If you find a truck you like, stick with it. It’s a mantra that can be heard on highways across the world, from Route 66 to the Outback Way and everywhere in between.
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KW Thompson’s Transport driver Brad Dykes found a truck he liked, and boy, has he stuck with it. In fact, Brad’s Mack 600hp Super-Liner has just ticked over one million kilometres driven — and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.
For context, that one million kilometres is equal to driving from Fremantle, Western Australia, to the eastern Sydney suburb of Manly 250 times, with some change to spare.
Brad first got behind the wheel of the truck back in 2020 and has been hauling anything and everything, anywhere and everywhere, for KW Thompson’s ever since.
With transport companies across Australia constantly refreshing their fleet and buying the newest trucks on the market, there’s often little opportunity to rack up a million kilometres on any one motor, let alone with one driver, but Brian says once he got behind the wheel of this truck, he never wanted to get out.
“I’ve been driving for over 20 years now,” Brian says. “Companies will often buy a truck brand new; you’ll be in it for a couple of years and then they’ll give you another one to drive.
“As drivers, sometimes they’ll give you a truck and you don’t like it, so you’ll step out of it and swap it around.
“But this truck, I’ve been offered some new since I started driving it, but I don’t want to get out of it.
“Even when my truck goes in for a service and they put me in a different truck for a few hours, I just want my truck back. It just seems to have a great balance.
“There are other trucks that might have really bad mirrors, be bad to reverse, or have bad air cons or have beds that aren’t big enough, but this one is just a nice, comfortable, quiet truck.
“How this thing feels doesn’t change whether you’ve got one ton on the back or 68 tons. You can drive this thing for weeks on end and get out of it at the end of a run and you don’t feel like you’ve been beaten up.
“A good thing with this company is if you like your truck, they’ll never take you out of it. I’ve been offered about four new Kenworths, but I keep saying no to them, because I like this truck so much.”
When hauling cargo that ranges from bins to beverages and everything in between, 20 years in the driver’s seat has Brad considering what will help him complete his job to the best of his ability.
“When I first started driving one of the very first trucks I drove interstate was an old Atkinson.
“We’re talking trucks with no air-con, no bunk coolers, no nothing.
“I’ve driven Aerodynes in the past. They were just about the industry standard and if you haven’t driven an Aerodyne, you haven’t been driving long enough.
“I’ve driven Spicer gearboxes, I’ve driven Eaton gearboxes, I’ve done heavy haulage with twin stick gearboxes.
“It’s really nice to get into a truck that feels like a lounge chair, and there’s no feeling like you’ve run a marathon at the end of it.
“I’ve never had a back problem, I don’t get a sore neck, I don’t get sore legs.
“It’s quiet, there are no rattles and bangs, you can drive it comfortably and quietly, and you’re not fighting it all the time.”
With one million kilometres on the ticker — and counting — the question now becomes just how far this truck can go.
There might be fewer opportunities these days for trucks to rack up these kinds of kilometres, but this Super-Liner is showing no signs of slowing down.
With Brian keen to keep it rolling for the foreseeable future, and a lack of serious issues over this first million kilometres, there seems to be no telling how far it can go.
“It’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Brad laughs. “I know ABC Transport that runs Darwin has one of these and not long ago one of their drivers got to 1.8-million kilometres.
“That was maybe 18 months to two years ago.
“He did a similar thing; he got the truck brand new, and he put a million on it. His boss then bought him a new one, so he stepped out of it after the million, but the truck was still in the fleet.
“I’m not sure if it’s still in the fleet now, but it made it to 1.8 before it went in for an engine rebuild.
“When this one came up for its three-quarter-million service we had a brand-new Mack on demo. I’m not getting out of this thing until that new one comes in, and I’m not sure if that’s going to be another year or two.”
“I’d love to be able to say she’s made 1.8 in a couple of years’ time, but getting 1.5 out of an original motor these days is bloody great.
“If you get the right driver with the right piece of equipment, it’s going to go for a long time. But if you put a reckless driver in any truck, they’re going to destroy it twice as fast”.
For all the comfort and familiarity Brad finds in his Super-Liner, there is one crucial aspect that has kept him behind the wheel for a million kilometres. Reliability.
Not just the reliability of knowing it will get him from point a to point b on any kind of run, but the reliability of trusting it’s going to get him home to his family for a well-deserved rest after the hard graft that comes with transporting essential goods all over the country.
“I’ve had minor problems along the way, I’ve had engine fan failures, air legs, airlines, airbags, the standard wear and tear stuff, but I’ve never had a breakdown I’ve had to be towed away from.
“When something breaks, the truck isn’t dead. You can get out and do something and get yourself home safely so you’re not sitting there on the side of the road waiting for a mechanic.
“I’m married with three kids. I spend more time with this truck than I do with my own wife. This truck has never let me down to a point where I’m ringing my wife saying I won’t be coming home.
“It will always get me home.”
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