How long will a truck last ?

Might want to specify for OTR use, or simply "last". I know I was asking similar questions at school about those old dogs. They run for hours every day but when I asked if it would make it to CA and back, the mechanic just cracked up, red face and all.

 

If you review the criteria required of O/Os by most carriers, you'll notice that many carriers will specify, among other things, a maximum age, so it's not always in your best interest to consider older equipment for purchase or to try and run one longer than necessary. I recall my last carrier's criteria was five years or newer for general freight, and eight years or newer for containers. I've seen this for many other carriers as well, though I've noticed it's been relaxed a little lately.

Many O/Os don't run trucks to their service limit (at least, they didn't used to, anyway). I was taught the prudent method was to save a down-payment and purchase an economical used truck; pay it off; trade it in and use the trade-in value to cover the cost of the down payment on a slightly newer truck, and then finance the purchase at roughly the same monthly payment as the older truck, thereby building the business' equity without increasing monthly operating costs.

Unfortunately, this method faltered for many people when emissions regulations forced new, complex, and therefore suspicious technology onto the market. Some prebought pre-emissions equipment, while others opted to rebuild their older equipment just one more time. Fluctuations in currency value also created havoc with equipment value (especially for Canadian carriers that financed trucks from American dealers and vice-versa), virtually wiping out years of equity built up in the equipment's value within months.

Moreover, many consider the aggregate cost of downtime, repairs and maintenance of an older truck to be roughly equivalent to the monthly expense of newer equipment anyway. I know few people with the tools, space, know-how, appropriate certification (yes, believe it or not, but this is required for a lot of repairs!) and, let's face, the time to maintain older trucks. I've known a few, but they're rare.

However, I just noticed you're from California. Speaking as a Canadian whose hauled more salt on the outside of the trailer than in it, your equipment might fare better than ours, if you're running the right area.

 

Well lets see. I had a 1957 Corvette. It still was like new in 1982 and only had 70 some miles on it. So a lot will depend on how much and where you drive it.

 

It will last forever as long as you dont let wiseguywirless drive it

 

Let's see last truck was a 1985 W900 ran team in it so basically wheels never stop moving until Sunday....we took Sundays off. Figure us on the road 300 to 345 days out of year, every year on the road. Sold that truck to a farmer to haul grain way over the 80,000 lb gross and it's still running around. New truck was bought in 2006 KW W900....anymore questions?

You take care of them, do the maintenance, keep up on the work at hand for it and it will run forever. As far as leasing on with a company depends on what it says in the lease. I'm under my own authority, I write my own deals and contracts, I was never broken down on the side of the road waiting on a tow truck....my ex partner was the mechanic on the road...seems the mechanic understood her language of "doogies" and between the two could keep us running.

 

And nobody has answered the mans question....yet.

I've seen trucks with 1.5 million miles on them, with the original engine. If properly taken care of, you can expect to get at least a million miles.

Be advised maintenance cost start to increase, as the truck ages.

We've got guys out here with 15 year plus old trucks. Some have had major driveline replacements, throughout.

Based on a 5 year loan. It should last at least that long.

Personally, I wouldn't buy a "fleet" truck with more than 1/4 million miles. As it hasn't been as well taken care of, as some O/O trucks with a million miles.

California will be dictating the age of your truck, it appears.

 

Guess I didn't read it right....he wants to know mileage....uhh last truck you know I don't know over 4 million. Guess I could go back and average 650 to 700 plus miles per person and come up with a figure. Uh no....make my brain hurt too much work.

 

It will last as long as you want it to, if you like the truck and want to keep it and willing to replace what breaks

 

as long as they were well taken care of, they will last a long time, or as long as you are willing to spend money on them.

If you are looking into more of how long the drive train will last as far as before you have to overhaul them, then this is what I have seen.

"CAT engine" will last about 1million + or - before overhaul if taken care of.
"Cummins engine" will last about 750,000 + or - before overhaul if taken care of.
"Detroit engines" I don't know alot about, I never liked them, but I believe it was around the cummins range.

I have seen them with more miles and less, before they needed overhaul, and this was for the older engines, I have never owned a new truck so I don't know if they have gotten better or worse.

"As far as Transmissions," they will last a long time, as long as it was not abused, like grinding and finding gears or dumping the clutch or overloading the holy hell out of a truck all the time.

"Rearends" are the same, they will last a long time, as long as you don't dump the clutch on them, or overload the hell out of the truck all the time, the biggest thing that goes wrong on a rearend is wheel seals, and if you don't catch it in time it burns bearings.

hope that helps