long hood trucks obsolete in 5 yrs or less?

I have bought a few add ons for my 379. Its not mine but my boss's. I drive it everyday and everyone sees me driving it. I also make more in 2 days then what I read most of the mega carrier drivers do all week and I' home every night. I have paid for my truck to be washed as I live in a condo and we can't have commercial vehicles here. My boss also re pays me for some add ons. All my switch extenders and interior chrome is my bill. But I usually mention something I want and he says buy it and the money will be on your next cheque. When it gets painted in the spring I get to pick out the colours and how I want it painted. And he is even going to help put a wood floor in it. I love that my truck isn't the exact same model and colour as 1000 other trucks. And almost every customer I go to even whe my truck is dirty always comments on how great it looks and never believe me that its a 2000.

 

Rofl!!! I could not decide which statement to quote, but I decided on the one above because that statement, combined with your stats, is funnier than $h**!!! The following should be your tagline:

"23... 0-1 year exp... Supertrucker!" lol

 

Laugh if you like but as an employer, I would hire a 23 year old driver with <1 year experience with fisher guy's attitude long before I would hire some of the "veterans" on here with their crapy attitude. AS far as the life expectancy of "hoods", this thread is pretty typical of many threads on this forum. You get people with experience in a certain aspect of trucking, in this case large fleet carriers, that base their opinion on that very narrow understanding of the trucking industry as a whole and can't/won't see/understand that that is not the ONLY thing trucks are used for. If all of ones experience was up here in the oil patch you would say that aero cabs are obsolete NOW. The closest thing to an "aero" cab in the patch is a KW T800 and about 20% of THOSE are high hood 800's. Industries that spend allot of running time in the bush @ <40 MPH don't give a rats arse about aerodynamics but they need a truck that won't shake itself apart in 50,000 miles. Until the oil patch, logging and any other industry that does allot of off road all quit buying trucks, there will be a demand for the traditional style trucks.

 

be it heavy haul, oil and gas, to even trash hauling there will always be a need for the hoods besides how many cascadias or volvos do you see at truck shows...not very many by the way thank you licensed to kill

 

Great post, but pointless! When I pointed out that a plastic aero truck won't last long hauling logs in the woods I think it was the resident expert Tazz that said I didn't know what I was talking about.
Life according to Tazz "This guy is a Volvo 780 away from 8mpg"


Here's a VA coal hauler (crashed) I'm sure he was concerned with his aerodynamics with those planetary axles and a dump with 90" sides.

 

hey modern drifter i went from driving cletus the black truck on to driving my current truck in less then 60 days apparently i must of done something right to earn my truck.you dont just give any 23 year old a large car governed at 78 with less then 3 months actual experience..dont get me wrong i loved cletus she still to this day may not be the prettiest truck out there but she has never left me stranded and she just takes a lickin and keeps on tickin gotta love them 3406B mechanical with the 8LL

 

love the ol bulldog to bad for the KW hope the drive was ok aside from his pride

 

I think some people are under the assumption that mega-carriers set market trends. While I'm sure that aero trucks probably have a much larger market share there are plenty of application out there where they will never make any sense at all. And besides that mega carriers, companies with 100+ trucks to many 1000's of trucks only make up about 3 or 5% of the total trucks out there on the road. If TMC stops buying 389's it's not like the lions share of trucking companies that do the majority of the work out there in this country, companies with 1 to 15 trucks are going to follow suit, especially if it doesn't fit their application. And Kenworth takes a lot of pride in the fact that each of their trucks is "custom built" it even says that in my owner's manual. Sure they churn them out for mega fleets, but there will never be a shortage of guys out there who will order what they want when the time comes.

 

I just wish they'd put some quality back into the interior. Look at all that cheap grey plastic. It's the same grey rattley crap in every newer truck no matter who makes it.

 

I get the same thing, people don't believe it's a 2000 either.