WHY SO MANY COMPANIES JUST RUN FREIGHTLINERS AND INTERNATIONALS

We actually drove one once during a difficult year. Oil all over the block and engine bay and hood. We forced it up a 10% ozark grade a mile and two curves came back down realizing they commuted that thing from the mountain to Little Rock 80 miles and 1200 feet each way for 3 years until it essentially tore the block.

One of my part time jobs involve moving wrecked vehicles, sometimes with blood inside at Kerr Road Salvage auction and getting into those things and figuring out how I can nurse it to the barn and hopefully back to the lot without burning to death or some other interesting death makes for a interesting 40 dollar paid day that lasts about a hour for 30 some odd wrecked vehciles of all kinds.

You will find Kerr Road west of Lonoke AR on I-40 roughly the 170 mile marker walled off in white steel. Insurance companys purchase these things to salvage the air bags, abs modules the platinum converters etc to resell.

There is a old 50's GMC Bus I think or a Prevost... not sure. A fishbowl in a field two miles north on that road. One of those days someone with a bunch of money is or already has bought it to restore.

 

I tried not to knock anything. But there were two trucks, a GMC Brigader general day cab and I think a straight volvo white commander type COE. I automatically refused to drive those two. The third truck on the list was a international daycab similar to the ford 9000s Day cab (Which were fantastic turning like witches with containers...)

I would hate to drive any of them screamers now for 2000 miles even as a deaf man. That turbo screech is a ice pick from god into your brain when it's time to shift.

 

While true, it's not 100% true.

It is 100% about price, but not just the purchase price like you state. It's all about Total Cost of Ownership. The CO of a Freightliner is lower than any other truck. There are several reasons for this. Lower cost of truck, lower parts price, etc...
So quality of truck does matter, but only in so far is the whole package is still less expensive counting purchase (well,. lease as most megas don't purchase), repairs, etc.
Yes warranty does affect TCO like you implied, but so does downtime and for example, hotel stays for the driver while the truck is in the shop.

 

Can't argue with that, I'm assuming you're talking about the old two stroke Detroits?

 

Yes. I actually lost a hearing chart range at around 8000 Hertz down to 4000 or so at certain db levels in the early years of my trucking with some of those turbos. I tend to hear em down deep anyhow, say 18 hertz or so much better than I need to be hearing icepicks.

I don't recall the wide variety of engines we had in our time. What I do recall is that most of the old iron had it's little behaviors or attitude or whatever you wanted to call it. Some were just dead from 1400 all the way to around maybe 2000 when they would finally wake up and try the 2400 redline. Others would run well at 1000 and refuse to get above 1600 at any urging. And the big cams with tall road ranger gearing hurt the worst. When you finally get em up there pulling, you hit a little roll in a PA Hill grade and lose all the work and two gears down to boot.

I have to say that the modern Detriots, the ones over 500 horse and the autos rockwell manuals etc would just maintain speed limit or governor speed over most anything on our interstate system. Im not going to be alive long enough to witness maybe 3000 applied electric or similar horses able to regenerate and export power downgrade. We might be able to dedicate closed highways to cargo only and get it from LA to Jersey in about er... 30 hours or less.

 

Not meaning to hijack the thread, but I have one question: As far as the newer Detroits go, I haven't anything else to compare them to in the last 3.5 years... and add in the fact that Penske likes to turn down the power in their trucks. Is there anyone here that routinely pulls Snoqualmie pass? I'm just wondering if this sounds accurate: I have the DD13 with the DT12 tranny, and I'm able to pull a fully loaded set up the eastbound side and not drop below 35 mph in 9th gear. I'm only guessing that Penske has me set at roughly 400 hp (not sure what my torque is at, but these Detroits will pull all the way down to 1000 rpm, by design, then work their way back up without a hiccup when you start to level out.
Anyway, does pulling Snoqualmie at 35 mph sound reasonable? I don't know, since I have no way of knowing what all the trucks around me are set at, their gearing, etc.

 

The only Freightliner I'd ever consider owning would be an old FLC.

 

I think all the companies, if not most, turn their HP down.

i ran scangauge d for a few months on a isx 475. The highest HP i ever saw it display was 355. I don't know if that's from the engine or to the drives. I've had other isx 475's that did better but still not true hp. When i got my new FL with DD515. I was in love with that baby.

 

Scangauge? What's that?

 

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