Liviu Marcus
The brand Volvo Trucks is one of the most well-known and biggest performing truck manufacturers around the globe. Alone, the Swedish manufacturer was able to sell over 200,000 trucks last year. Among the truck brands falling under its umbrella are Mack, Renault Trucks, Dongfeng, and Eicher Motors.
Clearly, the company’s continued success is also due to its excellent truck engines. Because many Volvo trucks are used, there is a good supply of second-hand Volvo truck engines.
D13
The D13 is one of the most sophisticated truck engines which Volvo offers, serving as one of the best engines in the industry. The six-cylinder inline-six engine of almost 13 liters can be had in many different power outputs. The offered power ratings include 375, 405, 425, 435, 455, and 500. As for peak torque, this goes as 1450, 1450, 1550, 1650, 1750, and 1850 lb-ft.respectively.
The vast range of power availability enables the trucks to be powered by the engine exactly what they need to achieve the required power.
Together with an extended list of power ranges, a significant benefit of the D13 engine is the fuel economy, which is considered to be among the world’s best. The fuel efficiency was boosted by 6.5% with the new engine by Volvo Turbo Compounding.
Engines usually consume fuel to produce energy but the utilization is not ideal. Heat absorbs a large part of the energy. The Turbo Compound with the D13 engine captures a portion of this lost heat and puts it back into the system as mechanical energy. Such an upgrade results in not only enhanced fuel economy, but an additional 50 horsepower, and the extra torque.
An improvement was made in the D13 exhaust after-treatment system as well. The whole system was packaged to be a smaller unit; thereby, the weight was reduced by 17 pounds, and the emissions performance was improved.
The engine of the Volvo is indeed no less reliable and robust as other engines, given the popularity of the Volvo Trucks, the market is over flooded with used Volvo D13 engines for sale. Thus, the abundance of engines enables Volvo-based fleets to keep on rolling.
D16
Sure, the Volvo Truck brand would not be as prosperous as it is if it weren’t for other truck engine options. Another choice, however, a little less sophisticated than D13, is D16.
Similar to the D13, it is an inline-six, but it raises the cubic capacity to a little more than 16-liters. The engine had four power ratings: 500, 500 (with more torque), 550, and 600. The counterpart torques were 1850, 2050, 1850, and 2050 lb-ft.
On the other hand, D16 does not include the D13’s turbo compounding and one box exhaust after-treatment, therefore it is not as fuel-efficient and low emissions. Nonetheless, D16 has an eco-torque feature just like the D13. This permits the truck to operate on a lower torque curve in order to save fuel in the higher gears. Whenever more torque is needed, the engine can adopt the steeper curve.
Though the D16 model is not fuel efficient, it is an excellent power delivery machine. The most powerful D16 engine has 100 hp and 200 lb-ft more. force than the highest D13 engine. Therefore, for the power-hungry drives, D16-equipped Volvos are more than enough.
Similar to the D13, there is a vast number of used Volvo D16 engines available for sale, enabling Volvo trucks to continue to run.
