buying my 1st truck tomorrow 8/6 and need a tripak..

I'd be willing to bet alot of money.


You go down Wayside Drive, south of the 10,

somebody will have a good deal on a used one.........

 

Sorry, but my TriPak APU is showing that it's using only 0.13 gallons per hour to keep the truck cool. That is right on par with the manufacturer's spec on the yanmar engine that it burns 0.12 gallons per hour.
http://us.yanmar.com/products/industrial-engines/liquid-cooled/tnv/fixed-speed-engines/2tnv70-hge/

An oil change costs $4.95 for a filter and 4 quarts of oil last time to fill the crankcase.

A set of fuel filters is another $20 annually or 1000 hours. Belts only cost me another $14 to replace both. What COST so much is when there were 6 broken wires at one time on the APU and that even stumped 3 of the best APU mechanics at the Kent WA Thermo-King dealer for 4 hours to figure out. So for $400 labor, I was happy to pay it and have it fixed completely.

So that's actually $32.60 you'd save daily. You can get a decent USED low hour APU installed at a dealer for around $5000. So the payback on the is like 153 days use just for cooling. $5000/$32.60

Considering that you also use it to charge the batteries and if you get the arctic package, it will also keep the engine at temp as well in the dead of winter whether you can plug it in or not. It's actually cheaper for me to leave the APU on than to plug into the block heater at the house.

My espar heater has been about as trouble-free as the APU as well. But considering we figure it had half of the hours on my APU, about 4000 hours out of the 8300 hours when it failed, it led a pretty good life. Replacement cost for the entire espar last January cost me $830. $600 of that was for the part alone. You HAVE to plug into it with a computer to troubleshoot it and the software alone is $3000.


As to paying ALL cash on the truck. I think it's a foolish venture to do that. Finance half of it at least if you can and keep the rest for an operating budget. You WILL need it. My truck cost me $25,000 my first year. Seems to be on par with most used trucks an O/O buys.

 

This right here is the best advice you have received.

 

I would argue the opposite of that....

If you are buying an EPA** any year truck with EGR, DPF and DEF, ESPECIALLY with DPF and later, I would say it's a MUST HAVE.

Those stupid emission systems weren't designed to be idled. I firmly believe you have issues with them the more you idle the truck. EGR and especially DPF need to be run at temp, you can't get those temps when you idle. It carbons them up and gives you fits.

 

Go to a semi salvage yard and get a apu from there it will a lot cheaper

 

This is good advice especially since its your first truck .. If you failed ( not saying you will but if ) then you also have a APU unit financed against the truck or stand alone . Either way your deeper than you need to be just starting out - get $ 4500 extra cash on hand put it down on a APU once you get stronger In. The business

 

I'm not looking at it from a emission stand point but from a " I no money left " standpoint . If he's on his last dime the last thing he needs is MORE DEBT getting started with his first truck .

with that said - if he had 20k in the bank and could with stand a break down and finance it his self , then I'd get the APU . No brainier at that point

 

I think he's asking for trouble to go that route. It realistically make sense to finance part of the purchase of the truck to make sure he has operating resources.

 

The OP is admitting he has no cash on hand after he puts everything into the truck . I just don't see the rational of getting close to 9k deeper 4,500 used or salvage right out the gate .

 

I agree MN .. But I can only go off what the OP posts .

I agree with your thoughts though