Newbie buys a new Yuejin Hiliner truck
I recently moved from Connecticut to Honduras (Central America) where I am developing a 1560 acre property as an off-road riding area.
There are loads of Chinese-made motorcycles here, mostly 200cc four-stroke dual-sports with electric starting and full instruments/lighting, and selling for $1600-$2000 new. Also some Chinese economy cars like Cherys.
Centromotor, the Citroen dealer in the capital Tegucigalpa, is now importing the Chinese-made Hiliner medium duty trucks. Driving by the dealership one day, this new brand caught my attention, and I stopped in to check them out. I had been considering buying a medium duty truck like a Mitsubishi, Isuzu NPR, or Chevy Kodiak for construction supplies and other needs.
A few weeks later, after doing additional research and looking over the trucks inside, outside, and underneath three times, I bought a new Hiliner model NJ1062DA. Hiliner is the export brand name for Yuejin, one of the top brands in China. Considering all the talk about how the Chinese car/truck market is exploding, I was a little surprised that Yuejin’s annual sales are only just over 40,000 vehicles. Penske probably burns through more medium duty Internationals than that each year.
The truck I bought appears to me to be a copy of the popular Isuzu NPR. Tilt cab, 4.1 liter intercooled turbo diesel, 5 speed manual transmission, dual battery 24 volt electrical system, power steering, air brakes, power-assisted hydraulic clutch, dual rear wheels (7.50 x 16”). 130 inch wheelbase, 6-1/2’ x 14’ bed with side panels that fold down so a fork lift can load from the side, and materials like gravel can be unloaded without lifting them over the side. The manufacturer’s load rating is 6600 lbs, which seems ridiculously conservative. The importer’s load rating is 10,000 lbs, which seems reasonable.
This truck is currently being sold in Europe, and is certified for the current Euro II emissions standards and safety standards. It has three point seatbelts for the driver and one passenger. I suspect that the front bumper is a stopgap attempt to pass bumper standards because it is molded plastic like the ones they use on non-Euro II models, but then reinforced with 1/4” thick handlaid fiberglass on the inside.
It seems they went all out on the lighting. The flush headlights feature 70/75 watt (high/low beam) Philips halogen bulbs, plus an additional pair of halogen high beams (four high beams total), plus large rectangular amber fog lights mounted in the bumper.
I looked over the design, layout, and construction of the truck carefully three times and it appears to be functionally well built. I especially looked over the cable and hose routing, as these are often the source of problems on vehicles that have not been thoroughly tested. The few things I did not like were probably minor, like a set-screw ferrule at the fuel injection end of the throttle cable (easy to adjust cable play but also easy to come loose). The exhaust outlet pipe from the turbo runs close to some cables and is covered with an insulating wrap, I would want to keep an eye on this wrap to make sure it doesn’t deteriorate.
Interior panels and upholstery are not up to Japanese quality standards, but appear adequate. The multi-switches work well, although the dash-mounted fog light and 4 way flasher switches feel a little rough. The steering wheel has a tilt feature. There are two large glove compartments and excellent fusebox access. There is one area towards the bottom of the dash on the passengers side that looks unfinished and should have an additional dash-matching panel.
One of the things I did like was a heavy use of zerk fittings on the suspension and steering components, including the leaf spring mounts. The suspension uses multi-leaf springs front and rear. The solid front and rear axles are unlocated except by the leaf springs, and there are no anti-roll bars.
With the cab tilted forward for drivetrain access, the engine compartment looks good, with good positioning and mounting of components. The intercooler is a large, well constructed aluminum air-to-air unit. The engine block, head, exhaust manifold, turbo, and transmission case are all cast iron. The valve cover and intake manifold are cast aluminum. Obviously, without destructive testing/disassembly I can not judge the quality of the materials and machining. Nor do I know how many valves per cylinder are used.
The quality and finish of the exterior cab panels is very good. The glass looks sleek, the nose panels are plastic which resists dings and chips, and there are three large front-mounted exterior mirrors. One time I brought my eleven year old neighbor to see the truck. She is not a big talker, but she is observant and likes mechanical things. After she looked over the truck she just said one word, “bonita!” (pretty).
