Arrow Truck Question

its just one piece of the puzzle

 

If you want a truck now you'll likely have to either overpay or spend a lot of time shopping. And shopping isn't a real big moneymaker. With rates as high as they are these days, overpaying might not be the worst move, as the money will probably come back thru high rates before long.

 

That's about what I paid for my 2013 in 2017, although mine had next to no warranty. Also assuming you've got next to no down payment. When I last shopped Arrow they wanted like 30% down, but I had little credit. Does the warranty cover the aftertreatment system?

For comparison, my 2013 total cost was about 67k in 2017. The used market was depressed at that time as companies were accelerating new truck purchases to get the higher mpg of automatics, which meant they were also accelerating sales of older manuals, which mine is.

Last year in "normal" market condition I priced mine out at about 25k, but nowadays it's more like 35k. Guesstimating warranty value of 10k, that'd put you about 20k above normal, unless you've got other extra perks such as low miles or an APU. Not sure where you'll be getting your freight but for me it would take about 2.5 months to get that 20k back thru these elevated rates. And forecasts are saying rates will stay elevated for a good bit longer than that.

Singles aren't all bad. The weight savings equals moving your tandem forward one notch, and they deliver a tad better mpg. And you can minimize odds of a flat by sticking with top name brands and stay on top of the psi, ideally with the aid of a tpms.

Just my $0.02.

 

I just noticed you said dd13 not dd15. Is that a day cab?

 

Yeah I guess the value of the singles can also depend on what you're pulling. When I was pulling a van the weight wouldn't have made much difference, but when I switched to reefer, now it meant there were 5% more loads available to me if I shed the 400 lbs. So if once a month one of those 5% is the best option, that's extra cash beyond the fuel savings. Or if you pull a lot of loads where the rate is determined by the weight, it can bring extra cash.

As far as horror stories, I figure 35% involve people who ran them low and let them overheat, and another 35% are amplification from people who hate anything new. I had a flat single once, and yes it was a road call, but the guy didn't even have to pull the rim off the trailer to change the tire.

 

I did lots of winter and didn't notice any major difference from single to dual. Even in the northeast there'll only be a handful of days where you're actually driving in actual snow anyway. Most of the roads get plowed before tomorrow morning, unless you're up in northern NH or something.

Yes I've heard of people switching tires both ways for various reasons. If you were going to switch, youd probably want to do it right away, so you could sell the singles as new or nearly new.

Near as I can tell, your final cost will be around $64,600 which is pretty close to what I was guesstimating earlier when I said it should pay you back in a few months. The warranty sounds nice but a big factor would be how difficult is it to get service? Do you have to go back to Arrow or can you just pull in to a TA.

Oh and the gear ratio, I think shorter might be better in the hills, might want to research that, I remember reading a lot about it in old threads on this forum but can't remember exactly. Other than that it seems to be workable financially.