Road Tests: Volvo FH16 610

It’s not often that Volvo gets its product planning wrong, but it seems to have misjudged the appeal of the latest FH16 range. When we first drove the FH16 early in 2003, the first example provided was a 6x4 tractor pulling a low-loader at a gross weight just into STGO territory. This summed up Volvo’s expectations of selling a few examples to specialist operators running at higher weights. After all, much of Scandinavia routinely allows general haulage at 60 tonnes, unlike the more southerly parts of Europe, us included.

We normally wouldn’t bore you with market figures in a roadtest, but the FH16’s make interesting reading. Of the 100 or so sold in the UK and Ireland at the time of our test, only 10% were 8x4s and another 20% were 6x4s. The rest were 4x2s and 6x2s suitable for general haulage. Another statistic covers the engine choice: four 610s are being sold for every 550. So while those who say there’s no need for high-powered trucks in the UK may be right, there is definitely significant demand. The new D16C engine is just that: Volvo claims the only bits carried over from the previous D16B unit are the crankshaft bearing bolts. Considerable attention has been paid to weight saving, with the new engine weighing in at 100kg lighter than the old one. The spec of the in-line six includes timing gears relocated to the rear of the block. The two versions available are rated at 550 and 610hp. Torque output is 2,500Nm and 2,800Nm respectively, and it could be even higher – both ratings’ charts straight-line from 950 to 1,500rpm so this engine could obviously deliver more if it was allowed to. Probably the biggest FH16 disappointment is the transmission, with no sign of I-Shift on the spec sheet. What is arguably the most sophisticated automated box on the market can’t yet handle the 16-litre engine’s torque. Instead it gets the more traditional 14-speed manual box with three main ratios, splitter and range-change, and two crawlers.

With 600-plus horsepower on tap, fuel economy must be dreadful, right? True, its overall fuel return of 7.76mpg cannot match the remarkably consistent consumption of around 8.9mpg given by all three previous 40-tonne contenders over our revised Scottish route, but these were considerably lower-powered offerings from Daf, Renault and Scania. Finding similarly-powered comparators was tricky – we had to go back to the old road-test route to find any Euro-3 rivals running at more than 500hp. These were at various gross weights, but taking this into account it remains clear the big Volvo’s economy is comparable with other range-toppers. In any case, if you’ve really set your heart on such a machine, your head won’t be getting much of a say. At 7,690kg the FH16 isn’t the lightest 4.2 tractor on the block, but it’s not so heavy as to inconvenience any but the most payload-critical operation. As you might have deduced from the previous section, journey times are not an issue. Suffice to say, nothing on sale today will beat it on any journey – not without tearing up the rule book, anyway.