Im scared

my columbia with cat c 13 runs without troubles 1747000 milles no rebuild and @ 6.6. mpg is a money maker

 

My Columbia has about 1.5 million miles. It was rebuilt about 150,000 miles ago.

 

No idea how many miles my ‘89 Western Star has on it. Odometer showed 68,000 when I got it, and wasn’t working, wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was well over 2 million. Rebuilt the 3406B last year, runs like a top.

 

I'm probably the wrong guy to listen to, but I would never get rid of that Freightliner.

The only exception to that would be if I had some kind of insanely high paying contract freight that the truck has to run every single solitary day it can't ever be down and the truck is constantly going thousands of miles.

And I know that that contract is good, intact, and will be there over the next let's say 5 years so I can pay off that colossal expense.

But if I was an owner operator that was running local/ semi local/regional and I had money in the bank and I was in a good financial situation.. no way on Earth would I ever take on some crazy emissions truck I can't fix and it's going to just be a nightmare. I wouldn't buy a glider because they're so outrageously expensive you could probably rebuild your own truck five times for what you're going to spend for that glider.

And just because it's a glider, does not mean that you're buying something that will be completely problem free. For all you know you're taking on someone else's problem... Just saying. There's a reason people sell trucks. Some are good some are bad. That's the point. Flip a coin. I would never flip a coin when I know I have something good.

You gotta do what you got to do but why take on colossal debt in such a questionable economy?

You're concerned about reliability. Those are the most reliable dependable trucks ever made. All parts are not only available they are reasonable. You just have to have the desire and the grit and the understanding of what needs to be done to that truck to make it so you can always get into it and turn the key and go.

You have a truck that's already a nice Dependable truck. You just need to do the maintenance repairs to keep it that way.

I can't even write it on here what you need to do. If you really really want to make this truck Dependable you can private message me and I'll explain it to you because it's just too much for me to say on here.

But I will tell you that truck may not nearly be in the condition you think it's in or it may not nearly need what you think to keep going.

No way on Earth would I trade in something Dependable that I can work on and rebuild and make it perfect for way less than I ever could buy some newer unknown truck, no way would I go into debt when I would have the opportunity to have something good already and just work on it as I go.

I'm not really ready to sell mine, but if you wanted a dead dependable fld, mine is insanely worked over. Couldn't even list all the repairs that were done to it. Alot of it is documented on the site here.

But I can show you how to make yours dead dependable if you are interested and I bet you it's not nearly as much work as you think.

The key to all of this is knowing how to assess your truck and anticipate what needs to be done, and do that on a schedule as you're making money.

It's not as difficult as it seems. But you do have to have the grit to do whatever repairs you can do yourself and you need to stay on your schedule.

But the best part about it is that while you're working when you see you're doing pretty well and you have some extra money, you can put more back into the truck because that's just like putting money into an account that's going to come back to you that's going to make you money.

And if you're not doing as well, you can tighten your wallet up a bit and be glad you didn't take on colossal debt.

Like I said, I'm probably the wrong guy to listen to.

 

You aren’t going to get that reliability with a new truck. Only way you could ever come close to that is with 2 trucks, one to run and the other as a spare.
I will submit that there is less downtime with an old truck. Sure, the old truck may break down more, but most of those breakdowns can be fixed on the side of the road by somebody with a little mechanical knowledge. It’s not uncommon for a newer truck to sit for a month or more at a dealer waiting to get!a repair for a minor issue but the truck would run.

Especially post Covid, I have found that if you want to decrease downtime you have to make most of your repairs in-house. That’s almost impossible to do for the most common engine and emissions problems on new trucks.