I'm going to buy a used Schneider Truck

Pacific Islander,

With one Flatbed, I have always been able to gross well over 200k yearly. Based on current rates on Internet Truckstop, I should be able to do $20-30k+ gross a month during the summer months for regular legal flatbed loads.

I've only own no more than 3 trucks at any given time. I'm curse as a small fleet owner and have always lost money due to maintenence. Made three attemps as a small fleet owner and lost big because stupid driver killed my trucks. I had a driver with 13 years experience drove for me last time and on day #3, my truck needed a engine rebuild. Then switch him to truck#2, and in a month, that truck needed a new transmission, clutch, and engine overhaul. Switch him back to truck #1 after rebuild, and he ruin the transmission, clutch and needed new clutch pedal assembly. While all this was happening, I bought truck #3, and it turned out to be a lemon and head gasket went out after first load.

I may have retire early and do trucking part time had I not try so hard to be a fleet owner. It seems that whenever I hire any driver to drive my trucks, they break.

 

There are no sure way to inspect the trucks anymore. One of my last pre emission truck passed Dyno, checked out by my mechanic and still had head gasket went out on a load going up a 6% grade. One of my previous lemon truck was 3 years old with 450k miles and was towed over 26 times in 40 months. I had it inspected by a third party shop and Dyno it before purchase.

With the newer EPA trucks, it will be very hard to tell if the DPF or DEF systems are going to fail until you actually run multiple loads. Ideally, you want to try out the truck by running 80k gross on 6-8% grades for atleast a week. If no issues, then buy the truck.

Based on the service records I obtain on my current truck, it didn't have many big issues at all during the last 8 months of running before being sold. They have plenty of work done to the truck such as changing sensors, switches, and wire harness and many other non-essential stuff. Therefore, it shouldn't be a lemon. Some might say that since there haven't had too much done, I will need more maintenence. I disagree.

From my previous experiences, a lemon truck will always be a lemon truck. Have you seen trucks for sale by owners that had replace injectors, turbos, EGR, Clutch, AC Compressor, Air Charge Cooler, etc... and after putting all this money into maintaining the truck all of a sudden, want to sell to upgrade ? I Will run far away from these kinds of truck.

 

Only tests that I've done on Blow By test is to high idle truck, take off the oil fill cap and see how much smoke is comming out.

I also remove the coolant cap and see if it bubbles in high idle. With head gasket issues, it will bubble a lot.

I have never check for Air Charge Cooler leaks when checking out a truck although I need to make a kit now to test it since I'm getting poor fuel mileage compare to what the truck is spec at.