Buying Penske Used Tractors??

I went to a local Penske dealer to look at some tractors. Their undercarriages had been so heavily painted, there was no way to examine the frame or any other component for cracks or wear. I mentioned this to the salesman, and he just shrugged.

 

I wouldn't buy a car from Enterprise... but that's just a very loose example / correlate.

 

Rental trucks.

Any chance they were driven hard and put away wet? Kind of like rental cars. Given to temporary or new drivers without the lessee occurring any of long term expenses. The question kind of answers it's self.

 

I've been driving a Penske truck for my company for about the last 7 months. Overall it isn't too bad, but their mechanics (at least here in southern Maine) don't impress me too much. Unless it's a routine maintenance or something simple it seems to be out of their league. I've been dealing with the same engine problem for months now and they don't have a clue. The check engine light isn't on, so their scanners won't come up with anything to tell them what's wrong with the truck, so they're stumped.
Like anything though, there are good and bad of all makes, models, etc. just do your research and trust your research.

 

I bought a used Penske truck nearly 10 years ago, one of better vehicles I own.
Here is what I did.Local steel hauling flatbed company had turned in about 10 units , all identical. Almost.
I spent hours looking at all of them, and noticed 2 had a few special items. Upgraded mirrors, electric passenger window, better seat, nice sound system , etc.Just a few small differences. I got to thinking, these were driven by there senior drivers, the better hands, and the company rewarded their good driving with a better truck. Good driving means the truck was not abused, driver took better care of 'his' equipment.Salesman agreed my thinking was on-track, so I bought one of the better equipped units.My gut feeling was it was a good truck. It worked out just fine for me.
Also, if you have a mechanic friend in a big shop, take the engine ID to them, and they can often run a history on the power plant.

 

If you could find out if it was leased to a company or a rental that might be good to know. The truck I have know is a company truck on a Penske lease. They have a maintenance contract so Penske handles all the maintenance on it. I turn in a problem and its addressed or Penske has to repay a lot of that maintenance contract money back. So may wanna see if you can find out if it was a company lease or rental.

 

I bought a 2012 Volvo 670 with a D13 through them. Excellent truck. Zero big issues. You can check all the maintenance records on any truck, and PENSKE are maintenance FREAKS. And the one I got had just had the DPF serviced.
Most expensive hit I took was the head light switch, was $340 installed.
I would recommend them to anyone for a first truck, you can get a 2 year warranty if you like as well.
I don't think I would purchase anything used with a Cummins.
Good luck.

 

this is what we have done. my company ordered up several new Penske tractors. we are/were the only guys driving them, and all maintenance done by Penske. when we traded them in again for new, Penske had a choice to either rent them or sell them.