First Truck

slow.rider · Jun 23, 2021

Arctic_fox said: ↑

i could have sworn yours was new?
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Nah it was actually a lease purchase. Lol. But I'm still here, title in hand.

Last Call · Jun 24, 2021

slow.rider said: ↑

Cats are real nice, but I wouldn't start off with a Cat unless I had a place to turn wrenches and a full set of tools. I do my DD15 oil changes at 50k, right in line with manufacturer recommendation. Will hit 700k this week and oil samples are fine.

There's two ways to measure the value of a truck, one is what you the Cat lover would pay for a Cascadia, and the other is where the market decides the value. I'm using the latter method.
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I'am glad your not my banker... or financial adviser ..

slow.rider · Jun 24, 2021

Catmando said: ↑

I'am glad your not my banker... or financial adviser ..
Click to expand...

Me too.

Holy.Roller$ · Jun 26, 2021

Arctic_fox said: ↑

So ill add this. And keep in mind this is MY opinion so YMMV. That said. Even though i got a real lemon and the recent honda my truck ate didnt help matters im sure. You CAN make a used emissions or even a emissions truck in general work for you. If you are bound and determined to get one. Its not wise and is a great way to blow a massive maintiance account in less then a couple months but it CAN be done.

Now here the thing with used emissions rigs. 9 out of 10 of these trucks will have issues. They are typically dumped by a big fleet at around 500-600K just before the warranty expires. As a result as they get close to this magic number they start letting maintaince slide, half assing issues, or just ignoreing them. Afterall if they getting rid of it soon anyway why do ANYTHING past the bare minimum and why have any unnessesary down time?

If they get real bad they send it down the road a bit early just to avoid the headaches. Having a truck down for a month when your going to pawn it off in 50-60k miles is just a waste of time and money. Just get a new truck a bit sooner and pawn off the troublemaker for a bit extra cash due to the lower miles.

The other 1 in 10 trucks are likely owned from new like from someone such as @slow.rider and have been babied and will likely be just fine. Or comes from a small fleet that babied them. These emissions trucks will typically have a good amount of life left in them and be ready to hit the road as everything will have been kept up right till replacment day and anything not kept up will likely have full maintance records so you can plan on it from the start. Afterall small operations dont have 500 other trucks to take up the slack if it breaks down early so they gotta fix it and keep it up till they day it is replaced.

These are bad odds for YOU to get one of these unicorn trucks. Unless you buy directly from an individual of course. So if you must buy one then there are things you will NEED to have checked and most likely replaced before you even hit the road.

Items like the ALL of the filters from air to def to coolant to fuel, full EGR cleaning, a test of all sensors as well as pulling and cleaning them, new doser valve and new def level sensor as well as BOTH nox sensors (these things are imfamious for going bad so just change them unless you have a less then 100k mile old recipt from the seller) your def system pulled and cleaned nose to ###, your def tank dropped drained and cleaned then backfilled with fresh jugged def (may have been sitting for weeks or months during the auction or trade in process and thus a lot of the water evaporated off). Also likely a brand new sootcan as this can cause excessive regens and break parts early. Also have your injectors tested and your valves tested to ensure nothing fishy is going on with them. Make sure all the recall work has been done and so on.

Doing all of this will head off MOST major problems before they become problems. However, the downside is to all of this is they are only the start and they are EXPENSIVE. Your looking at easily 20k in repairs before you even touch rubber to asphalt just to ensure you wont have problems.

After that the saga will keep going. You need to change your fuel filters every month or so. Granted its not nessesary on all emissions engines but many freak out if the filter clogs even a little (*cough* paccar *cough*) you need to take your "dealer maintaince schedule" and throw it out the window. Do your EGR every 6 months or so regardless of motor, have your sensors pulled, checked and cleaned every year at a minimum. Do oil tests to determine when to change the oil. Change your air filters every 3rd oil change. Buy a code reading/clearing tool so you can check the errors and a lot more.

Things like this are why most of us say to avoid a used emissions vehicle. In a worst case ALL of what i listed could be bad like my 579. In a best case nothing could be bad. However, the odds of the latter are far lower then those of the former. And if you buy an emissions truck you NEED to consider these things.

A clogged EGR can cause a cascade failure frying parts up and down the emissions system for example. And it can be hard for techs to track down any individual problem so many will just throw parts at it till it works or your wallet is dry. So because of this again its why so many of us caution buy new or old iron. Its not because used def trucks CANT be reliable, its because the odds of major problems and the cost to prevent any chance of them is so high its an iffy option and breaks so many aspireing new O/Os before they even have a chance to BE an O/O.

But hay im just a dumb trucker on the interwebs. The hell do i know?
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That sounds like fun.

Vitkouski · Jun 26, 2021

Rubber duck kw said: ↑

That works on paper, so long as your emmissions system doesn't #### itself, or the engine doesn't blow up, or both. I don't know what you're hauling or where if your calculations is an extra 30k grand in 3 months is possible. If you're clearing anywhere close to that there would be no reason to pay 60k for a truck like that, just buy new.
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I agree with Slow.Rider.
Last year I did 3$/mile all miles.
2021 I'm 4+$/mile. 10000$ extra gross per month.

