Penske Trucks

They do wet and dry pm's. The trucks oil is changed and greased every three months that's only if the truck is brought into the shop on time. Most of the time the trucks are thousands of miles over or months over for pm's. I worked for a company that used penske and I wasn't a fan of their maintance plan. We have trucks go in for a pm and come back with other things broken, or not fixed at all. We also had on numerous occasions the oil dip stick or cap not put back on and the truck pump oil all over the engine, and side of the truck. Another problem with buying a lease truck is the way they are driven. Most drivers drove them with the mind set of its not mine it doesn't matter and dogged the truck out its entire life. I drive for a company that uses paclease trucks and I like them and they are good about getting everything fixed when I go in for pm's but I also give them a list of issues I am having. I still wouldn't buy a lease truck from them unless its the truck I'm currently driving because I'm much easier no trucks than most drivers.

 

I was a supervisor for Penske Logistics for 3 years, all of the 200 tractors at the operation I was at were supplied and maintained by Penske Truck Leasing. When Penske sells a tractor, or any equipment for that matter, it has to have at least 50% brakes and tires. no safety defects or known mechanical issues. Standard service interval for tractors was 25,000 miles.
If the operation is large enough like ours, they provided a shop on the premises and did all the maintenance at the standard intervals. Because of the proximity to the shop, most drivers took their tractors over there frequently and the problems were taken care of.
But most of the Penske tractors of the world are serviced by the leasing location, and they are not maintained as well, mostly because the customer doesn't bring them in unless they need something. That's where service intervals can get stretched. You should have access to the complete service history of the truck, which will give you a good idea of what you are dealing with. Penske and Ryder for that matter have the same business model. They have fine tuned it over almost 50 years in business, and that is to cut costs knowing full well they are only going to have that unit for more than 3-5 years and X number of miles. The lease cost is determined by these numbers and a few other variables.
They don't sell junk, but the condition of the tractors at the end of the lease varies wildly because of the way the individual customer uses them. Worst units to buy are the yellow rental tractors that go to many different customers on a short term (daily-weekly) basis. The best ones are the long term lease units(2-4 years) that have been painted to customer specs and likely driven by just a couple of drivers.
Keep in mind that Penske also knows how to market these trucks. They sell package deals of 10-50 or more tractors in a group. In that group will be some nice stuff, and some real dogs. Use all the normal indicators of buying a used tractor to separate the wheat from the chaff.