Waiting on New Trucks thread.

I’m just trying to break down the competitiveness of paid for older trucks and trailers maintained and driven by owners compared to new equipment in this new world of highly inflated values in a currently flat rate world of freight once again .

I understand if you have been in the game for years and have had numerous pieces of equipment that you constantly traded up to newer equipment every few years , so this current economic value doesn’t effect you as much as someone who is just arriving to the party.

It’s just another leap into another little larger loan.

My fear if I was a small fleet owner would to be slowly lured into the notion that you had to keep going down this road of buying new equipment while we are going through an unprecedented
Inflationary period while clearing seeing a recession has already begun .

 

New vs old gets rehashed here every year or so. The debate seems to come down to whether you can do most of your own wrenching, and if you have schedule sensitive freight. I've done both, and new wins, hands down -- but I don't wrench, and I have very high "up time" demands. One thing that surprised me was that the new equipment reduced the stupid little write ups at inspections, which improves our safety score A BUNCH, which dropped my insurance A BUNCH. Repairs, maintenance, cost of rentals during down time, STRESS, fuel, insurance all went down. Depreciation and interest went up. Fuel, alone, paid for the increase in depreciation.

 

What I didn't realize is that you start making better business decisions when the stress is low. Stress is destructive, makes you feel like you "have to" take a poor deal, limits choices, etc. Like you, I would be FAR ahead had I gone new earlier.

 

For me, as a one truck guy, I’ve done both. Owned a couple older trucks from 2011 to 2016, and in 2019 when I decided to buy a truck again I decided to go newer and got one with 200k on it. That changed me. The lack of downtime, the lack of little things needing your attention when you just want to be home, the smooth ride and quiet cab, the better insulation. I ran that truck until the end of last year and got rid of it with 600k on it. Now this brand new truck has completely ruined me for ever wanting an older truck again unless it’s a hobby truck. I got home last night, I’m at Peterbilt now getting a service, and once I get back to my house I know I don’t have to do anything on this truck and it will be ready to go on the 26th when I want to leave. Since putting this truck on the road in January my maintenance costs consist of 2 services and a set of steer tires.

 

You forgot to mention the lost days and loads re-routing back to the shop for the do-over, and then the subsequent roadside reaming when the repair fails again under a load.

This is why I've greatly expanded the list of repairs and maintenance I will only do myself, except in an emergency situation. The unexpected benefit has been discovering and correcting a not trivial number of clearly incompetent repairs I paid someone else to do in the past.

When I drop dead from doing that, someone is gonna inherit an awesome set of tools.

 

Thanks for the quote of confidence!

 

I think all the guys worried about fuel mileage are hauling box trailer and reefer. Where it matters... I dont even worry about it running open deck. Sometimes with my flat/step i would get 8mpg with a light load. Others get 5mpg... Now with lowboy trailer I lucky to get 5.5.. If the wind picks up i can almost see the fuel gauge move in live action... Could really care less anymore what the fuel cost is..Id rather focus my time on making more money than cutting my costs.