I'm going to buy a used Schneider Truck

The prevailing theme of this thread, the way I see it anyway, is don't buy a $20 bicycle without a thorough inspection, much less a $40k truck. How these places are still suckering people into buying a vehicle they can't drive or inspect is beyond me. As this thread illustrates, that's not generally a great idea. Glad to hear your luck is starting to turn a bit johnnyman, and you made more than you spent for a week

 

Pacific Islander,

With one Flatbed, I have always been able to gross well over 200k yearly. Based on current rates on Internet Truckstop, I should be able to do $20-30k+ gross a month during the summer months for regular legal flatbed loads.

I've only own no more than 3 trucks at any given time. I'm curse as a small fleet owner and have always lost money due to maintenence. Made three attemps as a small fleet owner and lost big because stupid driver killed my trucks. I had a driver with 13 years experience drove for me last time and on day #3, my truck needed a engine rebuild. Then switch him to truck#2, and in a month, that truck needed a new transmission, clutch, and engine overhaul. Switch him back to truck #1 after rebuild, and he ruin the transmission, clutch and needed new clutch pedal assembly. While all this was happening, I bought truck #3, and it turned out to be a lemon and head gasket went out after first load.

I may have retire early and do trucking part time had I not try so hard to be a fleet owner. It seems that whenever I hire any driver to drive my trucks, they break.

 

There are no sure way to inspect the trucks anymore. One of my last pre emission truck passed Dyno, checked out by my mechanic and still had head gasket went out on a load going up a 6% grade. One of my previous lemon truck was 3 years old with 450k miles and was towed over 26 times in 40 months. I had it inspected by a third party shop and Dyno it before purchase.

With the newer EPA trucks, it will be very hard to tell if the DPF or DEF systems are going to fail until you actually run multiple loads. Ideally, you want to try out the truck by running 80k gross on 6-8% grades for atleast a week. If no issues, then buy the truck.

Based on the service records I obtain on my current truck, it didn't have many big issues at all during the last 8 months of running before being sold. They have plenty of work done to the truck such as changing sensors, switches, and wire harness and many other non-essential stuff. Therefore, it shouldn't be a lemon. Some might say that since there haven't had too much done, I will need more maintenence. I disagree.

From my previous experiences, a lemon truck will always be a lemon truck. Have you seen trucks for sale by owners that had replace injectors, turbos, EGR, Clutch, AC Compressor, Air Charge Cooler, etc... and after putting all this money into maintaining the truck all of a sudden, want to sell to upgrade ? I Will run far away from these kinds of truck.

 

The truck I have lined up is from Penske, its currently being used by Styer. I figure on leasing it for a month or 2, and if everything checks out, then I will buy it.

 

In addition to dyno and inspection, did you do a blow by test, charge air cooler test and pressure test the coolant system?

 

Only tests that I've done on Blow By test is to high idle truck, take off the oil fill cap and see how much smoke is comming out.

I also remove the coolant cap and see if it bubbles in high idle. With head gasket issues, it will bubble a lot.

I have never check for Air Charge Cooler leaks when checking out a truck although I need to make a kit now to test it since I'm getting poor fuel mileage compare to what the truck is spec at.

 

This is the reason I got my OWN CDL, before buying a truck.

I cringe when I read this...

I'm finally getting real experience behind a steering, and from what I've seen the Ryder rental trucks going through with these new drivers...I would stay AWAY from any manual tranny rental truck....

 

My fail safe plan is to finish up an out of frame rebuild on my old 2000 Kenworth T600 with a Detroit Series 60 motor. Just hope I have the funds for this.

Excellent plan right there!

 

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You know...a 2018 Cascadia with APU, DD15/DT12 is looking better everyday. Do they offer the DD15/DT12 in a Glider?

 

Ummm, it wouldn't be a glider then.