Stretching Dollars — The Quantification of Retarder Contributions to Truck Productivity

Retarders have traditionally been credited with reducing brake maintenance costs of large trucks and lowering trip times. This paper presents methods for quantifying the resulting productivity increases. A Brake Life Extension Factor is developed and shown to increase as retarder horsepower increases. Four common retarder technologies are discussed (exhaust brakes, engine brakes, electric retarders and hydraulic retarders). A method is shown for computing the return on investment in a retarder, based on only the brake maintenance savings, using a discounted cash flow analysis. The impact on capital of faster trip times is examined.