Best truck for reliability low repair cost and fuel

Your asking a very opionion rated question. Every manufacture would like to say their is the lowest maintaince cost with the best fuel. And with every setup it will be different.
The better it is built, the more it cost to repair, and the fuel economy is variable according to the speed your going to average and what your going to pull and haul.
Otherwise a daycab with the smallest motor and keep it under 55mph. Oh and the lowest miles on the truck.

Air dynamic trucks help in higher speeds but tend to be built cheaper.
The longer your going to be gone from home, the bigger sleeper you want. Going home is always costly.
Volvo's are good trucks but different to work on so harder to get a good mechanic to fix them.
I've heard many problems with the ISX motors especially with lot of miles on them.

 

how much do you wish to spend?

 

id like to know the answer to this too please. im thinking of getting a volvo the ones dot foods use. its small and simple

 

You HAVE a truck NOW that you are asking what the pros & cons about?

You also think Volvo is simple?

Sounds like you know what you are going to do(have) & are just looking for verification.

There is a SEARCH function at the top of the forum as well as an entire VOLVO segment in this section down below...
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/commercial-truck-forums/

 

You are asking for the Holy Grail and there isn't one or we would all be driving it. It comes down to the $$$$ question, how much you got? Do well on fuel, decent price on repairs? A brand new truck with full factory warranty with every fuel saving gadget on it will net you 9mpg and repair costs will be low for the first 500K miles, but do you want to spend $150,000. Are you talking used with a budget of $60,000? The cost of repairs has to be budgeted for on any truck no matter what brand of engine/driveline. Are you OTR or local/regional where you can use the same good shop anytime you need, or are you at the mercy of the dealers in the town you happen to need service in. I'm not trying to be a jerk but the answer to your question is truck specific, no two Volvo 780s are the same, no two W900s are the same when it comes to reliability. Take 2 identically spec'd Pete387s, depending on the drivers, PM schedules, routes driven, weight and types of load, the mpgs and reliability of those two trucks will be different.

With any post '07 engine it is a crap shoot, I don't cat if it's a CAT, ISX, MAXX, DD or MBE. Get a dyno, oil analysis and a warranty. Put $300 a week in a maintenance fund until you have $20K in it, then leave it alone.

 

Ask 100 different drivers and you'll get 100 different answers.

I do believe this is probably the 5,890,736,293,761,103,123 time this question has been asked on the forum and we still do not have a definitive answer.

 

As a generic answer, I would say a new glider truck with a factory rebuilt pre-emission engine would meet what the OP is wanting the best. Or a used truck of pre emission vintage that is in very good shape. The emissions stuff, of all the cost, downtime, problems, etc, is the the big wallet busting gorilla. Most every other component in any brand of truck is a lot easier to take care of, and not near as damaging to one's bank account. And the emission stuff is guilty of more fuel economy robbing than just about any other aspect of a truck. Sure aerodynamics have some play, but the emission setups on some of the engines really saps the true mpg potential from many of them.

For the 780 the OP referenced. Wouldn't be my first choice. Volvos are not very maintenance friendly in general. Parts can be problematic to get sometimes. They tend to be very fuel efficient when spec'd properly, but then the emission stuff comes into play again. When the Volvos are working properly, they are pretty good trucks overall. But when they break, they can really be a heart breaker.

 

Probably a 4 cylinder Toyota or Nissan. They last forever....

sorry being sarcastic. Roll of the dice man. Brand new trucks break down.

 

A company truck!

They fix it, they fuel it, the money is pretty much the same over a long period of time.