W900 questions

Wow didn't know the ag400 was that much of a step up from the 200, will keep that in mind. Hood shaking I'm sure I'll get used to, can't wait to have a hood truck instead of an aero regardless. Does anyone have a website they can link that details differences in model years for W9's? Wanna learn every little thing I can, even including tiny details/changes that may have been made in the interior and/or exterior aesthetic changes. Thanks for all the replies so far.

 

Oh I completely understand what you're saying, but the way I look at it any truck is going to have its problems and I'm of the opinion that just about all the modern trucks are pure garbage. Whereas the older trucks are maybe only half-garbage and at least they look better. My Mercedes engine totally #### the bed at the end of summer 2017, and luckily the company I drive for had an extra whole (used, with 800k on it) engine just sitting in the shop, which they sold me installed for $5500. Was able to get back on the road by the end of that week. In addition to spending another 5 grand throughout the year on new kingpins, and other suspension and steering related stuff. Yes, I was aware before buying it that a Columbia with a Mercedes motor is a throwaway truck and that I'd need to throw some money at it, but it was a good enough deal at the time and I still made enough money with it throughout 2017. But now it's time for a real truck.

When I first started driving I learned on (and team drove) my friend's '99 shaker FLD 3406e. That truck rides about as good as a walmart shopping cart, but aside from a few small problems it has never been down for any major work in the 6 yrs he's had it. It has almost 2 million miles on it (was oh'd at 900k). That truck is still my favorite truck so far that I've driven. As a company driver I drove 2005-2007 freightliner columbias and centuries, which were okay but occasionally had issues here and there. Also briefly drove some 2010 International ProStars and Volvos, which in my opinion are PURE UNADULTERATED GARBAGE, and I know those trucks have their own fan base but TO ME they are trash, I actually truly hate almost everything about them. And after being on e-logs for the last couple weeks I know for a fact already that I'm not staying on these things for long, so any ideas of buying a modern truck of ANY make are completely non-viable.

After a long time deliberating I came to the conclusion that the only option that makes the most sense business-wise is to go for a '99 or older truck with a Cat, and while I'm at it it might as well be a W900 over anything else. I have no interest in buying anything with egr or any of that crap ever again in my life, and I have even less interest in "getting into compliance" with trucker-hating bureaucrats and their e-log horse****. In just the last two weeks since being on e-logs I have already run into a couple instances of running out of hours (when I'm not tired at all) and being forced to go to the sleeper, and then missing out on a couple loads that I would have gotten no problem if I was still on paper. This irritates me to high hell (even though I did have a good week last week) and I can only imagine how much this irritation will be compounded over the course of time the longer I stay on them, there will literally be tens of thousands of dollars in revenue that I'll now be missing out on due to e-logs.

So I'm getting an older truck, or I'll quit trucking, those are the two options as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not taking the second option any time within the foreseeable future. So old truck it is. Hopefully I get one that someone's already put some money into like you said, or maybe I'll get one that needs just a bit of work, but I'd be okay with that. Maybe my $40-50k budget is a bit high like you said, I'm not opposed to coming down to the $25-30k range if I find the right one. All I know is I'm definitely not buying anything post-1999!! I want to be free of surveillance (as much as I can be anyway), free of egr/dpf, and I want a truck I can have some pride in and maybe even tinker with over the years. None of the modern trucks fit that bill, but a '97-'99 W900 sure does.

End of rant lol.

 

Yup, noticed that too...

 

No need to worry about hurting feelings, I'm not a snowflake. I can't see any reason why the exemption would go away though. That's kinda like saying all the cars from the 1980s all the way back to the 1910s are gonna be made illegal because they can't pass emissions. Which of course will never happen. They're exempt because they were built for public consumption during an era where nobody cared or even knew about emissions. Now that new regulations are in place for new items doesn't mean the govt is gonna force the American consumer to throw away all the old items they purchased from an older time; that would be pure authoritarian regime and the day that happens will be around the same day the govt declares full martial law and tries to confiscate all firearms and install a tracking microchip into everyone. Old trucks will stay exempt for now, I'm not worried about it.

Now what they COULD do is try to implement some sort of device that will retrofit to older trucks' wiring harnesses or some s*** like that, and if the truckers' only resistance to that is to handle it the same way they handled the last mandate (by gathering in large numbers and blowing their horns and protesting, thinking anybody in Washington DC gives a ####) then that WILL happen too, just like the e-log mandate and every other mandate did. Never understood why people seem to think protesting in the form of standing around has any effect whatsoever. All it tells the lawmakers is that you're angry, scared, and pleading for them to throw you a bone like a dog waiting for a scrap of food from his master. The proper way to protest would be to get a significant amount of truckers (really just 25%, maybe even a lot less) to shut down completely for a solid 2 weeks to a month, let shelves run bone dry and see how everyone likes it. But good luck organizing something like that, too many people these days live paycheck to paycheck and can't miss work. But that's all it would take, if only it could be organized.

And I disagree about discussions like this being considered as "feeding the opposition". What's the alternative? Sit quiet with tails between legs and hope they don't notice the loophole (thus communicating to them that they do indeed have power over you and that you're afraid of what they'll do next)? That mentality is exactly why the thing we're best at doing in this country is giving up as much liberty as we can. No one beats us in that department, Americans are the best in the world at starting off with a s*** ton of liberty and finding a way to lose every bit of it due to fear/submission of authorities when they write up new "laws" designed to "keep us safe". Forget e-logs, we shouldn't even have ANY logs, you know that right?