Stepping Out With My Own Numbers

I though the fuel mileage would be a little better. I was being too optimistic. It’s doing great though. Maintenance is the big savings. The Peterbilt and the Cummins was killing me. I haven’t had to do anything with this one. I have an air compressor gasket leaking to fix this week, but that has been it. Less maintenance cost, better mpg, and fewer days down.
With the full length skirt on the new trailer and the steer axle wheel covers I’m putting on, I’m hoping for another 3% increase in mpg and finally hitting 9. I’m stalled out around 8.7 right now since Ive owned it.

 

Peterbilt 386
Cummins
10 speed direct FR series
2.64
6x4
Super singles
TriPac
Same operation, for the most part. Much of my time in the Pete was being leased and not running the Northeast and NewEngland as much.
Same trailer specs, even when leased they had tails and singles
That truck averaged 7.7 the entire time I had it.
That truck cost me a little over 31k in maintenance for the 18 months I had it. And stuck me out on the road 3 different times greater than 2 days. The worst being the camshaft failure, a whole week of downtime in PA.
I had better service fixing my Peterbilt from Volvo, Freightliner, and Mack dealers than Peterbilt. I would buy the parts from Peterbilt and take it, literally, down the street, to the other guys to do the work. Peterbilt sucked.

 

There are few things I’ll do differently next time around to try and squeeze a little more mpg out of it. I’m satisfied though. They’ve changed the cab area a lot since the Prostar. The sleeper is almost identical except for color and trim. Maybe there’s more room than previously in the cab. It’s not as flashy as other trucks right now but I think they did a good job with the LT.

 

It was a 2012, it was a 400hp dual torque, I can’t remember the torque values. Truck ABS, power steering, A/C and blowers, and a lot of air system problems. It kept springing leaks.

 

The trailer is almost ready. I’ll post pictures later. They made two mistakes though. They put a standard length skirt on it instead of the full coverage and the trailer tail is white instead of black. I let the salesman know and he is going to work on getting the right parts in for me. I’m still going to hit the road with it until they come in.