Was a time when Hino was a thorn in the side of market leader Isuzu when it came to the medium duty sector with its 500 Series range taking the fight up to its opponent and actually sometimes outselling it in the early 2000s.
That was then and in recent years Izuzu has pulled ahead across all sectors while Hino is in the midst of a well documented supply shortage that is causing the brand and its dealer network more than a little anxiety.
However like all good well run companies Hino has plotted a work around for the lack of new medium duty trucks until the new Euro 6/ADR compliant 500s arrive in early 2027. The workaround has been to really build up the credentials and attractiveness of the lower end of its ostensibly heavy duty 700 series range offering buyers the chance to try a slightly heavier truck that they may not have chosen ordinarily for their needs.
There is a clear indication that Hino is suffering in what the Truck Industry Council prescribe is the medium duty segment with the brands numbers sinking on the T-Mark monthly truck over the last few months and still another three or four months un til the new 500s arrive. However Hino’s overall numbers aren’t holding up too bad and its 700 series sales have bounced a little on the back of its strategy.
That is all a long way around to explaining why we found ourselves at the wheel of a Hino 700 3036 at the company’s Australian HQ at Caringbah in Sydney’s South with the plan to drive the truck and its load to Brisbane, to see just how well this machine handled an interstate run and how the driver would cope with 12 hours behind the wheel of what is on the face of it largely a city truck
Hino had configured this particular 700 with a STG tilt tray . The FY 700 3036 is an 8×4 chassis with Hino’s smart and sharp AO9C nine-litre turbo diesel which produces 360hp and 1569 Nm of torque. The Hino 9-litre is an impressive straight six overhead cam diesel that we reckon punches well above its perceived station in life. Its flexible and pulls hard, will sit nicely in tis prime rev range, with the ability to haul itself up hills with purpose. The 12 speed ZF developed but Hino badged AMT it is mated to always seemingly grabs the correct gear at the right time. The driveline is an excellent package and just seems to work very well in all conditions whether that is plodding through Sydney peak hour morning traffic, climbing the M1 hills out of Mooney on the Hawkesbury or cruising the M1 through the Northern Rivers.
We set out from Hino HQ at around 7.30am, a bit later than we had hoped for thanks to an errant Uber getting us to the pick up point, which meant we were up to our ears in bumper to bumper grind through the Southern suburbs and past the airport before scooting under the harbour in the tunnel and north through NorthConnex to the M1.
The two pedal AMT works so well in slow moving traffic easily moving away without any faltering or delay, delivering a smooth take-off that gives drivers a really good work environment. It can be incredibly fatiguing when trucks are lumpy and irritable to drive in stop start traffic but that’s not the case with the Hino AMT, it works just fine.
Once free of the morning snarls and on the motorway North the truck seemed to get into its groove slotting up into 12th and sitting at under 1500 rapt the limited speed of 100.
On the back of the tilt tray 700 was a smaller Hino 300 627 dual cab with a prototype factory fitted steel tray which all up tipped the scales at around 3.5 tonnes giving the 700, which has a tare of just over 14.1 tonnes, an all up a loaded weight of 17.7 tonnes fuelled and with this lightweight pilot at the wheel, well within the 3036’s GCM allowance of 42.5 tonnes.
The AO9C shows its prime ‘green band’ rev range on the tacho at between 900rpm and 1600rpm and even on the climb up put of the Hawkesbury and over the climbs North of Bulahdelah it was pulling nicely as the revs subsided, however it hangs well in gears and easily and smoothly drops down to 11th or 10th when needed but rarely below those cogs. Occasionally it might drop to ninth on tough climbs like the almost deadlift up out of the 80km/h zone on the climb after the village of Cooloongolook.
The average fuel readout on the dash was showing usage of around a shade over 3,4 kilometres to the litre or about 29 litres per 100km to give it a more car like readout, which we reckon was pretty reasonable, given we had the cruise control selected at maximum, maintaining an indicated 100km/h, which was actually a shade under that on our GPS speed reading, at around 96.
If there is one thing that stood out more than anything on a relatively long drive in the 700 series Hino it was the real improvements in cabin civilisation. Like some of its counterparts from other Japanese brands, there has been a huge lift in standards for wha used to be the truck equivalent of whitewoods on wheels. Hinos of yore were never particularly driver friendly when it came to cabin refinement, noise vibration and overall harshness. These days however it is noticeably more civilised and user friendly.
This is not only in terms of the quietness and comfort but in the dash layout and the overall aesthetic of the cabin interior. The inclusion of an LCD display as the dash readout in front of the driver, sitting in between the analogue tacho and speedo with the electronic readout delivering info on engine coolant temp AdBlue and fuel tank levels , odometer and trip readouts and of course average and current fuel consumption figures. There is also a large gear indicator showing instantly which gear is engaged , one through 12 for the forward gears and of course neutral and reverse. There is even an indicator to show how much throttle you are using. The electronic screen has a nnmber of pages which are easily thumbed through on the buttons on the right hand spoke of the steering wheel, with everything from distance to empty fuel, settings, trip calculations and so on.
In the middle of the dash is a really well sized 10.1” UXGA touch screen, which boasts wireless Apple CarPlay and Android auto, with the audio system also offering the traditional AM/FM as well as RDS/DAB + radio, and the obligatory Bluetooth 5.0 phone and audio connectivity. The system also allows for the input of up to six cameras, and has both USB 2.0 and 3.0 along with 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi capability.
Of course on the left hand spoke is the easy to operate cruise control, which we were glad of in giving the right leg a break from being pushed down on the accelerator pedal. All of this was easy and simple to operate and made the job an effortless one.
Truth be know given the state off the Pacific Highway these days we could easily have tracked the 1050 km trip from Sydney to Hino dealers SciFleeet in Brisbane’s Eagle Farm in about 11 hours and we would have been there before the sun went down and our NHVR mandated driving hours had run out. However we decided to stop early for the night, pulling into the delightful coastal hamlet of Brunswick Heads. This took advantage of the fact that the next day was Gold Coast Showday, a public holiday on the glitzy holiday strip, so the usual traffic snarls on the M1 motorway were going to be absent, and they wouldn’t have been if we had ploughed on
through he afternoon peak on the day before.After a shade over nine hours at the wheel on day one we stepped from the cab feeling pretty fresh. The climate control air con kept things very comfortable in the cab and the late afternoon sunshine bathing the cane fields of Northern NSW provided a lift in spirits for the run into Brunswick so we were feeling pretty good by the time we touched down for the day.
A simple run up the near deserted public holiday M1 through the Goldy meant we got to Eagle Farm a bit after 9am.
The overall result was a very impressive drive in a true that most would consider a city slicker but with a willing nine litre, a great 12 speed AMT and excellent cabin and driver environment we would gladly do the trip again tomorrow.