What happened to smoke stacks?

Awe ok. A Cliff Reed 388 parked next to me some time last night and sense you posted the pic of their truck and mentioned a glider, though it might have been you. Safe travels up north.

 

I drive the t800 glider that I posted the pic of.

 

Gotcha. I drive the only big green 388 in the James J Williams fleet.

 

Yea, I have no argument on those trucks if you are hauling heavy oversized loads and so on. However if you are doing regular, flat beds, dry or refer that 2 miles a gallon gets very expensive.

100k miles @ 6mpg = 16 thousand gallons
100k miles @ 8mpg = 12 thousand gallons

That 4 thousand gallon diffrence is $10,000 dollars if you pay $2.5/gallon

$10k to pass someone going up a hill is expensive in my book, so enjoy it.

 

But do you average 7mpg year round even in the winter? Example last week I averaged 8.7mpg but it was because of warm weather. In the summer I'll see the 9's. However if I drive a bit slower and I'm easy on the rpms I've hit into the 10's.

I used 8 as a yearly average and I'm in Penn at least once a week.

 

I wasn’t bragging about passing someone going up a hill, I was saying how cut back all the new engines are to get the mpg they claim. I don’t expect to pass anyone going uphill at 105k but more and more the new trucks can’t pull a pass much more than 25mph.

I do agree with what you’re saying about general freight and how mpg’s can make a big difference on your bottom line.

 

Volvos and internationals basically compromise the vast majority of the problem trucks related to being "gutless".

My fleet 505 hp Detroit will at least keep up with all but the few big engine owner ops and those much lighter going up grades, and will get from 7.8-8.0 mpg depending on various factors

There's few grade sections that I've found where it will run down below about 35 mph at 79k+ But many of those newer and older Volvos? I hope they're getting well in excess of 8.0 mpg to justify their inability to pull a grade

 

Good looking rig. Since I live in KC KS, we sure don't see many
trucks like that. Only decent trucks are coming into town from
the western states.

 

Average means exactly that. Average over the life of the vehicle. Some days I'm in the 8s, other days I'm way down into the low 5s when running wide, tall, heavy, across the mountains and into a head wind.

Also your math in a previous post was using bad numbers. 100k miles a year? That's insane. 60k is closer to reality for a lot of us. Heck its working overtime for me. And the baseline is not 6mpg. I used to get better than that in an old mechanical cat.

Do the math again using real numbers, with fuel consumption tracked on paper over the life of the truck. Fuel currently averaging 2.50 a gallon, 60k miles a year @7.3 mpg equals $20547 in fuel cost per year. Going up to 8 mpg will cost $18750. A difference of $1797. How far will 1800 bucks go when you start getting fault codes and derates due to the emissions junk in that truck? Jesus i can buy a new crate engine for my old square hood truck cheaper than you can replace the emissions on yours. A lot cheaper. Have you priced a one box? This doesn't even factor in the cost of a new truck. My last payment was summer of 2007. Over 10 years of no payments.

Explain to me how much more money i can make by spending 160k dollars on a new aero truck? Or worse, 50k on a half million mile used truck just out of warranty with the emissions system about to implode?

Heck let's forget about all that other stuff. 1800 a year isn't worth giving up my hot running water on demand any time i want.

 

Well to be fair, it was far more affordable in the olden days to slap on the glitz and glam to show everyone just how proud they were of their ride, there was money to burn and no end in sight.

Who wouldn’t want a boss daddy Pete or KW with several thousand in cosmetic add-ons? But today the average owner op must have operating costs in mind first. They’re happy if their truck is just running right.

Unless they’ve been in business since about the olden days and can afford to live a little on the wild side.