Pa_Polarbear · Jun 28, 2021

OP personally I'd go pre emissions and don't let people scare you away from a cat. 1.5 mil miles before a rebuild is not unheard of. Good fuel economy is easily attained and imo a 3406e has very few issues. You can get a fresh rebuilt one for next to nothing comparatively and only need your bolt on when swapping out. Honestly with the miles you'd get out of a pre emissions truck for the price and not have to deal with emissions or eld's its worth the $50-$60k you're going to pay for it. With rates the way they are currently, and are projected to stay that way for quite awhile it will pay for itself in no-time. It honestly doesn't matter which motor you pick in them either, n14, 3406 or series 60 are all good motors that are pretty inexpensive to upkeep. Just my opinion but stick with either the Cummins or the cat. Detroits have a shorter time in between needing rebuilds. Personal experience ill always have a cat, Cummins can be repaired anywhere if you don't have the knowledge yourself and a cat I can tear down and rebuild with a basic set of handtools. Plus they are pretty simple, have things engineered into them that I prefer such as less belts more gear driven accessories.
In the end it's really what you want to deal with out on the road. Hopefully this helps a bit. That $8k more I spend in fuel a year is worth it to me than dealing with more parts and downtime because of all the emissions garbage. Everything else is simple

Jarhed1964 · Jun 30, 2021

This is gold.

Arctic_fox said: ↑

So ill add this. And keep in mind this is MY opinion so YMMV. That said. Even though i got a real lemon and the recent honda my truck ate didnt help matters im sure. You CAN make a used emissions or even a emissions truck in general work for you. If you are bound and determined to get one. Its not wise and is a great way to blow a massive maintiance account in less then a couple months but it CAN be done.

Now here the thing with used emissions rigs. 9 out of 10 of these trucks will have issues. They are typically dumped by a big fleet at around 500-600K just before the warranty expires. As a result as they get close to this magic number they start letting maintaince slide, half assing issues, or just ignoreing them. Afterall if they getting rid of it soon anyway why do ANYTHING past the bare minimum and why have any unnessesary down time?

If they get real bad they send it down the road a bit early just to avoid the headaches. Having a truck down for a month when your going to pawn it off in 50-60k miles is just a waste of time and money. Just get a new truck a bit sooner and pawn off the troublemaker for a bit extra cash due to the lower miles.

The other 1 in 10 trucks are likely owned from new like from someone such as @slow.rider and have been babied and will likely be just fine. Or comes from a small fleet that babied them. These emissions trucks will typically have a good amount of life left in them and be ready to hit the road as everything will have been kept up right till replacment day and anything not kept up will likely have full maintance records so you can plan on it from the start. Afterall small operations dont have 500 other trucks to take up the slack if it breaks down early so they gotta fix it and keep it up till they day it is replaced.

These are bad odds for YOU to get one of these unicorn trucks. Unless you buy directly from an individual of course. So if you must buy one then there are things you will NEED to have checked and most likely replaced before you even hit the road.

Items like the ALL of the filters from air to def to coolant to fuel, full EGR cleaning, a test of all sensors as well as pulling and cleaning them, new doser valve and new def level sensor as well as BOTH nox sensors (these things are imfamious for going bad so just change them unless you have a less then 100k mile old recipt from the seller) your def system pulled and cleaned nose to ###, your def tank dropped drained and cleaned then backfilled with fresh jugged def (may have been sitting for weeks or months during the auction or trade in process and thus a lot of the water evaporated off). Also likely a brand new sootcan as this can cause excessive regens and break parts early. Also have your injectors tested and your valves tested to ensure nothing fishy is going on with them. Make sure all the recall work has been done and so on.

Doing all of this will head off MOST major problems before they become problems. However, the downside is to all of this is they are only the start and they are EXPENSIVE. Your looking at easily 20k in repairs before you even touch rubber to asphalt just to ensure you wont have problems.

After that the saga will keep going. You need to change your fuel filters every month or so. Granted its not nessesary on all emissions engines but many freak out if the filter clogs even a little (*cough* paccar *cough*) you need to take your "dealer maintaince schedule" and throw it out the window. Do your EGR every 6 months or so regardless of motor, have your sensors pulled, checked and cleaned every year at a minimum. Do oil tests to determine when to change the oil. Change your air filters every 3rd oil change. Buy a code reading/clearing tool so you can check the errors and a lot more.

Things like this are why most of us say to avoid a used emissions vehicle. In a worst case ALL of what i listed could be bad like my 579. In a best case nothing could be bad. However, the odds of the latter are far lower then those of the former. And if you buy an emissions truck you NEED to consider these things.

A clogged EGR can cause a cascade failure frying parts up and down the emissions system for example. And it can be hard for techs to track down any individual problem so many will just throw parts at it till it works or your wallet is dry. So because of this again its why so many of us caution buy new or old iron. Its not because used def trucks CANT be reliable, its because the odds of major problems and the cost to prevent any chance of them is so high its an iffy option and breaks so many aspireing new O/Os before they even have a chance to BE an O/O.

But hay im just a dumb trucker on the interwebs. The hell do i know?
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