need advice on Rolling Glider Kit freightliner coronado

Personally as a driver with dreams of O/O, yet also from a business stand point, I would recomend #2. 100k miles you can easily blow in less than a year with a good driver. With 300k warranty you will get past the break in stage and get into the what is likely to fall apart from use stage.

Frankly I would love to see what their prices are, yet they must turn off their computer when they close the shop. Its already been 5 minutes and my browser on a DSL has timed out trying to look at their inventory. (Just me) yet this smells a little too cheap (small warning flag).

 

Their inventory is on the TruckPaper site. Regarding price, the reason so "cheap" relative to a new truck is that you are not paying $20,000 - $30,000 for the current emissions junk. Yep, the EGR, DPF, and SCR and all the plumbing on a 2010 emissions truck will add that much cost. A remanned engine and tranny is way cheaper than a comparible new product as well. Basically, go back almost 10 years and that is the price you would pay now for a comparibly spec'd rolling glider truck which is the very same 2010 truck (just with a remanned engine and tranny) as a new emissions equipped truck at the dealer. Now add the cost of maintenance that we all are aware that happens with that emissions junk. Replaced EGR's and coolers. DPF's that won't regen properly and need replacement injectors, filters, etc. And God knows what problems will be involved with SCR besides having to add urea to the tank all the time. Not to mention how these new engines like to shut down and require a tow to the shop over a stupid sensor buried in all that emissions stuff. I would be willing to guess that the added cost and downtime to fix emissions stuff would add another sizeable chunk of change to the cost of a new truck.

Unless somone has a real fetish about going to California and has to meet their requirements, it would just make solid business sense to consider a glider truck. I don't do New England, Florida, or California, so it is an easy choice for me.

 

I was delivering a load in Knoxville, TN a few weeks back and got an up close look at one of these Fitzgerald glider trucks. The trucking company was Everhart Transportation, I think they are based out of Greenville, anyways the driver was an older fellow who had been with the company more than 10 years. He said the owner purchased five 2009 Coronado gliders with reman pre-egr Detroits in them. I looked at the engine and it was very cleanly and neatly done. No mish mash of odd wires or anything like that - it looked like a factory job. The truck itself was white with maroon fenders and the engine was painted maroon to match the fenders. It had a compact genset not tied into the engine's cooling system. It had 3:58 rears, 10 speed OD, and 24.5 lopro's. The driver was one of those rare company drivers that kept up with his fuel mileage on every tank full, had a little notebook of it, that was one of the reasons the owner gave him the truck I'm sure the another would be that the driver kept the inside and out of this truck meticulously clean. Anyways, I don't know his overall average but none of his fillups were under 6.3 mpg and he had lots of fillups that were 7+ mpg with about 200,000 on the odometer. This from mostly running east coast and midsouth corridors in a truck governed at 75mph. I would not hesitate to buy one of these gliders at all.

 

If it costs less than 85% of a comparable new truck it is not going to be charged excise tax. If it costs 85% of new or above it will be taxed as a new truck.

 

Been looking for pro's and cons to gliders. Frankly have yet to find a con. Considering updating my current fleet of 3 Petes to 5 Coronado gliders.... Has anyone actually run them and had any issues with warranty etc.?

 

here in Alabama there is a company that has 09 389 pete with can't remember exactly 05,6 or 7 C15 in it and they went to tag it and long story short the state of alabama told them they would have to bring the engine up to spec being it is 09 truck it is going to have to have the dpf and all the other epa garb that is req on 09. this info came from a CAT tech that works at the cat shop where comp gets work done.

just my .02

 

That would be true if the truck is not a glider truck. There would be a "G" in the VIN numbers. If the truck was a regular production truck, then the engine does have to meet the emissions of the year of the truck. If it is a glider kit truck, the engine only has to meet the emissions of the year of the engine itself. If AL was refusing to tag a glider with an older engine, they need to be brought up to speed on the regulations. Why would anyone even tell them the year of the engine in the truck? I didn't have to tell Nebraska what year the engine was when I got my tags and titled it in my name.

 

Don't know how long ago that was you did all that, but there is no "G" in my serial # and my truck is a glider. From what I was told a few years ago, you now have to have everything check on the truck to make sure it didn't come from a stolen one before they will even title it.

 

Unless you're stuck on buying a "new" glidered truck, there are plenty of good used trucks built pre 2008 on the market that can be made to get 7 MPG + for a few thousand dollar investment. Actually, there are also companies getting around the DPFs as well so you could buy an 08 or 09 as well. EGRs are being deleted and defeated by many aftermarket companies as well as fuel mileage and power increased. Even with my Pete 379 with a C15 ACERT pulling an RGN trailer I get 6.4 average. I have friends with areo trucks getting 7.5MPG from the same engine and CAT is supposed to be the worst fuel mileage. For my money I'd buy some low mileage Columbias with good specs from a fleet that has good history on them and do the aftermarket work to them. You could easily buy 3 2006 - 2007s for the price of 1 new glider.

 

fitz also sells pete's & western star gliders.