Truck Load Rates Halt 8 Week Slide 2.0

Heck, your not wrong for sure!

But, I do remember having older stuff and it nickel and dimed me to absolute death and that was before parts shortages and 150 to 165 per hour mechanics. For people who aren’t their own mechanics

I did overlook in my assessment people with 2nd and 3rd owner trucks that are getting 6.5 mpg but still having constant problems.

Maybe I’m wrong but I’d like to think folks that have made the investment in 7.5 to 8.5 mpg trucks with essentially zero problems should be able to weather the storm easier. It’s going to get interesting I’m afraid.

 

One of the factors that led me to selling my 95 KW and making up my mind toward a newer truck when I bought again and now brand new is I decided my time was worth something. I got tired of spending the better part of a day off working on my truck, that became my line. Now I can park it, do what I want when I’m not working, then jump back in and leave. No more I have to do this or that to the truck before I can relax and enjoy my time off. I’d like to see someone with an old truck track their labor at $150 an hour for all the time spent working on their truck and then say it doesn’t cost anything to maintain. It costs the one thing nobody can get back.

 

Peace of mind goes a long way when getting home. I love my home time and found this is one of the reasons I wanted to be a OO. I could not stand to have to waste Half my home time on working on the truck. Some people enjoy it and see it more as a hobby. I find it miserable and find driving more of a hobby.

 

Same here, it was killing me fixing things little by little on my first two trucks.
The trick is to put a newly bought old truck in the shop and do everything all at once.
The last one I bought for less than 15k. Good physical condition with less than 600k original miles, but sat for a long time, so it needed lots of maintenance.
Put in the shop, spent $35k all at once and it has been great.

@Midwest Trucker old trucks won't work for you anyway, even if rebuilt. Nowadays drivers are really spoiled. If your equipment is older than 5 years, they won't even bother coming to take a look at the trucks, they just hang up the phone and call the next employer.

 

Man I’m spoiled with my $85 hr shop lol.

 

I’m curious what the companies that have raised drivers pay are going to do if it comes to the point of cutting wages or making a profit.
As far as running a older hood.
It’s paid for itself a long time ago.
I have no desire for a new truck.
There’s no way to say this next part without sounding arrogant. I charge enough that I don’t sweat the price of fuel.

 

Who said anything about sweating the price of fuel? Money is money and if we did the exact same thing for the exact same rate I’d have more of it.

 

If you can overhaul an engine properly, what's the issue with replacing aftertreatment parts? Most of the components are bolt on parts. If you're saving around $20,000 a year, you could afford the software to diagnose the problem or even just throw parts at it and still come out ahead. Consider that you won't need to do this until after the warranty has gone out, and it seems like an even smarter move.

 

It's like fixing an old Toyota Camry vs modern BMW. Completely different price of parts, tools needed and complexity of repairs.
Nobody wants to own late model trucks past the warranty time, same as everyone just leases new BMW instead of buying.
Yet, lots of people still own, maintain and sell for decent money early 2000's cars for example

 

It's not completely different. The same socket set and wrenches that are used for an engine rebuild are used to remove and replace aftertreatment components. The only difference is that the person doing the work decided to educate themselves on how the system works, or purchased software to guide them step by step through the process. The only specialized tools would be a scanner type reset tool, or a subscription to the software. The savings in fuel economy outweigh the cost of that by far. The problem that I see is that people are either lazy, or their ability to learn new things has diminished.

I recognize that there are exceptions and horror stories that happen to a few people, but the average truck seems to get diagnosed and repaired fairly simply. You're not going to see threads by people when things are working correctly, which represents the majority of trucks out there. There are old trucks getting good fuel efficiency, but that's probably largely due to driving style. If we really want to see the math work, we need to compare the average driver and equipment spec in old trucks vs new trucks. A carefully driven older truck that can get 8 mpg should be compared to a carefully driven modern truck that can get 10 mpg.