Owner Operators, who’s in and who’s out? (poll)

Commercial? I've got a private. Check on the pay. They don't make so much. But id take a pay cut to be flying over all the b s. on the ground. I've seen pretty much kids flying convairs B4. Ex military pilots are the gold standard hires in the industry. The hardest part is getting your instrument rating. But good luck, I'll be jealous.

 

I wish that there would be more of a push to get rid of foreign drivers and especially foreign run companies. But the industry calculates the money they save paying flip floppers offsets the cost of lawsuits from traffic deaths caused by some of them. And the companies just fold and reopen under a different name. That loophole needs to be closed

 

Yea i almost have my PPL now and while its a hard industry to get into. My plan is to go survey pilot. Its basically what im doing now, but airplane. Granted ill take a pay cut...but who cares. Airplane. That said im also planning to buy an aeronca champ to help flush out my hours. They can be had for around $30-40K for a freshly rebuilt older one and give a lot of stick rudder and tail wheel hours. Figure i can mix in multi and instrument with rentals to get my complex hours too.

Survey pilots make about 45-55k a year and as an owner op i make 40k on a bad year and can survive fine on that without all the insurance and such id get. So yolo.

 

310k
337k
169k
202k

It was all about eventually them coming out with the latest generation injectors. The problem was early on they didn’t have them and would want to repeatedly flush the system. That would do nothing at all except get you out the door after a week of down time. Eventually they fixed the injectors but had to hand them out sparingly and if you hadn’t been in for a flush at least a couple times then you weren’t getting them. Finally, this past spring my local deal that wanted me to start buying from them, took the bull by the horns and got them all replaced. Everything seems fine now but it’s been probably a few weeks downtime for each of the trucks jumping through all of the hoops. They would throw codes, run bad, etc.

The Cummins I can’t think of any real issue with any of them. Some of the older 4 or 5 yr old motors will break exhaust bolts which isn’t under warranty frustratingly but that’s all that really comes to mind.

The new KW trucks coming off the factory the last few months have all been a quart low on dif oil and with the fill bolts hand tight. The first four I got a few months ago also had some fantom codes popping randomly but has cleared themselves up. These last four just going on the road in the last weeks have been code free.

I got super lucky and was able to tour the KW facility in Chillicothe, OH as my trucks were being built. Got to shake hands with the folks actually building them on the assembly line and they gave me a sharpy to sign the trucks. Couldn’t have been any cooler of an experience.

Edit: a couple of the trucks I got a few months ago had to have the DEF tanks replaced as they were collapsing on themselves.

Edit again: Those same two trucks had to have the fuel rail pressure sensors replaced immediately. All good otherwise.

 

Yeah, I have 3 right now that I’ve put up for sale as they’ve been replaced.

523k
532k
595k

all of those are before I started buying APU’s so the hours are high as well. However, no trouble or rebuilds nor any DPF problems. Now I will say guaranteed those have had atleast 1 or not 2 of the DEF tank level measuring devices replaced. I forgot the proper term for it but you always know when they go because it pops an SCR problem. Those all seemed to go during the Covid years when you couldn’t get them.

I’ll get the hours on those engines.

edit: 523k miles motor has 15,300 hrs. 532k motor has 16,680 hrs and the 595k truck has 16,350 hrs.

 

Major problems with Paccars. Everything you said, I had with mine. Currently at 242k but had all the injectors replaced. I rarely idle mine at all so the hours are 5300 hours. While I was at a shop a couple years ago a Owner Operator told me the best thing for the paccar motors are less idle time and it helps with the DPF system cleanings being less wih the intervals. After reading that you're selling them around 523k, I thinking that will be around the time I make my decision in a couple years to move on from Paccar.

 

That is not too awfully bad compared to some peoples issues on new trucks. They do not have that many miles on them. Kind of surprised you have so little on the two. Figured you would have 300K on all of them by now.

So far I have 389,000 on this one and never had anything on the engine or transmission touched. Can't complain at all and have never had any downtime unplanned on this truck. Just put new steers on today because for some reason I have had bad luck the last two sets of steers. The last set had delaminated on the edge and started to ware real fast after that. Guess that is why they no longer make that version of tire now. Gonna try the Firestones again and see if they last this time.

Sounds like they have bad QC problems on the finished product at this moment from the factory. But I bet it was pretty ###### to go tour the plant and watch your trucks get built. On my next one I want to visit the factory as well. Think it would be neat seeing the whole process in person. I enjoy the process of anything being built or manufactured. Did it for so many years it just sticks with me on wanting to see and understand the process of manufacturing.

 

What steers do u have now? On my Volvos Yoko Zl101 lasts about 120k and Michelin X Line Z 16ply lasts 150-200k.
Bridgestone, Firestone and Conti did not even make it to 100k

 

Yep, I'd advise against Firestone on a Volvo.

Michelin all the way for me. The peace of mind they give me is worth the extra couple hundred per tire every couple years.

 

I agree, I’ve completely switched to Michelin across the board. I also make sure every tire is balanced, I don’t care what anyone says.