnage, it’s a matter of flicking on the cruise control and keeping the trailers more or less in line. Easy.

MACK SUPER-LINER SPECIFICATIONS

ENGINE: Mack MP10 16-litre six-cylinder diesel with Selective Catalytic Reduction

POWER: 600hp (441kW) at 1500-1900rpm (as tested, also available in 685hp/500kW)

TORQUE: 2800Nm at 1000-1500rpm

EMISSIONS: Euro 5/ADR 80/03

TRANSMISSION: Mack mDRIVE TmD12AO23 automated manual

CONFIGURATION: 6x4

WHEELBASE: 4575-6250mm

FRONT AXLE: Mack FXL with unitised hubs

REAR AXLE: Mack, Meritor, and Dana options

FRONT AXLE: Springs

REAR AXLES: Air and mechanical spring options

BRAKES: Drum

ENGINE BRAKE: PowerLeash (up to 425kW)

CABS: Day; low-rise sleeper; high-rise sleeper

WEB: www.macktrucks.com.au

Review: Mack Super-Liner

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