Are we fixing to see a huge purge in trucking?

Act Research says Driver Availability Index at 62, an all time high. Owner Operators influx into large fleets cited.

 

Sometimes people just want new trucks.

 

How many of those horror stories properly maintained everything at the recommended intervals? How many jumped in and drove them without any thought of maintaining the emissions? For every horror story there’s probably a guy like me who’s barely had any issues over the last 5 years. The biggest value in a new truck for me is not having to look at or be around the dumb thing when I go home. I tend to put a lot of value on my free time away from work.

 

I can not honestly answer your question about the mantaince on the stories I read about & hear
The 5 that I personal own of 4 outa the 5 the owners are very good about mantaince and some of the problems were not emission issues the other truck I honestly don't know the history since the guy that ownes it now about it used
Like I mentioned in my 1st post
Everyone has their own view points I simply voiced minewhat works for me might not work for you
You have owned your truck 5 years & had good luck .. kudos too you .. I guessing your truck is also close to paid for and your interest on you loan is fairly low compaired to some nowdays and you also probably .purchaused your truck before .. they became over Inflated .. Again just speculation

 

Yeah , same here .

the big status schools charge big money

You gotta find a small school that doesn’t care about status ,

a small “classical “ Christian school will be much much lower tuition
. Depends on the size of the town but finding a classical Christian school that doesn’t care about status is the key to an affordable private school .

We initially had planned on ours attending the local elementary school , it’s the smallest elementary school in the county and we assumed that would mean it would be great .
When we attended the open house a few weeks before kindergarten, we were the ONLY parents there that spoke English .
Our kid was already reading , in a class of kids that are having to learn English, he’s going to be totally ignored and on his own for learning .

driving back home we saw a sign at a church for a school.
We made an appointment to visit and walking through saw the first grader’s diagramming sentences .

most high school students can’t diagram a sentence .

I couldn’t bust out the checkbook fast enough .



I just looked , the tuition range for the school ours attended is currently $4,500-12,000 on a sliding scale based on the family’s income , assets etc

Our kids attended nearly 20 years ago , based on our current income the tuition would be a lot more but back then we weren’t making much .

Every thanksgiving my brother would always ask how we could afford to send ours to a private school , while he was leaning on his brand new crew cab 4wd pickup . he and his wife bought a new car for each of them , every five years .

My wife and I have never had a brand new car , we bought wrecked ones and the insurance auctions and repaired them and drove em .
We decided that ours attending a good private school was a higher priority than us ever having a brand new car .
But it was still a sacrifice, there were a lot of things we didn’t buy etc to be able to pay for the school .

No cable tv , wife got second a part time job . I worked some overtime and did some handyman projects for neighbors .
But it was all worth it .

Small no status Private schools have nearly zero discipline issues .
The parents are paying good money , and care about their kids . The care about their kids is the big factor . Plus if a kid is a constantly disrupting the class , after two or three meetings with the parents and things don’t improve , the kid gets suspended or expelled .

private schools can still discipline the students .
We play trivia every week at a local pub with some friends , and one of the group is a 3rd grade teacher at a local elementary school and the horror stories she tells about the kids being so disrespectful and disruptive, and not being allowed to do anything about it is really sad .
She will openly admit that the only reason she hasn’t quit is she only has 8 more years to lock in the pension .

anyhoo, sometimes I’m not sure all that private school did any good , because my kid turned out to be a truck driver ……<G>
Little booger made more money last year than I did . And he loves doing heavy haul, so as long as he’s happy and making decent money that’s what matters .

he did very well on the ASVAB and got offered ANY position he wanted in the military, helicopter pilot was the only thing he was interested in , and was eligible for the “high school to flight school “ program , but got knocked out of that by an issue with one of his eyes .
He then got a lacrosse scholarship to a snooty college in New Jersey that was $75k a year of you paid full price

All We had to pay for the meal program , injured his knee and didn’t get to play much .

so after the first year he came back and got a job at a hvac biz , he’s a good mechanic and they had him in a van doing service calls by himself in two weeks .
But after a year he was tired of dealing with the customers ,

went back to a school for welding and got his certifications and was making aluminum bumpers for fire trucks and since he was a pretty good with wiring he was installing and programming the strobe lights too .

that biz moved their shop to a different town and so he attended the CDL class at the community college and got recruited by a small regional heavy haul company.

He really likes doing that .

 

Yep
I know a guy that had a brand new KW and had issues with it that turned out to be the injector harness . Dealer figures it out in one day, but They are told by the dealer that the part isn’t available and will be at least two weeks maybe more to find one
. They ask for the part number and get on the phone and find the replacement part at a Pete dealer that’s 8 miles away . Once they inform the stealership of this , the stealership dispatches someone to fetch the part and it’s back on the road in a couple hours .

people are just lazy . if the computer inventory at the dealer says the part isn’t sitting on the shelf at the dealer or at the regional warehouse , that’s it .
They just stop looking and tell the broken down trucker that it’s not available .

 

I’m not saying one way is right or wrong or better than the other. I’m saying that for me and my friends around me that have newer stuff nobody says they wish they had their old truck back. A close friend that runs tanks will tell you his company turned around when he started buying new in 2019 and that he’s money ahead versus keeping older stuff going down the road.

For me personally I got tired of spending time on things that had to be done instead of doing things I wanted to be doing. A new truck fits my life better.

 

If I go back to the 18's and up, have around 9 mil miles total. Other than normal service for any truck, none have spent time for emissions/parts. Last one that did was a 17 that had to wait for rear end parts. And that would have been on an older truck also. A 16 that had to wait for a CPC. Could have had it rebuilt, but was a spare truck so let it sit until I got a new CPC.