prostar/cascadia

You want the freightshaker.
The prostar maxforces ssssuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkk. Bad. Badbadbad. Avoid.

 

Give the prostar a wide berth.

The maxxforce was pulled out of production, and navistar (the producers and owners of international) are currently under class action lawsuits fighting charges of fraud over that engine. The EGR/SCR/DPF systems on it will in a round-about way, put it in the ground.

Maybe use the 40k as a down-payment for a loan on a truck that would better suit your needs.

Freightshakers are okay, but they do best as fleet trucks since they make the bottom line look so pretty. Never dealt with a Diamler product outside of the Century class and Cascadia.

International as a whole will likely improve over the next several years since they no longer offer the maxforce, and have outsourced their power needs to Cummins- keep an eye on Caterpillar reentering the class 8 engine market partnered with International over the next 5 years.

Volvos are nice, but they tend to be a bit heavy and pricy to keep up at times. D13/16 is a questionable engine at times. Get the eaton driveline.
Love Macks, they're great trucks but that's my opinion and don't feel like doing a writeup on it- it is worth mentioning that Mack has a great in house financing system setup. Check their website out.

Peterbilt & Kenworths overall have retained their build quality, but the Paccar mx13 is junk. I'm dealing with that headache at the moment, and my day isn't normal if my truck with 65,000 miles on it doesn't have a new code flash across the board every morning. It will catch up to this truck spending some serious downtime in a shop sooner than later. Paccar is refusing to hook diagnostics until a code stays solid. Lot of 1235 SPN codes, which deals primarily with the emissions reduction system. A real headache to be true. More than willing to shell out a few extra thousand/year this point to get a big red ISX over this black and grey hunk of ####.


Western star is Western star...


Overall 40k will get you a truck, the real question is whether that truck will nickle and dime you into not being much better off than just staying companied.


Schnieder throws out some good trucks, they also throw out lemons. Maverick used equipment is worth several double takes, though their full 13'4'' units from the TCD rarely come across their boards. TMC gear is junk, stay far away.



Again, not a full write up. Just some thoughts as I'm waiting for my reset to finish.

 

Any reasons why? They're Peterbilts so strong resale value and they have much nicer specs than most other ex-fleet trucks. Am I missing something here?

 

I've read on here a few stories of how the trucks, mechanically are maintained. When you speak with the drivers in person they will back that up. Not terrible maintenance, but not the loving and tender care an old O/O's truck is more likely to get.
Unless someone is willing to offer you paper maintenance records, never take their word.

TMC is a starter company, lots of guys dumping clutches and breaking stuff.

The real issue is that they use the trucks up to the point of their mechanically speaking, nominal lifespan (and then a little further.) Just checked the black and chrome boards, I see 7-10 year old trucks; all of which are running the C-15 Acert. The Acert is what forced Caterpillar out of the truck engine making game in the US. It is suffering the same fate as the Maxxforce, and similar litigation.

PB has a strong resale for a lot of reasons, but you cannot overlook the fact that these units are operating C15's. And that, is a great way to create a lot of extra expense in the longer term when you're running independently, and you're footing the maintenance bill.

 

The 2007 emissions ISX likes to eat EGR coolers and #### DPF systems in the process.

 

I think options are very slim nowadays. 2006 and under, 2010's or new with extended warranties is the only options I see. Good thing you have 40k to work with. If you go with used, make sure to keep 10k for repairs.
Now, if you don't plan to run California at all, you might wanna consider Pre-EPA trucks. I say "might" because I'm afraid CARB craziness might spread. BOL!

 

It will for sure be interesting to see what happens with the carb laws of the next 5 years. They're kind of figuring out now it's not working great, it's pissed a lot of folks off and it's costly to enforce when you're not singling out every guy not rolling a big name fleet truck.

curious if anyone has figures from the period of time they ratcheted up the bull to now, in so far as how it's effecting freight rates.

 

So far, no change... Outbound freight volumes is not great, so there is no need for further incentives. Inbound freight trends a bit higher nowadays because many independents and small fleets choose to stay away from California due to scarce freight, cheap rates and CARB mafia.

 

48,000 bulk cedar coming out of north cal going to Atlanta for $2,300 and no fuel surcharge? Cheap rates? I have no idea what you're talking about.