Thinking of buying a truck, what options are important?

APUs don't really affect resale value much if they're already on the truck. If buying used, for any emissions engine I'd pretty much only consider trucks with APUs on them, but evaluate them as if they didn't have an APU. Just look right past it, at engine hours and miles and all the basic fundamentals.

Paying $15,000 for an APU is a little crazy. Economically justifiable perhaps, but there's just way cheaper ways to do it.

Opti-idle still ends up putting hours on the main engine, I think often requires you leave key in ignition, and that's a much bigger jolt of an engine turning on while you sleep. I've seen a lot of people mention that who drive opti-idle trucks. A WHOLE lot better than having nothing, but APUs are generally much quieter, much smaller jolt when they turn on, don't put hours on the main engine, etc.

I think you'd be fine with Green APU or a Thermoking. Only thing I'd say is that currently, the GreenAPUs don't turn on and off, if you set it to battery management, it's just runnin. Thermokings, and probably Carriers too but I don't actually know, opti-idle the APU itself in standby, heat modes.
Because of that, it probably takes substantially less time for GreenAPU to go through engine hours, and it probably burns more diesel per night even though mechanically it's about the same. I hope they continue to work on them and add this feature but as far as I am aware, that's how it works currently.

 

I don’t know anything about APU or opti idle, but I wish you luck in your new venture!!

 

Imo epu is the way to go, mini split AC with the correct batteries and a dc to dc charger hooked to your alternator or starting batteries, going on 4 years with my same 2 200ah agm batteries, I do not run an AC with them, but will be getting one here shortly to hook up. My current set up I can run my fridge for a week and be charging other stuff off my house batteries. When I install a mini split AC I am going to 300ah lithium batteries, keeping the same mppt dc to dc charger and should run your average mini split AC for around 24 hours. Will pick up a smaller generator for resets. All in on whole epu set up is around $2000-3000

 

EPU set up would be my first choice but it would need to be a good set up for it to work.

Tanks depend on a lot of things. Myself I like the 150 and 100 on my truck. I get good enough Fuel Economy that I can run out of high costing fuel into a cheaper costing area when I need to worry about fuel cost. That saves me more money than being a little less lighter.

 

Looking at these, since I have room for 3 in my battery compartment really don't want anything but AGM's sitting below my bed in The sleeper for multiple reasons, but I trust renogy products more than other manufacturers stuff. I have there AGM's and my mppt charger is also renogy. My other add on for my system will also be there flexible solar panels

 

Opti-idle is a nice idea until late spring-summer-early fall when the truck has to be on all the time for a/c...if it's 60⁰F outside expect a 20⁰F increase for in-cab temperature (80⁰F)...

Me, being with a mega carrier...we don't do APU...too much upfront cost and maintenance cost. Opti-idle is used (however...I don't use opti-idle on my company truck because idle-shutdown on the main truck ECU unfortunately overrides opti-idle and turns the truck off after 4 minutes of idling...so I just push the yellow knob in and idle that sucker 24/7 for a/c).

If you do go with APU look into some sort of tax savings...typical APUs run on diesel, but I'd think you could use reefer diesel or some other tax exempt diesel in the APU because it's not being used for highway transport. Research on your part...

 

If you have a separate fuel tank for the APU you could use off road diesel. Not going to put that in my main tanks.

 

You don’t have to run dyed fuel, you just have to track fuel consumption and file for a refund on the highway tax paid at the pump for the fuel burned in the APU. We deliver to farms that only buy clear fuel and they track how many gallons they pump into their equipment and just get a refund. Cheaper that way than having two separate tanks.