Got a Million-Mile Engine?
Do You Own an Engine with a Million Miles?
According to a children's book, it would take 23 days to count to a million and a whale could fit in a goldfish bowl large enough to hold a million goldfish. For truck drivers, a million miles is equivalent to ten years.
Jerry Kissinger with his Mack SuperLiner with a million-mile engine.
Shell is looking for engines that have logged a million miles with their original pistons, liners, and rings and have, of course, used Rotella oil for the most of their lives. The first-ever inductee into the Million Mile Haul of Fame received a very opulent prize during the Mid-America Trucking Show.
In his million-mile Mack E9 V-8-powered burnt orange Mack Superliner, Jerry Kissinger sped into the West Hall at the Kentucky Fair and Expo center. Horn impacts were abundant.
Kissinger's truck, dubbed "Thumper," is well-known on the exhibition truck circuit. The owner and driver of the tiny fleet is well known for both the vehicle and his humanitarian initiatives. He has always been a strong supporter of the Special Olympics and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
He is also a cunning businessman. He works for Independent Operator Inc., a small family-run fleet based in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, and primarily delivers dairy products. He is a third-generation truck driver. One of the company's oldest carriers, the 22-truck fleet, of which seven are business vehicles, mostly carries commodities for Schreiber Foods.
He told me following the Shell presentation, "We've got a really amazing small niche. For us, it never slowed down during the recession, he asserted. Everybody needs to eat.
In front of fellow truckers and the trucking press (who had just taken part in an elaborate April Fool's joke), Kissinger received a leather bomber jacket from the Shell Rotella Million Mile Haul of Fame, an engraved key chain, and a certificate of achievement.
Be ready for additional million-milers
The rarity of an engine with a million miles on it has decreased. In his fleet, Kissinger reportedly owns a couple more Kenworth W900s with Cat engines, one of which has 1.4 million.
He told the crowd that this was his third vehicle, and it had logged more than a million miles. When a motor had a million kilometers, it was unheard of.
Last year, the Alabama-based drivers and mechanics of AAA Cooper Transportation celebrated the retirement of a Volvo VN 630 with a D12 engine (ACT). The car covered 1.5 million kilometers in seven years without an engine overhaul.
A Detroit Diesel engine has a B50 life of 1.2 million miles, according to Detroit Diesel. It is a technical term for the point at which half the engines are still functional and the other half requires rebuilding.
According to Paccar's MX13's assertion that a B10 should last a million miles of over-the-road use, 90% of MXs should still be in use after that time.
Also at MATS, Jim Hebe from Navistar presented a MaxxForce 13 that was disassembled after 400,000 miles and discovered to be in great condition. It was said to travel 1.4 million miles, according to him.
The editor of HDT Equipment, Jim Park, says the following: "A 500,000-mile engine would have satisfied purchasers twenty years ago. Today, it is viewed as a failure if it doesn't leave that mark."
In the 1980s and 1990s, Tom Berg, senior editor at HDTS, claims that fleet-manager members of the ATA's Technology and Maintenance Council pressured truck and engine manufacturers to develop the million-mile road tractor. He informed me that this was the case by the late 1990s.
According to Park, million-mile engines will be as common as dirt in ten years.
Kissinger didn't arrive until after Shell had a special unveiling of the "10-Million-Mile-Truck."
