Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/116194
product reviews, OEM & supplier news and equipment management trends The right truck at the right time by Jack Roberts The International ProStar+ test truck was a pearl-white daycab tractor with a 500-horsepower Cummins ISX15 under the hood. International smart to reunite with Cummins L ast month, I made the short drive over to Columbus, Miss., to visit International dealer Waters Truck & Tractor, which had just taken delivery of one of the first ProStar+ daycab tractors to come off the assembly line. I was there to take the new rig and a fully loaded 53-foot trailer on a drive through middle Mississippi and see what I could learn about the new partnership between two old friends – International and Cummins. International cut Cummins loose a few years ago and focused on efforts to launch and establish its own proprietary MaxxForce diesel engine line. Part of that effort included a highly publicized decision to stick with an exhaust gas recirculationonly solution to meet 2010 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards for both its 13- and 15-liter MaxxForce engines. For a variety of reasons, International's EGR-only push failed, and late last year, in an effort to turn its fortunes around, the company announced that it would be partnering with Cummins to provide a fully EPA-compliant 15-liter option using selective catalytic reduction technology in the first quarter of this year, with an SCR version of the MaxxForce 13 to follow. My ProStar+ test truck was nothing special. In many ways, that was the point: It wasn't a specially tricked-out truck designed to impress journalists. It was simply the first Cumminsequipped ProStar+ Waters had received; a pearl-white daycab tractor with a 500-horsepower ISX15 under the hood – the type of truck suited for many pickup-and-delivery or regional-haul fleets across the country. The Cummins ISX15 is exactly the engine International The truckmaker is looking to the ISX15 to help improve sales. 28 commercial carrier journal 0313_Equipdept_Jack.indd 28 needs now to turn its fortunes around: an established, consistently reliable powerplant with horsepower to spare and worldclass product support behind it. Given International's recent technological and reliability issues with its EGR MaxxForce engines, the company clearly understands the necessity to get the ProStar+/ISX15 launch right from the get-go. Given that the company has been able to do so in the short amount of time available – less than six months – is a testament to the commitment and talents of the design engineers at both International and Cummins. It helps that the two companies have a 75-year history of working together, but Turning fortunes that shouldn't detract around: International partnered with Cummins to provide a from the accomplishfully EPA-compliant 15-liter option ment they've made in using SCR technology. getting these ProStar+ trucks to market in International ready: The such short order. company clearly understands the necessity to get the ProStar+/ISX15 The ISX15's reputalaunch right from the get-go. tion as a low-decibel diesel, combined Smart decision: It's clear the with International's decisive move to get Cummins back sound-dampened cab, into its trucks was a good one. | march 2013 2/20/13 1:09 PM