Hello. I’m John Bickner from Bickner Trucking. We are a farm family from Vanguard, Saskatchewan, Canada. We became Bickner Trucking in 1988. We haul dry and liquid agricultural commodities in Western Canada and the Northwest USA.

Bickner wanted to try a drivetrain with a 2.47-to-1 rear axle ratio. That’s pretty tall for B-trains. Volvo hadn’t yet approved that ratio for his application, but after a little arm-twisting, Bickner got what he was after.

A Volvo D13 engine with the I-Torque spec with turbo compounding. It was rated for 455 horsepower and 1,850 pound-feet of torque. He also uses an I-Shift 13-speed overdrive transmission and, of course, the 2.47-to-1 rear ends.

Bickner: I talked to him, found things that worked for everybody, and kept bringing it all together. And studied it — that’s where we came. By the way, our numbers ended up being 25% better. We aimed for 8.31, and we ended up at 8.54.

There’s much to be learned from Bickner’s experience, including overcoming the old ways of spec’ing for heavy haul. He coached his drivers extensively on the new equipment. It took some time to get the drivers on side with it, but he hasn’t had a single complaint since. The fuel savings and the larger payloads combined have also freed up money for better driver pay.

Bickner: It took a while. People thought we were crazy, and it took a while. But it has come in, and it works great. Do your homework. Talk to people that are having success.