Ready to start negotiating, where to buy trucks?

Hello truckersreport members. Thank you guys for the help so far.

We need a few CARB compliant trucks and my research, a lot which was done on this forum, is leading me towards 2012 or newer Freightliner Cascadias with DD13s & 15s. We do dry freight locally and across the states in standard 53 footers. I am open to other suggestions though but I can tell you that we can't afford brand new Petes or Volvos hell or brand new Freightliners haha We will lease some trucks soon but right now its purchase time for at least a couple!

Looking for these trucks and all under 500,000 miles
3 day cabs
1 sleeper, either 6x2 or 6x4

How does my purchase process look?

How?
For every single truck:
1. Try to choose trucks that have come from small fleets or companies. Trucks from large fleets are normally not maintained as well as.
2. Chose trucks that have better specs and better driver options like better seats. This is because some companies give their best drivers the trucks with the best options and those drivers normally take the best care of a truck.
3. Ask for and analyze for all service records available.
4. Get a www.rigdig.com
report (like carfax)
5. Do a full inspection and test drive by a mechanic or a experienced driver
6. If possible, do an oil analysis. This means sending a sample of oil to a shop or lab so they can analyze the oil and give you useful info.
7. Run an ECM report (engine report) and research who the truck came from.

Where?
--Buy from owner operators and/or from dealerships if the trucks you're looking at were maintained by a small fleet or company.
--Avoid Penske, Ryder, Schneider, Swift, all the largest dealerships as much as possible because they again, normally sell trucks that large fleets did not take care of well.
--Do not buy any sleepers from Penske, Ryder or Schenier etc. Get all of them from owner operators

And if you don't want to take a look at that, could you guys recommend some places or even owner operators to purchase from? Thank you.

 

That's really useful info. Thank you. Im going to start using rig dig today.