I've reached rock bottom... (long)

900k miles...

 

Lucar, what fuel mileage are you getting now? 5 mpg maybe? A 12.7 Detroit you will save $20,000/yr in fuel which will make your truck payment.

 

What do you owe on that POS you have now?

 

I bought it for $42k 5 months ago, owe $32k and was getting (worst mpg 6.2) but too much down time and too many repair bills

 

My 08 with a C15 DPF crap storm and my new truck with a Detroit series 60 pull exactly the same. I do the same run every week and i have to down shift basically on the same hills and slight pulls that I have. Maybe if the Cat was worked on it would do better but as far as I'm concerned they are equal. Only difference between the trucks(both 389 flat tops) was the Cat had 3.36's and the Det has 3.55's.

 

How many L was that Detroit, Mike? How did fuel mileage compare?

 

Well 6.2 isn't too bad if that's the worst it does. Maybe find one of them good Cat houses that the other guys are talking about. Either that or a better finance company.

 

I'm still waiting on financing company to bring the numbers to the table.. they gotta talk to this guy and this guy and this other guy, so it seems (from what I'm told) loan would be reset and it'd be all down to my negotiating skills and how much I can get for my trade

 

I'm guessing after keeping that '08 rolling thru shop after shop, he doesn't have $18k laying around to just go out and do that. Lucar I feel for you having to do the funny money shuffle with the dealer. At least they're willing to work with you so far. Take your time and get a good one (dyno, oil samples, etc). You'll come out ahead in short time no matter what truck you pick.

Don't let the CAT haters wear you down. I spent $2,500 to get my '07 C15 up to snuff and (knock on my wooden head) it's been fine for 80k miles since. Previously, I've spent around $5k each on 14L S60 in an '04 and '05 Century replacing just about the entire hot side (exh manifold, turbo, egr, egr cooler, and so on). Yeah the pre-egr ones don't have all that, but not on an '05 or newer. Fact is, you'll spend it somewhere on anything you buy. So far coming up on a year I'm ahead of the FL/Detroits with the KW/CAT with far less downtime - something folks always seem to forget when bragging about low repair costs on a S60. The opportunity cost is usually a multiple of the shop invoice.

 

You could just be getting better at buying trucks too.