A Volvo VN 630, powered by a D12 engine, recently retired with celebrity status among the drivers and mechanics of AAA Cooper Transportation (ACT). The truck logged 1.5 million miles in seven years without an engine overhaul.
“Volvo engines are designed for long-running performance and AAA Cooper always takes great care of their vehicles,” said Greg Holderfield, director of product reliability for Volvo Trucks North America and ACT’s first account representative. “We design all our engine components with the goal of longer life – even so, it’s impressive that this particular truck has logged 1.5 million miles without any significant work on the engine.”
The vehicle was placed into service in May 2003 by the Dothan, Alabama-based company. Logging as many as 250,000 miles a year, ACT sleepers are usually traded out around 1.25 million miles.
“By the time most trucks reach their trade cycle, they’ve had at least one engine overhaul, but this one hadn’t,” said Will Davis, fleet maintenance advisor for ACT. “The only thing we replaced was the #2 injector in 2009.”
Mack Dove, the owner of the business, took notice of the truck’s record and wanted to see how far the engine would go before it quit. ACT kept the truck in service and the long-running truck soon became a point of pride for the drivers.
The truck’s engine had never even been opened up and was still going strong when it reached 1.5 million miles in September.
“The truck still runs and looks great,” said Holderfield.
With the truck now out of service, ACT has given it back to Volvo to review the engine’s longevity and continue to improve the correlation between engineering tests and real-world performance. At company headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, Volvo engineers will be taking the truck apart to examine and analyze every line, hose, fitting and wiring connection.
”Our engineers are eager to see what the engine looks like on the inside and use that information to improve our product line moving forward,” Holderfield said. “Quality is at the heart of everything we do at Volvo Trucks. Our design, manufacturing and testing processes are extremely rigorous. We have other examples of high-mileage trucks, and view all of them as opportunities for continuous improvement.”
