TRUCK FINALLY PAID OFF BUT NOW...

...you will save $1,041 a month, or $12,500 a year. Fuel saving alone will cover your newer truck expense and savings on repairs is a bonus.

 

Makes sense, but I was trying to say that the real cost is less than the payment you're making. Let's use your $2000/mo as an example and suppose the truck cost is $85K (not brand new). If you trade or put $20K down your payments are very close to $2000 @6%, and in 3 years it's paid off. Now if you look at prices for the same model but 3 years older, we can estimate it will be worth around $45K. You take this amount minus $20K that you put down and you're $25K richer. Then you divide $25K that you gained by 36 months (# of payments) =$694.
So your total long term monthly expense is $2000-694=$1306.
To each their own, but I plan on getting rid of the clunk of metal once it hits 700-750 Kmi and save myself a headache.

 

Here's my take on it, IF you are running local or regional and get back to the home yard on a regular basis, and have a GOOD repair shop that you can count on to get you in/out and repaired CORRECTLY the first time I would have no issue putting money into the truck you now have.

IF you are OTR and away from home quite a bit or run an irregular schedule, I would be more inclined to go NEW truck, NOT someone else's used truck with several hundred thousand miles on it, ESPECIALLY if we are talking 2007-2012 trucks.

Now, with that said let's look at something else no one else mentioned, where is your stream of work coming from? Are you hauling for a rescission proof company or commodity?

I hate being the doom and gloom guy, but I have a VERY bad feeling about the next year or two, and for that reason, I would lean toward fixing what you have, save as much money as you can, and if I am right, you will be able to pickup a very low mileage truck in the next year for a lot less then they want now.

Sometimes there is a lot more to trucking than new truck vs old truck, you have to look at the big picture, and timing of a purchase can make or break you.

JMH,

Stan

 

It's probably overwhelming right now. What were your maintenance costs for the last 2 or 3 years?

My truck is 13 years old and even when I overhauled her I didn't hit $30k for the year.

 

Does it have a new turbo as well?

 

I did, "a lot" doesn't mean much to me. When I look at my books I can tell you exactly what I spent during which year, as well as what repairs were done that I would consider long term repairs. If I had a year where I had $40k in maintenance and sat down and saw most of those repairs were things that should last 3+ years I wouldn't get rid of the truck.