Which is best, ProStar or Volvo?

I loved the Volvo when I was with Knight, I was offered a Peterbilt 387 and took it. I found myself missing the Volvo!

 

I always like the sound of that 10 speed Cummins ISX engine sound on the 2007-2008 volvos....

and the steering wheel on the prostar, after a few months my hands start sweating...and that black stuff start gettin on my hands , had 2 buy me a steering wheel cover....

and the pro star didnt have a cb mount thingy....had 2 buy 1ne of those bungy cord type things 2 secure it.....

 

CB mounts in the overhead console on a Prostar

 

The thing is, you have four trucks to choose from, Volvo with ISX, Volvo with Volvo, Prostar with ISX and Prostar with Maxxforce.

Somebody might have some Petes still running around but not sure how many are left if any.

So unless we know what you are driving, it's like tossing apples at each other and calling them Grapefruits, makes no sense at all.

 

When I was there running Express, they were turning Pete's over with 70-100K miles on them..supposedly, they bought the Petes strictly for the High-resale?!

And Petes only had a 1 yr warranty....

 

Yep they where doing that still when I first hired on. It was my understanding that they where getting them at a volume discount from pete then selling them for not much less then they paid for them at 100k-150k miles. Then when fuel prices start going up the value of those petes dropped like a stone and they had to start keeping them as long as the volvo's to recover their investment. Bad think was they expected drivers to get the same amount of mpg in the pete's. I didn't want to but turned mine back in for a volvo.

 

I picked up a couple of Pete's in Denton (flew in/shuttle to the Pete factory) and drove Miller loads out of Ft. Worth back to Phx....only got about 3.5 mpg with tight/new engines. They still asked for over $100K for their used Petes when reselling!

They went from Volvos to the Petes since they couldnt command much in resale on Volvos--experienced drivers didnt want them. Their Centurys went fast tho, for I think around $40-50K w/about 300-400K miles on them.

After having driven all 3 over 5 yrs, I'll still take the Volvo, but dont know if I'd want to 'own' (& maintain!) one?!!

 

First truck I drove at Knight was a Century. Whoever bought that truck got a pleasant surprise. It ran great, didn't have any of the usual freightshaker rattles, and got mid 7's. They had to pry me out of that truck. They fly me out to Denton to pick up a pete when they finally got me to give up the century.

There are some things I don't like about the volvo's that would keep me from buying one. First thing is the seat was just not comfortable enough. The other is that if any of the gauges go out in that dash display they have to replace the whole thing for around a grand each time.

 

I also liked Centurys---easy to maintain along the Hwy. In fact couldnt find a headlight at the Flying J in Winslow, so bought one at Walmart---same one as used on my Dodge Ramcharger!

Also about same tight turning radius as Volvos. Had a heck of a time when Knight 1st bought their long-nose Petes in getting in some of the crappy places that Knight sends their drivers for cheap freight!

My big complaint with the Volvos was the fusing scheme---the Centurys had 'self-resetting thermal ckt breakers' in the lights to the trailer; whereas, the Volvos had actual fuses. And so if p/u'd a trailer at night w/o lights, better have some spare fuses while troubleshooting to fix the short with the Volvos! Knight may have had the option for the ckt breakers but opted out for the cheaper fuses (?)

 

neither, they are both garbage...The volvo does have a great turn radious but is small in the sleeper. The intertrashional is just that, GARBAGE! If you can, get a pb 387, they are roomy, nice, and seem to produce more power than the other two. Ride is better and the weight isnt much different, less than 500 lbs...remember knight strips all there trucks down to basically nothing.