Buying used truck Freightliner Columbia or Volvo

I like a series 60 Detroit in my Freightliners. They are very dependable and get good fuel mileage. I have never owned a Cummins engine so I can't say whether they are good or bad but my preference is a series 60. I have no experience with Mercedes engines in trucks so I have no idea how they perform. I think the problem you would have with those is getting service as parts and service is probably going to be scarce. I have never heard of anyone running one of those and the repair shops may have the same problem.

 

No no no, the ISX is an amazing engine. It very rarely breaks down (when it's still newer) but when it does, it's difficult to find someone to work on it. But she idles smooth, pulls like a raped ape and in general in my experience; was a great engine.
I've heard that the wire harness goes on them early, and generally the problem isn't completely sorted until the truck goes to scrap yard.

Detroit is meh, had a DD 13 in my Cascadia and it was breaking down every 3 months. No balls, finiky and slow to idle down. Overall I don't like em, but there's no debating that there's a plethora of parts available all over the nation. And you're gonna need em when you pull into a shop every 10-15 weeks.

 

I ran a MBE4000 for 8yrs and 884k miles. Great on fuel, but under powered compared to the bigger Detroits.
I installed a tuner, and it made it a lot better.
Parts and service are anywhere a Freightliner or Detroit dealer are, so dont listen to the BS rumor mill. They are also pretty easy to work on yourself too.
My current 515 Detroit has a lot of plus', but a fair few downfalls too.
Martin

 

I ran a brand new mercedes in 07 or 08 for less than a year 87k or so had no problem from it other than lack of climbing power i had it the shop one time for a blown radiator hose in that time but it got 7+mpg running 65-70mph thats my expriance

 

2003 was a bad year to have a Detroit or Mercedes-Benz MBE4000.... the first year of EGRs didn't go so smoothly. I've only run the MBE in a vocational truck, so I might be a bit out-of-place basing my opinion of them on that alone. It held up for what we used it for.

 

I worked for a company pulling a bulk tanker. The '07 threw '09's that had the Mercedes ALL lost cylinders because of a bad head design. Frightliner in framed most of these with a new head gasket/ head design. The oil samples that followed showed they fixed cancer with a bandaid and the company dumped them as soon as samples started coming back in. These trucks were listed as fresh inframes and sold pretty quick.

I could have bought one of these with a mid roof for about 10k with a fresh set of Michelin X1's, almost 4k worth of tires, and past on it because of all the problems that had been going on with them.

 

My suggestion is Columbia!