Pullin with the dreaded PACCAR Mx13

Agreed. My FLD was a 2003. I owned it from the end of 2011 to fall of 2015. I overhauled it. Replaced the transmission. Had new drivelines built. Redid the interior and repainted the outside. Plus all the little stuff like replacing air and fuel lines, rebuilding doors, etc. I liked that truck and it made me a lot of money. But I was renting shop space and that thing took all of my free time. Same with the 95 KW that I had.

Most of my reasoning for buying a two year old truck and then a brand new one was because I didn’t want to spend all my free time fixing stuff. I figured my time was worth more than that. People always say with an older truck you save on labor cost doing everything yourself but I’ve always felt my time had value. And time spent working on a truck is time taken away from something else.

 

Like anything in business its a cost benefit issue. Old trucks have a lot of advantages over new rigs. However, while i and many others personally think old iron is better. There is a reason a lot of folks go new. And people like to hold old iron trucks up on a pedistal and brush aside a lot of the real issues they can and often do have.

Which is right for someones individual business will vary wildly. So trying to make out like old trucks are always the best choice is just silly. And keep in mind this is coming from me, and i LOATH new trucks after my 579.

 

Sorry for double post here. But while i was eating lunch i got thinking, and my thoughts are something i feel i need to add.

Namely something that is not discussed a lot if ever is that many of these old iron trucks arent actully that great. Not becauae they arent amazing trucks. But because of survivorship bias. Think of how many millions or hundreds of millions of semi trucks were built over the years. Most of them are in the junkyard or have long been cut up as scrap for a reason.

Whats left are the ones that for whatever reason held up. Maybe they got a thicker coat of sealant on the paint so didnt rust apart. Maybe the parts were made with steel just ever so slightly better then average. Maybe that particular unit was built when the quality control guy was breathing down the neck of a guy trying to be promoted. Maybe it was simply used once a year to transport some rich snobs prize winning cows to the show and back.

Who knows, point is many of these old iron rigs had devistateing issues much like you see in todays trucks. Blocks blowing up, electrical fires, hard to get or low quality parts, badly designed items. Whatever, so what you have left are the absolute best examples of these trucks, or the trucks that were never exposed to the same conditions as the ones that killed the rest.

Something to think about before you buy an old truck. Also something to think about before you buy a new one is that you dont hear from the guys who drive 500k miles without so much as a low tire light. But you do hear very loudly from folks like me and my 579.