Buying a used Penske truck, are they well maintained?

And ask for the service records on a truck you are interested in .

 

im not sure which penske shop you speak of but i have a long term lease truck from rochester and that shop is excellent.also for maintance my truck is serviced every three months.and oil changed every 40,000 miles.we never have kept one that the warranty was out so im not sure how they are once that runs out.as for the yellow ones they are all pretty basic with no extras but like mine i ordered it just the way i wanted so if you are looking through thier used truck sales look at the non yellow ones that people turn back in they usually have more options on them.Im not sure what actually happens to the long term lease trucks after we turn them in but ill find out.we have a 07 classic that will be turned in shortly so ill see what they do with it.

 

They put them up on Ebay by the hundreds.

 

the truck in my signature is an old penske truck, the wheelbase is longer than most of their other daycabs i have seen. its an 03 and has 450,000 on it, 12.7 60 series pre egr. seems like it was taken pretty good care of, has plenty of power and gets decent mileage.

 

This is the big problem I see. The trucks are serviced as if they are in a mega fleet operation and Penske only cares about the cheapest way to maintain the trucks for the 3-5 years they have them in service. For a small operation looking to buy a truck these Penske units could be the business's downfall with higher maintance costs. A truck serviced every # months? What about all the grease zerks for the clutch linkage, spring bushings, and the u-joints. Yes many of them may be greaseless units, but I still don't see the benefit in going 3 months between services. Also consider many of the trucks are running EGR Detroits that dump more soot into the oil. This causes the oil filter to plug up and oil gets saturated with soot. Not a good situation at all.

 

We LOVE our former Penske truck. We bought it last summer and have put on another 50K+ miles since then... and we've only had minor things go wrong...like a tail light go out, an electronic check engine sensor (turbo-speed sensor) failed (the most expensive thing so far because of having to put it on the machine to find out what had failed), replacement wiper blades, and replaced a tire with a hole in the sidewall.

We bought it out of Tacoma, Washington, but the Penske records show it came from Minnesota. As with all used vehicles....check it out thoroughly, and buyer beware. There are lemons everywhere...in fleets and not. There are good and bad maintenance shops, and there are some renters that take care of trucks and others that don't.

As for the yellow....you get used to it! And we can ALWAYS find our truck in the TS lots when we come out! Another plus we have found to the yellow....the dirt doesn't seem to look quite as bad on it as a some other colors if we can't get it washed in a timely fashion.

 

1) i hate to be a pest but could we instead start using the phrase "perform your due diligence," instead of "do your due diligence?" Edited. i think perform your due, sounds better than do you due....


2) i think in general and based on personal observations, NO pesky DOES NOT perform good maintenance on their trucks. OK maintenance maybe, but not "good" maintenance. Of course this depends on each individual pesky shop. i've seen maybe one decent one out of 6.

 

I currently drive a penske truck and all I can say IS MY truck is well taken care of..If I have any issues or due a PM I can pull in to ANY Penske shop in the USA and get it taken care of..
its a truck IT WILL eventualy break down but Penske at least the one I am based out of is right on top of things...

 

Ok do your Due diligence, but how are you going to know if truck is well maintained or piece of junk? Do they allow you to take it to shop and check? Do they allow you to drive on highway and reach high speed? Do they give you report including all oil and filter or whatever change?

 

I looked at some "Brand P"s recently. The undersides were so heavily painted, I could only think of one reason for that - concealment. It seems pretty clear that they are purposely and deliberately concealing the extent of corrosion/rust/wear/cracks on the trucks. I wouldn't consider a truck where I couldn't make an assessment of the structural integrity of the frame and suspension, due to a willful attempt by the seller to disguise it.