Last Post For The Night

Depends what you want, if you're ok with a freightshaker or Volvo you should be able to pick one up pretty cheap. Have enough cash for the initial purchase, a set of tires, 4 grand for all the stupid stuff that breaks, and about 12 grand for fuel and insurance and that would be at least I would want.

 

First question you need to answer is, why do you want your own truck?

 

A good running truck? LOL! In this current used truck market it is a crap shoot. I would say it is rare to find a used truck that does not have thousands of dollars of repairs right out of the gate. There is a reason folks sell trucks, and it is not because it is trouble free and making money.

These new emission trucks are 500,000 miles and throw them away, as the EGR damage has been done. In frames start at roughly $30,000... Always keep that number in the back of your head. Good luck.

 

Your best bet is to read the mechanics forum and see the amount of money that gets tied up in these trucks.

The newer emission trucks to me are like lighting your money on fire. There is a thread on here a day or two ago the guy had an exhaust problem and it was going to cost him $8,000. The older trucks just had some flexible pipe you bought that cost a couple of bucks. There was one in the the mechanics form a while back that there was a guy that spent $24,000 trying to fix his truck because they couldn't figure whether it was a computer problem or mechanical problem. That's the problem with any computerized truck. Then there was another guy who said that he spent $40,000 on a new engine, which is completely insane to me, and when they installed it somehow one of the sensors was wrong or they missed a ground wire or something and he couldn't get it running. Generally speaking, any problems with computerized trucks figure 5 to $10,000. And that's just if the computer has a glitch. That doesn't include anything expensive like radiators turbos engine or transmission clutch problems with the rears etc etc etc.

Older trucks are better, but anything that you find that's older probably is going to need even more work..

A good truck can be really hard to find. If you do find something older you should try to buy something that really had one person run it and he has receipts for all kinds of recent work, especially engine work clutch things like that transmission.

Even at that, it's nothing to put 5 to $10,000 into a truck. I would figure more like between 10 to 20,000.

But whatever you do, don't buy an old cheap truck and think that's going to just run and run for you. If the truck keeps breaking down you make no income while the bills keep rolling in. Plenty of guys have gone under for just that reason.

 

Insight (you sound like you have a lot of experience).

How long you been driving?

 

Freightliner yes, not so sure about volvo.. seems there pretty proud of them.

 

With good reason.

 

Where do you want to haul sand? Midland/Odessa, Williston, OKC,...? That will help a bit to answer your questions.

 

Yeah...i would think 'Real-Hard' before buying a truck. Your maintenance is 'a big headache'...I've heard stories of OO stuck on the side of the road at 2am, trying to fix their Rigs.