New O/O new truck or used?

Good luck finding a new truck…

 

Honestly i would avoid anything "newish" at the moment. Most of the "newish" trucks on the market right now are there because they have issues newish hard running good trucks are just toi #### hard to get ahold of for anyone to let one free without a #### good reason. There are some granted which are fine but the odds of your getting one is low and the competition heavy for it.

A better option depending on how much of a down payment you have is if you have the cash to buy an older pre emissions truck and pay for it to be rebuilt for you. It can be done for a fraction of what a "newish" truck costs even now. For example just doing a quick search you could get this https://www.commercialtrucktrader.com/listing/1999-PETERBILT-379-5019262941 for around 45k if you walk in with cash most likely and get a total overhaul for about $30-40k if you do the rear ends and transmission at the same time less if they are solid and it just needs the engine done and have a good hard runner for less then a thrid of the cost for a newish truck. Plus your not going to roll the dice on an iffy emissions system

 

For real!! OLD! Not “save 100k” old, but old like pre emissions. Get one with a decent motor, save the first 30k for an emergency rebuild, and you’ll be ahead fast. I bought a 96 truck to get started and I’ve only been off the road one day out of almost 2 years, outside of my control. The rest was maintenance days off/downtime planned around my schedule.

They don’t build these things like they used to.

 

I posted a thread couple days ago about older trucks. It seems, there are a slew of "pre-emission" trucks, making me wonder if the feds are clamping down on all trucks to comply with regulations, If not now, you can bet it will happen. As a rule, a truck at 500K probably has fresh mechanicals, and good for at least another 1/4 mil,,but after that, on 2nd rebuilds, electrical bugaboos will drive you nuts. Again, depends greatly on what you do. If downtime is unacceptable, like lose a good account over, then by all means, go with a NEW(er) truck, I wouldn't even mess with a used one, however, like said, new trucks can't be found, and a couple year old truck may have to do. The type of truck you need, probably won't have a lot of miles, but HH is hard on trucks, as you know, so choose wisely. I suggest a double frame KWhopper with the biggest freakin' Cat motor you can find. I see all the county and state boys use tri-axle KW's for their HH.

 

Although finding a slightly used rig spec’ed for heavy haul , won’t be as hard as finding a plastic highway hauler , I’d also suggest not only a pre emissions truck , I’d get a pre computer truck

with a 3406 B cat or a big cam 400 Cummins and mechanical injection , no computers

just get an old truck and rebuild it

it will be much more reliable than a newer one .

I know a company that has two W9 heavy haul four axle trucks sitting because they don’t have drivers . But they ain’t getting rid of them , because they simply can’t be replaced .

 

At this point you know you cannot get a new truck for 12 to 18 months, unless someone cancels an order. Used trucks with 400K miles are going for six figures, and the warranty left on them is minimal, and the dealerships try to push you into useless third party warranties.

Peterbilt Steve at Rush Truck Centers in Oklahoma, was advertising a tri - axle heavy haul with under 100K miles on it.

 

The REAL question here is; how deep are you pockets? Availability/choices comes as a close second.