Scania P 440 AEB: Review

Name: Scania P 440 AEB: Review
Brand: Scania

The P series is a popular truck for distribution and the addition of AEB is now making it safer, says David Meredith

Scania’s Advanced Emergency Braking (AEB) system is a system I’m not game to test. The impressive publicity videos show Scanias bearing down on a stationary car and the system saving the day.

But then I noticed that the car in the tests is an inflatable look-alike!

Now maybe that’s just a convenience factor, rather than the accounting department deciding not to risk what would be left of a borrowed car if the system takes a sickie. But it installed enough doubt in my mind to avoid trusting the system to rescue me when approaching traffic.

In reality, the advanced linking of radar signals and camera feeds is well established and I’d trust the system to provide a last-second fail-safe for those times when a driver is unable, for whatever reason, to react to road conditions.

And that’s what it really is about. The cruise control is a system that you can drive and use to maintain healthy average speeds with a buffer of safety when other road users get too close to you. But the ultimate crash avoidance mode is only really there for emergencies – and I don’t plan on having one.

GETTING SET

My day in the P 440 series started well, even though Melbourne put on a mixture of storm winds and drizzle that would turn into rain on the road north.

Getting set-up in a Scania is always pretty easy. The P series is Scania’s smallest and lowest cab, and with the height of a six-cylinder 13-litre diesel instead of the customary Scania V8, the cab has a sizeable engine hump that fills the entire space between the two seats.

You have to tilt the steering wheel forward, slide the seat back and lift the left-hand armrest if you want to access the bunk. This truck had the largest sleeper you can get in the P Series – not as big as an interstater but bigger than the narrow shelf that claims to be a bunk in most Japanese trucks.

Two cab fails hit me before I hit the road. There are no cup or drink holders. On each side of the engine hump are two removeable panels with meaningless trays in them. They’re too small for phones so they’re only going to collect paper clips, a few pens and old wads of chewing gum etc.

My drink bottle squeezed in the door pocket. Get yourself a coffee and you’re going to have to finish it before you move off. C’mon guys, this is a distribution truck, stopping frequently and at places where drivers are going to want to stock up on juice before moving on.

Secondly, there’s no USB charging point. There are 12 and 24-volt points, plus an auxiliary port for the sound system. But most drivers use Bluetooth now and need to top up on phone power more often.

I always try and pair my phone without asking for help to see how intuitive the systems are. I accessed the phone part of the settings menu and all it said was ‘No Phone Connected’. I already knew that. No option for adding a new phone.

Almost everything else is managed through the data screen and steering-wheel selector buttons. But, surprise, surprise, the phone is done on the radio-tuning dial. If an operator has a large group of drivers, I suspect many will be too stubborn to ask, and will end up using the phone in-hand while driving.

However, after noting those wrinkles, it was time to hit the road.

There’s a toggle button on the column that you press to release the steering wheel. Get it right for tilt and telescope, toggle the button the other way and it locks. I had no trouble getting the seat right either.

INTO THE STORM

By this time the weather had worsened and I was heading directly into near gale-force winds. The Scania felt the impact of that as expected, and accelerating up to cruising speed took longer than normal.

Pretty quickly I got the cruise control engaged and then managed my speed with the steering-wheel buttons. Scania’s overrun control doesn’t go below 3km/h, so to avoid Victoria’s notorious Plod, I set the cruise at 99km/h, the overrun at 102 and didn’t have to touch a thing.

As I started down hills the retarder came on progressively, keeping me legal, seamlessly re-engaging power at the bottom and powering away.

Scania’s retarder is without doubt the best auxiliary brake on the highway. It has five stages, from mild retardant to the 4100Nm boat anchor. Flicking it on with a single finger stretched below the steering wheel rim delivers complete control. Outside of coming to a complete stop, I really never had to use the service brakes.

Scania’s 13-litre engine is a Euro 5 unit with either 400 or 440hp, and 2100 or 2300Nm of torque. I scored the bigger one and I think I’d buy it too. I’d then order the 6x2 instead of the 6x4 and probably come out lineball with the 6x4 with less grunt. The weight savings, particularly if I added alloy wheels would pay off in extra payload pretty quickly.

The six cylinder not only doesn’t have the bass rumble of the V8s, it’s a very quiet engine, it clatters like crazy when idling, at least from outside the truck, but on the road I was largely unaware of the work it was putting in.

Scania’s 14-speed Opticruise is a slick and sweet transmission that reads throttle demands precisely. It really is ‘select D and go’.

Given that the cab is based on the bigger units, the interior fit-out’s very comfortable. There’s lots of storage space and all the cupboards over the windscreen have lids to retain the junk inside.

There’s plenty of air coming through the vents and I know from previous Scania experience that the air-conditioning, although not needed on this trip, is well up to the strain of Australia’s high ambient heat.

There are arm rests on both sides of the driver’s seat, and with them down and cruise engaged, the P440 was a sweet thing to wheel down the road. Some of the roads were pretty rough and the Scania needed a firm hand, as does every articulated truck I take on this route, but the driver position made all that pretty easy.

The single-trailer rig was set up like a classic supermarket distribution unit. I picked my route up the Hume Highway, then north-west along the B75 to Tooborac, turning right just out of town and heading east towards Seymour, turning right again onto the Hume for the run south.

I took the opportunity for lots of stops to duplicate the likely trip outline of a regional delivery run. The Scania was always an easy truck to get into and out of, and a cosy refuge from the stormy rain that lashed the cab at times.

On the return run, I allowed the AED to do its thing and keep me a set distance from the traffic. Dead easy. Even bringing me to a complete halt behind the traffic jam when the lane was blocked by a fallen tree.

Distribution will always be a growing market sector and Scania is already doing well with the P Series. The AEB will only make it safer.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Engine: DC13 In-line six-cylinder 12.7-litre

Power: 440hp (324kW) @ 1900rpm

Torque: 2300Nm (1696 lb/ft) @ 1000 -1300rpm

Emission system: Euro 5 SCR

Gearbox: AMT 12 speed + Overdrive, two crawler gears

Axle configuration: 6x4

Axle distance: 3100 mm

Suspension: Parabolic leaf (front); two-spring air suspension (rear)

Brakes: Discs with ABS/EBS

GVM/GCM kgs: 26,100/50,000