The truck’s maintenance schedule appears typical, mostly just oil and filter changes and simple inspections like belt tension and fluid checks out to 62,000 miles (100,000 km). Valve adjustments are at 24,800 miles (40,000 km) and 49,600 miles (80,000 km). Warrantee by the Honduran importer is 3 years/31,000 miles (50,000 km).
The out-the-door price I paid for the truck, including 12% Honduran tax and registration fees, was $17,100 ($15,179 before taxes). This is roughly one half of the $30,000+ price of a new comparable Mitsubishi or Isuzu. If one used this truck for 171 freelance jobs of $100 profit per job, say hauling construction or gardening supplies, the truck would be paid for. That would be say five jobs per week for eight months. Assuming the truck is reliable, it is hard to beat the economics in that (without even looking at resale value).
I drove the truck 65 miles to my home from the dealership today. I have zero experience driving a medium duty truck, zero experience with air brakes, zero experience with turbo diesel truck engines. And I had to start off in aggressive city traffic, so I was a tad intimidated. Luckily, traffic was unusually light. I only had one close call, when I was stopped for traffic getting off an exit ramp. I absentmindedly put it in reverse instead of the adjacent forward gear and nearly rammed the bus that was stopped behind me.
Visibility out of the cab is excellent, as are the mirrors. All the controls work well. The steering is smooth and consistent, though I feel like a slightly smaller steering wheel would work better. The transmission shifts smoothly. The clutch releases over a short span towards the end of its travel, which is what I like, but is unusual and takes a little getting used to. The brakes are a bit touchy but will probably smooth out in a thousand miles. There is a large gauge that says “MPa” but has no symbol explaining what it is. It stays around .6 to .7, just rising a tad at high rpms, so I am guessing it is oil pressure. I would definitely like to have a vacuum/boost gauge to help me know what loads induce what levels of manifold pressure. There is no “flash to pass” which is a feature I will miss.
For someone who is not used to a medium duty truck, the ride is harsh, but I am guessing that that is par for the course for its capacity rating. The suspension design is the same as virtually any other medium duty. Cab vibration is a little worse than I would expect. There is a loud creaking sound from behind the cab, I suspect it is a cab mount or latch that needs lube.
Most of the drive was on a two lane back road with several mountain passes over 4000’ above sea level. The transmission is essentially a 4-speed plus an extra low gear for heavily loaded starts. The truck would pull all the mountains in top gear (unloaded except for a motorcycle in the bed) at an indicated 42mph. If I downshifted one gear on the steeper climbs 50mph was no problem. These climbs have many of the loaded trucks (medium and heavy duty) down to 20-35mph. I will have to wait to see how the truck does loaded. The odometer is 12% optimistic based on the Honduran kilometer markers, I did not check the speedometer accuracy yet.
Most of the road has broken pavement and potholes, so most of the time I was driving 45-50mph, which was fast enough to pass several other trucks. Only one new Toyota pick-up and one unloaded flatbed tractor trailer passed me. On one smoother flat section I held my foot to the floor and the speedo stayed at 62mph. The spec sheet says top speed is 65mph, and I am guessing that is speed limited, so 62mph on the speedo seems a little slow. But I only did it one time on a green engine, so a little more testing will be required before drawing conclusions.
True to the reputation of Chinese-built motorcycles, when I got home I found that one bolt that holds a rubber stop for the folding bed had vibrated off, and I noticed a front fender flare bolt was loose, so I will have to check over all the bolt tensions tomorrow. China, there is an answer to this problem: Nylock nuts! Also, one of the cables that was near the turbo outlet pipe is now touching the thermal wrap. I can see a few other spots that could use an extra wire tire to locate a cable or wire loom.
I hope this article is informative and if people are interested I will give an update when I have more mileage on the truck.
Mike Stone
MotoParqueHondurasdotcom
Woodsrat@Hughes.net