THE ADVENTURES MK III - Still doing it my way

You know it was funny... when I first brought it up on this forum over a year ago that I was considering doing a lease/purchase through Schneider Finance, there was quite a bit of negativity surrounding the whole idea, "you'll go broke, you won't make any money, it's a scam", so many said. But you know what? I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

However, in the end I went against everything I had originally planned to do and decided not to buy the truck that I had been leasing for the past year. I had every intention of buying it, but over the course of the last few months I started to take a real good look at my situation and decided that maybe buying that truck wasn't quite what I wanted.

So why not?

The biggest reason was that the truck was out of warranty. With over 400k miles on it, even the remaining warranty on the engine internals had expired. While leasing from SFI I did have a warranty that covered any catastrophic failures not covered under the manufacturers warranty, but unfortunately SFI is no longer offering that warranty on ANY trucks. Should I have decided to renew the lease for the final "buyout" stage, I wouldn't have been able to keep that coverage. Maybe it was costing them too much money, maybe they are moving away from leasing trucks that are past the full manufacturer warranty. Who knows.

Looking at the costs of major repairs on any new emissions engine, alongside the many possible complications that can arise with those engines, it just had me a little worried. You don't see million-mile engines that often any more and let's face it, there's a real good chance that mine wouldn't make it that far.

I also had no interest in leasing a new truck from SFI. Personally, I am not comfortable with leasing for a time period of any longer than year. I could always suck it up for a year. But 3 years, 5 years? No thanks. That left me stuck with the stupid high interest rates related to the one year lease. Been there, done that. Did it with a used truck and well it was what it was - 17%. With a new truck? Man, I just can't stomach how high that rate is.

So what do I do? I spend months searching for _THE_ truck. I waste time and money looking at truck after truck and not liking what I see. I almost pull the trigger a few times but for one reason or another it never quite works out. But it was all worth the wait, finally I did find _THE_ truck, it's listed in my signature now. 1.3 million miles, absolutely no warranty of any kind, but in awesome shape and with the holy grail of Caterpillar OTR engines, the single turbo, pre-emissions 6NZ serial Caterpillar C15, mated to an 1850ft/lb rated 13 speed, all packaged up in a Kenworth T600 body with the 86" sleeper and topped off with a TriPac diesel APU. This... this right here... is my kind of ride.

I know little of the history on the truck other that the guy that owned it before me seemed pretty meticulous based on a few little notepads I found left behind detailing fuel mileage, etc., from 700k miles up until it went off to auction and was purchased by the dealer I bought it from. The dyno report came back good, as did the history I could bring up from RigDig, and the time I spent crawling all over that truck looking for problems brought up very little.

It's not perfect, it needs a few odds and ends fixed here, but with a payment of $100 a week and it's a good feeling knowing that this truck is mine and mine only, regardless of what happens with any company I work for or what I choose to do with it.

I'm not stupid. I understand the risk of buying any kind of used truck. I understand that the possibility that while bobtailing down to the Charlotte OC when I am ready to get the truck inspected and leased on with Schneider that all hell could just break loose. I know that, and I accept that risk. I have some emergency funds set aside, but you know if I needed a new engine tomorrow could I afford to put one in? Ehhh... it would be close. If I got rid of some of my toys, then yeah, probably. But you know what I'd do? I'd either hop right back in a lease truck with SFI for a year, or go back to driving company for a while, save up to get it fixed and get on with my life. It wouldn't end me. Even if it costs me $100 a week to sit. Luckily I am in a position where the personal loan that I used to pay for part of this truck is the only debt I have.

Most likely, the truck will be just fine and I'll be able to quickly build up my savings again. I saw a fair bit of negativity when I discussed buying an older used truck in my previous thread. Most of it centered around "you might be making more money but you'll be putting it all back into fixing the truck", or "a new truck with a warranty costs less in the long run, you're wasting money buying an old truck". Mostly, it was spouting off opinions as fact. The FACT is, what works for one person's situation might not work for another. I know that for me, socking away money into my own savings that I can use for a. fixing my truck, b. buying another truck in the future, or c. doing whatever else I want with it should I decide to get out of trucking, is preferable over making a gigantic truck payment. That's just my point of view on it, but in no way means that it is the "only way" or "right way" to do it.

Like I said earlier, I still am glad that I chose to lease a truck through SFI for a year, it gave me the opportunity to get to where I am today, and let's face it, it was one EASY year. I enjoyed a great deal of time off and had a lot of fun out there on the road behind the wheel of that Cascadia. Word has it from my SFI rep that she will probably be retired to intermodal lease/op duty due to her mileage. I think SFI has a good setup and have no problem recommending it to anyone as long as you have a very clear understanding of the fact that any time not moving COSTS MONEY, and lots of it. You need to be prepared for that should you want to enjoy a lot of time off, or be willing to run hard and/or run the most profitable areas and loads that can many times be the crappy places to go.

This guy? You'll still see me hauling that 8k lb. load of potato chips or parked up in Carlisle PA waiting for my "rescue relay" to show up to beeline me back to the south. I'll still be driving 60 MPH, with that big kitty just purring along through straight pipes with a little "haters gonna hate" smirk on my face as you come flying by.

Hopefully I'll be ready to hit the road with this new truck by the end of the month.

 

Thanks man! Who is gonna be lucky #1000? LOL

 

Haven't scaled the new truck yet. Door plate on the KW says 18,580. Actual weight of the Cascadia with full fuel was 20,180.

Assuming the door plate on the KW is the empty weight, add 340 gallons of fuel @ 7.3lb/gal, gear, my skinny ***, and the weight of the extra tank (no idea how much this weighs), and I'd expect probably around 21.5 or so? Just a guess. The ISX was really heavy on the Cascadia, but remember it had all the extra piping for the EGR, the DPF filter, etc., whereas the CAT has none of that. Might even it out some.