NEW or USED that's is the question ? All welcome to Chime in on this

Those ramps are pretty slick...been thinking about fabbing up some for my own truck due to the frequency of finding trailers dropped WAY too low...but debating whether it'll be worth the extra weight (already nearly 19K...in a daycab). I like the clean & simple look to those...

 

You can find used gliders and that really may be something worth looking at. Better MPG and lower maintenance costs make a pretty good argument to me. Until they can get these emissions trucks to run right I'm going to try to steer clear of them. I've seen how often they go down as a company driver and can only imagine how devastating that would be to a start-up O/O. At the same time, most of us that are trying to start our own company do not have a huge bank account right away to cover whatever might come up.

Starting a company is a risk. I don't know what I am going to do yet as far as new or used but I'm leaning towards new and here is why. If I spend $30k on a truck with 600,000 miles I know for a fact that there are going to be problems soon. It might be rubber, a turbo, injectors or any number of very expensive things. When that truck goes down I double my losses by losing revenue as well as a repair bill. If you are mechanically inclined then you can mitigate those costs but for those of us that are not it obviously gets expensive. You might get lucky and get a couple of years out of it before anything major happens and hopefully you have saved enough to cover it. Hopefully.

With a new truck, ya you are going to have a big payment but look at the industry that we are in. Nothing is a sure thing but if you have a work ethic you can make it in this business. If you don't like the amount of freight you are getting there is always a company that has more. If you want to make more there is always a company that pays better. I would venture to guess that a lot of people that fail thought that the money would just flow in once they owned a truck. They didn't budget or plan for future expenses. They screwed up on their taxes or maybe even had a lawsuit against them without being incorporated. I've seen this on the company driver side in the oilfields. Thousands of drivers flocked to North Dakota hearing that they would make a six figure income right away. Anyone with a heartbeat, a CDL and maybe their own truck thought it would be like taking candy from a baby. But, they didn't plan. They forgot that it gets unbelievably cold in ND and that the roads will absolutely tear a truck apart. Or they didn't budget for a shop to charge as much as $1,000/hr to fix their torn up truck.

As far as the known risks that I have to deal with, I am leaning towards risking the larger payment for the upside of a truck that most likely will not break down for quite some time (especially a glider) and there being a warranty for when it does. Clearly there is an element of luck no matter what you do but unless you have $50,000 in the bank AFTER buying a used truck, I would be very hesitant to trust it.

 

Well, I'd think a person would be better of with a good used truck. You can buy a decent used truck for 45-50 grand. A new truck is 160. You could buy a lot of repairs for 110k. Of course that isn't figuring interest. I see way too many newer trucks with warning triangles out on the shoulder to trust they are much better than used ones. My 2015 FL only has 22,000 miles. Was down 10 days in 2 different shops for a wheel seal, a d.e.f. pump, and a wiring harness for the park-smart system. I don't own the truck, didn't pay out of pocket for the repairs but I still lost money while my wheels were not turning. It kinda just hurts my feelings more to be broke down in a new truck.

 

As an o/o making decisions, the only real down time you'd experience is for the DEF pump. If the dealer couldn't get you in right away for the wheel seal, that's what TA/Petro is for. You might have to come out of pocket for a wheel seal, but $200 is nothing compared to one day down out on the road. The park smart deal would be handled on home time or when you can find a dealer that will get you right in as that isn't affecting the operation of the truck. It's called triage.

 

Young, single, in OP's shoes I vote for brand new. I wish I had the guts to have done that when I was in his position many years ago. It was opportunity missed. For all the horror stories about brand new I believe they are getting better every passing year.

You don't hear anyone who doesn't have issues complaining which shades the issue. There is something to be said for buying new and trading into another brand new when the warranty is gone and all the nickel and dime, and the $, $$$'s stuff starts breaking as it always will after about 500,000 miles.

That is why big companies do it and there are also small operators who do the same with success. I remember my company driver days. I got a couple of brand new trucks and ran them up to 400-500k miles then get another one. Even when I started as a rookie and got a 200,000 mile truck it was always the same.

Had very few mechanical issues and only very minor stuff. Can only recall occasional air conditioning problems. And dead batteries. That was it. Granted these were pre-08 units. But I think if one doesn't idle the 08+ they will probably have good luck. And I must say if I have an air conditioner go out and the dealer says 2 weeks before they can look I would think nothing of paying an independent a few hundred to fix it tomorrow.

A/C is one of those things I will not work on. But I will take on just about anything else. Well, that is my 2 cents. I own a 2003 truck. It is old and has a lot of miles. I can promise you most of those available out there are going to eat into a lot of cash to maintain. That is just how it is. You will take on doing more and more of the wrenching out of survival necessity.

I know this goes against the grain here but I agree with the minority on this one. Buy new. Cycle into new every 3 to 5 years or when warranty is gone.

 

Buying new doesn't necessarily mean dealing with the new truck issues. Gliders are cheaper and from what I have been able to tell they get 1-2 MPG better than an emissions truck and have a fraction of the maintenance costs. I called Fitzgerald Gliders the other day and you can get a truck from them for between $125-135K. There are also used gliders out there, even some from Fitzgerald that might be good candidates too.

 

Oh yeah. There a a couple of 100 truck fleets here in TN that buy gliders from Fitz and cycle into brand new Fitz gliders every 3 years just like most larger companies do on brand new epa compliant equipment.

 

I would have to opt for new also being that you are not mechanically inclined. I have said the same thing about passenger cars for people that can not do or diagnose their own repairs.

Good honest shops are far and few between these days and the Tech s are not getting any better.

On the thread i started a while back about lets rebuild this W900 the reality of just the cost to rebuild a truck in just parts no labor was 50-60 thousand plus 20 for the truck purchase , and you would still have a 30 thousand dollar truck.

Double Yellows past records of the truck he bought really show what it costs to maintain a truck for a million miles and he was right at 9 cents a mile per his records . But a lot of those repairs were done 10 years ago. parts and labor has gone up significantly since than.

I think we came to the conclusion that it costs 12 cents a mile for repairs now adays.

at 10,000 miles a month that is 1200 dollars you could put towards a truck payment every month , a couple nonmissed work days a month for repairs would make up the other half of the payment.

For the 1st five years you should have just brake and tire costs along with minor repairs with out all the headaches or Gutaches about wondering when your next big repair is going to be needed far away from home.

After seeing the writing on the wall of costs and even though I am very mechanically inclined I would have to lean towards a new Glider or a low mileage one.

Clean used pre EGR trucks are going for 25000 and they all seem to have questionable recent rebuilds.

 

The problem is, EVEN NEW TRUCKS have to be maintained! Oil still needs changing. Tires still wear out. Brake shoes and drums can also see the end of their service life before you're done paying the note. Sure, there may not be AS MANY components approaching the end of their service life on a new truck, but a lot of the high-dollar stuff (tires @ $400/ea last time I bought 'em...and that was CHEAP!) are going to last just as long on that new truck as they would after you put them on an old truck...but now you can set aside a few cents per mile for the next set because you aren't making a HUGE truck note. So instead of saying you'd have "$1200/month you could put towards a truck payment", why not subtract the cost of the maintenance items you'll have to pay for while still under the loan and recalculate how much you'd theoretically have to put towards a truck payment if you bought "new"?