Cat, Detroit, or Cummins

How do you know I said cummins?LMAO

 

Buy a 1999 or older truck and be done with it. Anything EGR related and up are worthless.

 

I'm a rookie driver but I've been a mechanic for awhile before gettin behin the wheel... Cats usually make the most power, but are hell on the wallet when they break down... Detroits make pretty good power, and are known as "the poor man's engine" because they are fairly durable and are cheap to fix. Cummins are somewhere in the middle of the two in terms of prices, but they don't make the power a cat does unless you have a big cam or bigger red top. Imo, I'd stick with a Detroit unless you plan on doing some really heavy hauling, spending the extra $$ on a cummins just for that "cummins sound" isn't worth it, and you don't need all that extra hp of a cat under normal conditions. Not to say they aren't great engines, just too expensive for us po' folk lol

 

I would stay away from CAT. That's my past experience and I found that CAT is more interested in their constuction equipment than their highway trucks. We could only have CAT people work on the CAT engine as with the others you can find a good shop and have all the work done you need.

 

I've never found anyone who won't work on any of the big 3. It's the newer in house engines that your going to be screwed with. Mercedes, Volvo, Paccar. Just like owning a Mack, your married to Mack.

 

Buy a truck with a Cummins or Detroit, stay away from Cat's unless you don't like fuel economy and like high repair bills! Also never buy a truck with a Mercedes engine they are the worst junk!

 

Internet ballpark fact! Head gasket replacement on a Cat is about 1/2 the cost as an ISX. And as far as fuel mileage....who's driving and how they're driving makes a bigger difference than the brand of engine.

 

I have a 475 isx been thru injector o-rings then a injector noe a cracked head which I believe was the problem of fuel into the oil the whole time and it just took $3500 to get to the right answer which will be another $7500 SO I do not believe I will have another one BUT the only thing is there is not much to choose from

 

If its not a CAT, it must be a dog.

simply cannot go wrong with the 3406 cat, the truck in my sig has a 435 hp version with 800k on it and it has never had a wrench on the motor other then pms, and I does about 6 mpg pulling a 100,000 pound trailer dump in the hills of new england the c13/15s with the single turbos arent bad, and I would stay away from acert motors. we have a few tri axles as well, one with a 550 hp cat and ones a 565 ISX both with 18 speeds, up an 8% grade loaded to within 250 lbs of each other the 550 would run and hide from the ISX,

my second choice would be a detroit, I am not a fan of the newer cummins but the old big cam 400s are not bad motors

 

I have driven with all three engines city/line-haul

Cat - Drove one truck with an old cat with my time at CWF. Had some nice high end power for the highway. My friend hates them though

Detroit - Another tuck I drove at CWF and YRC. The truck I had at CWF must of been on roids or something. That thing sounded like a jet enine and had tons and tons of power, probly one of the most power I ever drove. Few our our line-haul units(older roadway trucks) have detroits at YRC. All plenty of power but never pulled anything really too heavy with them so I cant decide

Cummins - Another two trucks I drove at YRC, two old internationals. Both trucks got tons of power and pulled 20k like it was nothing.

All in all my favorite was the detroit, its the engine I normally have in my trucks I use at YRC and even at CWF. This is just my 2 cents though. The volvo engines arent that great at power though