Posted by Matt Wilson on Friday, July 26, 2002 at 9:24AM :
In Reply to: Re: Oscar, your words of wisdom make good sense... posted by Todd Wilson on Thursday, July 25, 2002 at 11:54PM :
Those are all things that I have considered to be reasons. I'm sure a lot of time was spent idling or slow-crawling. Most of these trucks probably spent most of their time in 1st, 2nd or 3rd gear, so the engine was turning a lot more revolutions per mile than your average road vehicle. Operating under these conditions, one should probably look at the number of hours of operation rather than the number of miles.
Also, I think a lot of people don't bother to break in their engines properly. Even in the old days this was bound to be true, even though it was more critical to do so than it is now days. This lack of break-in care would be especially true when the vehicle was not owned by the drivers. Maintenance was certainly a hit-or-miss deal, depending on the company or person who owned it.
Matt