For the Tacoma, Wash.-based Tucci & Sons asphalt delivery operation, productivity, driver comfort and safety are all on offer in the new Kenworth T880 Super Dump. Company secretary/treasurer and operations manager Tim Tucci notes the Super Dumps have replaced end-dump trailers and dump trucks alike, and they “can haul up to 10 percent more asphalt in a single day” per truck in many cases.
Since his grandfather, Michael Tucci, started the family business in 1950 as a small utility construction company, Tim Tucci says Tucci & Sons has tried to choose trucks and equipment that can offer employees a comfortable and productive environment. The company runs a truck fleet consisting of 15 tractors and end-dump trailers, six transfer trucks and six water tenders in addition to its two new Kenworth T880 Super Dumps, acquired in May.
When a driver delivers asphalt using a dump truck and end-dump trailer, he must first empty the end-dump trailer. Then he gets out of the truck, unhitches the end dump, dumps the load in the bed of the truck and then re-hitches the end dump before he can return to the plant. Tucci said since that entire process can take anywhere from 20 minutes to a half hour for each delivery, the company can add back one to two hours’ worth of revenue-generating productivity each day with the Super Dumps.
“Drivers in our new T880 Super Dumps can deliver their loads to the job sites, dump them and then go right back to our Lakewood or Tacoma plant for another load,” he adds. “Also, job site activity and traffic can make it nerve-wracking at best for our drivers to get out of their trucks when they’re delivering asphalt to a busy freeway job site at night. … Anytime we can keep [drivers] inside the truck, that’s better for us and for our drivers, especially at night,” he said. ”
Tucci worked with Rick Barry, his longtime sales consultant at Kenworth Northwest, the local Kenworth dealer, to choose the specifications for the company’s first two T880s compliant with federal bridge formula requirements for lift axle spacing and capacity. Both T880 Super Dumps achieve their 25-ton capacity through the use of three 8,000-pound W&C Tru-Track Super Alumilite steerable lift axles and an 8,000-pound steerable “flying tag” axle.
The T880s are spec’d with the Paccar MX-13 engine rated at 500 hp and 1,850 lb.-ft. of torque.
