Buying my first truck in Dec - feeling little overwhelmed by options

Landstar. You'll have options and they have great trailers. Mostly the loads I had were 20k lbs and many loads were in Texas. There are other outfits you can o/o with as they have a higher split. The only downside is landstar has a greedy 65/35 split and I never did like that since we are doing 95% of the work.

As as for trucks get a 13 speed for the best possible mpg. I'd recommend s t2000 or a Volvo 670. Get the airflow mudflaps to increase your mpg.

 

If you plan to run flat, I would hold off until spring. No sense in starting behind the 8 ball.

 

Like POUND PUPPY noted in his post about being behind the 8 BALL, things get slow in December and the 1st of the New year , best advice is do not buy more truck than you need or to impress the TRUCKSTOP EWW and AHH crowd buy what you can afford

 

December is usually a good time to buy a truck. Not many folks are shopping for equipment, thinking of holidays.Salesmen are hungry. But also usually freight slows down after the first of the year for a while.Good luck,.

 

I just bought my first truck that I have the title to after doing a lease for a year and driving company for a year. I hear that Landstar has a pretty good set up and I don't see how you can go wrong with them, especially since you already have some experience there driving for them as a team driver (I'm assuming you were driving someone else's truck?). I have never worked for Landstar but hear that they have a good program. Right now I pull trailers for Schneider, I grab loads off their load board, home when I want to be home, go where I want to go and only take the loads I want to. I'm sure you can do the same thing at Landstar. As long as you can keep on top of booking your own loads, I think that would be the way to go.

As for your truck, take into careful consideration who you will be leased to (if you do end up leasing to a company and not getting your own authority) and where you want to run. As you already pointed out going into CA with an older truck just isn't gonna happen. As far as I know Landstar doesn't have any age restrictions on trucks, but some other companies do.

I knew I wanted an older truck so I did a lot of searching and waiting. While on my hometime over a period of a couple months I looked at a TON of trucks and waited until I found the one I wanted. I passed up on several for mechanical issues, bad dyno reports, too much cigarette tar stinking up the cab, etc., etc. Finally found the truck in my signature and jumped on it.

Make sure you take the time to get the truck looked over at a good shop, run it on the dyno, you may want to get oil samples as well. Take a good look yourself, you never know when even a good mechanic might happen to miss something. Never hurts to have a second opinion.

As for the truck specs, try to pick something that gives you the most versatility. I wouldn't own anything with less than a 13 speed in it. I love the 13 speeds and the ability to split gears vs having to make a complete shift. If you can find one with an 18 speed that's great, and if you really want to get into oversize/overweight loads an 18 speed would be awesome since you can split the low side as well. I prefer a manual for simplicity and the fact that I really enjoy shifting gears. If you're pulling flats or tanks a full condo sleeper probably wouldn't be a good idea. I'm kind of partial to Kenworth's studio sleepers since they have plenty of standing room (you actually step down into them) but aren't as tall as, say, a full condo Cascadia. If you end up pulling vans a lot you could always stick a wing on the roof to help with aerodynamics a bit, and you aren't too tall for flatbeds or tanks.

If you don't mind an older truck, the Cummins N14, early CAT C15 (6NZ serial) & 3406E, or Detroit S60 12.7 are all great motors. None are perfect and all have their strong and weak points but I'd take one of those in a heartbeat over anything under the hoods of the new trucks. I'd suggest going with an engine that has some electronics because some carriers require the ability to hook up an e-log. As far as I know it'd be near impossible to do that with a full mechanical engine.

2004 and up can be ugly as the emissions restrictions wreaked havoc on the engines. Some can be absolute nightmares, doesn't matter who made it. In the newer trucks it's finally starting to smooth out.

A longer wheelbase rides nicer but can be difficult to maneuver. If you find yourself dealing with a lot of tight spaces, that 300" wheelbase 379 is probably not the truck for you. For comparison, your average Freightliner Cascadia you see these days has around a 230" wheelbase.

Hope this helps, good luck on your search. Don't rush and jump into something you might regret.

 

You will loose everything.sorry to say that but it is true

 

"The only downside is landstar has a greedy 65/35 split" 65/35 come on !!! Why?

 

Not necessarily. The first full winter
(buying in September) owning my truck and trailer I ran from 1-15 on and only 3-4 days a week. It can be done if you use your head.