96 shaker

Personally I'd stay away from an M11 for hauling heavy over any distance. It just doesnt have enough torque. We have a 400hp M11 in our fleet, its fine for the light LTL stuff we use it for most of the time but occasionally it gets pressed into shuttling a +40k lb load and its way outta its league. Its slightly better on fuel than my 525hp N14 when both are lightly loaded but just slightly, not even close to our detroit 360hp 12.7s for mileage or torque.

 

I would say that it depends on what you are going to with it. If you are planning to lease it anywhere, most companies will not consider a truck older than 10 yrs. If you are going to run it yourself with own authority, you may be setting yourself up for downtime. I have a '96 FLD condo parked needing an overhaul (over 1.2mil miles). I chose to buy another truck over rebuilding a $5,000 truck. I kinda think that the price is too much for a '96 with a mil miles. There are too many trucks on the market right now that are dirt cheap. I just bought another truck, a 2004 frtlnr columbia, with a little more than 400K miles for under $20,000.00. If you do have to overhaul, keep in mind how much you are putting into what amounts to still be a 5 or 6 thousand dollar truck.