THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

The bonuses right now are for teams and team doubles and with as big of bonuses they are offering for teams I'd venture a guess that they just got a major contract and need them in a big hurry. I didn't see any team offerings when I applied 2 weeks ago so that's new.

Everything is a blur with crunching numbers, talking to recruiters, truck salesmen and finance companies (not just Schneider) the last few weeks. Got everything nailed down with finance this morning. Radiant Fire Red 2015 Kenworth T680 on a 3 year lease. I want to make sure the DOT can see my truck when I pull through the scales.... $2k down payment, $3k going to trac match. Will have $2k added to the maintenance fund vs the 2 deferred payments and IIRC Schneider will also add $1400 to the maintenance fund. I'd rather have the extra in the maintenance fund. Something WILL break or wear out that isn't covered under warranty.

Residual is $65k after 3 years should I decide to buy it vs turn it in.

Now that I've unzipped my fly because there were only 2 Red T680s to chose from, I hope all these Carolina Boys here don't sabotage my truck so I can't steal their favorite loads before I get there and Shhhhh... don't tell let the Texans know I have a lot of family in the DFW area either

Not putting an inverter in the truck yet. All I need is something to charge my laptop and the small plug in inverters I have are fine for that.

I like the specs on these Kenworths, 13 liter, 13 speed, full gauges, 3.36 gears, low pro 22.5s, condo, smartway, cabinets with doors, double bunks, painted bumpers and fairings. I can do without the NAV and don't want it (I have 2 Rand McNally GPS units and I'd rather have gauges to know what is really going on than just idiot lights.) I've done very well in the past with a similarly speced truck. I'm a big fan of 11-13 liter engines and the RTLO16913A. My 99 Century had similar specs with a 430 hp C12 CAT, same trans, 3.42 gears, 255/70R22.5 rubber (ultra low profile), condo and would get 13-14 mpg bobtail and 9-10 mpg with a light load of campers. My 96 IH 9670 cabover would get 7.5 MPG with an 11.1 S60 detroit at 80k gross and the last truck I was driving, a 1996 Freightliner FLD112 flat top with an M11 Cummins and a super 10 pulling a 7 car highmount trailer grossing about 60k was averaging 7.86 on the last quarterly IFTA.

Wish they had gone with the Diamond VIT interiors and an Ultrashift but it's still a pretty nicely specced truck and a step above a stripped down fleet spec truck. Now as long as what I get is what is on the spec sheet and warranty information they sent me, I'll be pretty happy.

 

The paccar nav plus is awesome bt, garmin navigation, you can add to gauges to it plus a bunch of other goodies. I want a t680 but don't like the generic specs sni has. I want Cummins, Eaton fuller plus 18 speed auto,, air ride front, disk brakes, super singles, 6x2, nav plus

 

Hope you dont have to pull many hills with that paccar motor i heard they love hills cause there on them for a long time.

 

Got set up with a date today, moving over to choice the end of July. Now to make up my mind on a truck.

 

Is the fuel surcharge included in the rate on the board, or is it broken out?

 

It's all included however you can see the fsc rate in the load details

 

I don't like navigation in the dash where I have to look down or over my head where I have to look up. Just a personal preference of mine to have it in front of me on top the dash just barely out of my line of sight and I really don't like these new touch screens. I absolutely hate driving the wife's 2012 Dodge Journey trying to set temp controls or the radio on that thing.

With a 6x2 make sure you spec a locking diff so you can crawl back out of pothole in gravel parking lots when some dum dum pulls out in front of you and you have to stop in just the wrong spot and lose your momentum and just like a power divider, don't lock it in when you are spinning a tire. My 99 Century was a 6x2 before I turned it into a 4x2. That's really the only time I had problems with it being a 6x2. I'd buy one again.

I started with a 290 Cummins, moved into a 310 CAT and then bought my first truck with a 300 Mack all of which were grossing 80k hauling swinging beef. Just stepped out of a 96 Freightliner with a 330 M11 Cummapart in April so I'm sure I'll be absolutely miserable in a 2015 Kenworth with a 455 hp MX13

 

Omg the M11 how i don't miss it. M11 n swinging beef in the 90s was so much fun.

 

I go to orientation July 14 in GB..can't wait

 

LOL, How many gears did you have to drop on Snowshoe during the Hunts Point 500 on sunday night. Man they're freaking gutless, almost as bad as a 190 hp C7 CAT in a straight truck, at least you could crank on the screws on a Flying 290 and make the stacks glow red. As weak as the Jake is on an M11, you might as well leave it off, all it is is a noise maker and it didn't even do that well.

June 16th for me. Got to take the wizz quiz and a hair test tomorrow and start packing my stuff and hopefully be able to cram it all in the subcompact rent a wreck for the 1054 mile trek to GB.