Dump trucking questions

My opinion is if you have people around you that are knowledgeable about engines, especially if you would take your truck to them to repair and trust him, you should get the type of engine that they are familiar with.

If you get a Detroit engine and you have no access to anyone that can work on that engine, eventually you're going to have problems or questions and if you need your engine rebuild you need that done by somebody that's a regular Detroit shop curious

The make of the truck isn't nearly as important as having someone that's knowledgeable about whatever engine that you have.

 

Nothing wrong with a Mack my dad has 3 ch613 silage trucks with e7 427hp Mack motors he thinks they are great

 

The auction is your best bet. Ritchie Bros will let you search their inventory from every auction from your couch. Often times you can buy a warranty from the auction. Often times you can call up the lender and make an offer before the auction starts.

My best friend sold his T800 to Arrow truck sales for 31k and they had it online two weeks later for 49k. Dealers have huge mark up. You have time to not make an emotional decision but a business decision.

Just my personal opinion but put a driver in it instead of letting it sit during 75% of the busy season.

Good luck.

 

I know you can crawl all over them. Inside and out. I don’t think anyone would stop you from grabbing an ounce of oil to have the sample run. The driving is a no go.l (insurance) Best bet on maintenance records is to grab the vin and go to a dealer and see if they’ll tell you anything.

Risk is part of purchasing any commercial truck. At the auction you’re way behind retail price because you’ll most likely need tires, brakes, pm, etc. Of course the bonus is you get to pick the tires , brakes, and other reconditioning you do to your unit.

But you’ll be able to tell who owns the unit. Say abc bank owns it. You can call and say what do you want for it. If you can come to an agreement you don’t have to wait for the auction. But sometimes since whoever owns it spent money getting the unit there, they may not be too flexible on “their price” and if you don’t like their price they’ll run it through the auction.



I was under the impression you could buy the unit at any time but due to personal circumstances you weren’t going to drive it yourself till August. I may of misread what you said.

 

On bad tires they also slide a little bit in the rain.

I spent quite some time in a Mack Superliner 500 dump and frankly it's the only dump I want to drive. No offense to you new ones. Those are nice Im sure, but that 15 speed reduction on off road terrain is what gets it done. I cannot explain it but when you are in bottom low low you can just about stop the earth from rotating. You cannot get that low in a say a Freightliner Century on road truck.

I also spent time off road in a Mack Mixer, R model say roughly late 90's for lack of a better precise year. Used to be a joke about that particular rig because every newbie gets a turn at her. (I cannot write this any other way, it's not for kids) she did have cross rib tires on the drives which is strictly forward and reverse, no side traction worth a ####. It's gotten me out of some of the loose rock shale ravines in the ozark hills in which flipping over either side over or end over end is a real threat.

I love mack. The older ones offset cabs and on back further, Ive loaded some of them down with gross weights like 130K and up. They just wont quit. (I did total one on a really bad day, a stupid newbie load this thing with NO training... one hand says it's amazing, and the other hands say you dumbkoft!)

 

Well it is important to keep the wife happy, but I have to say it's a very rare occurrence to find a good truck at the time that you need it.

Especially if you're looking for something that's a good deal. The offseason is the best time to buy. Sometimes it's hard to find a good truck at all. I remember looking for a truck and everywhere I called they were already sold or they were the very very very top dollar trucks.

Another thing to consider is whatever it is that you by most likely is going to need something. Maybe you could convince the wife that between the time you buy it and the time you put it to work you'll have whatever needs done repaired and you'll have time to try it out and make sure there's nothing you didn't see.

It wouldn't surprise me if the difference between catching a really good deal in the offseason or paying the very top dollar for a truck when you actually need one could be maybe $20,000.

But that probably is a lower cost than having the wife unhappy.