Someone with experience buying used truck from Schneider?

I would never buy a used large fleet truck personally.

 

Hi, I cannot generalize about Schneider fleet, and how well they maintain it, but I can definitely share my personal experience with buying a truck from them. I got a 2005 Century from them last year with about 660'000 miles on it. The buying process itself is very simple, as long as you have cash in hand. You can check the trucks out in person at the yard location of your choice, but you can't really do much beyond a simple walk-around, and a pre-trip kind of inspection. They sell them "as-is", and the price is set firm. So, the truck I got seemed to be in a pretty decent condition at the time for what it cost. I've owned it for about 15 months now, and have put an excess of 12K in major repair, and maintenance. First off, you'll most probably need new tires on the truck, because Schneider put cheap recaps on their drives, usually in not very good condition. Then, just a couple of months after purchase, I had to change the entire cylinder head on the engine, because it got cracked. Later, the EGR cooler had to be replaced at a dealer location, another costly encounter. A couple of months ago, the radiator got a major leak, so I had to change that also. During the whole period, I also had to replace brake shoes and drums, alternator, tie rods, shocks, muffler, and a bunch of other not so major stuff here and there, which quickly added up though. This is in short, what I can share on this subject. Hope it was helpful.

 

I wouldn't be afraid of buying a truck from them. Your no more at risk of getting a lemon from them as you are any other fleet or dealership. Their maintenance program is no worse/better than any other fleets. Any fleet large or small can cut corners.

When I drove for them years ago... my truck was well maintained. Even for an old truck, it ran good and looked decent.

I think it would make a good starter truck.

 

@bigtire No, you can't take the truck out of their yard before you actually buy it...

 

You'd be better off buying a truck from an o/o chances are he took better care of it then a company truck who knows how many drivers been in that truck plus he can tell you the history of truck.also always get a oil sample from the engine and sent to lab so you know the condition of the internals

 

Fleet trucks are not matained to go a million miles or more, they are just matained to make the trade cycle.

 

You subsidize their business when you buy their old fleet trucks. Something I am against. Let them ship their old junk to Mexico or let the Army use them for artillery practice.

 

I don't know if you can find out but if you can find one the was used on the Aurora Parts dedicated account then I would risk it I run on that account for a year, 28 drivers on the account 7-8 of them while 20 plus year veterans and the avg length of service was 12 years. These guys took really good care of there trucks, they were still subjected to SNI maintenance schedule but it seemed to me that any complaint or issue I brought to Maint resulted in a lot of new parts and from talking to other drivers in are account this was standard but for the general freight guys not so much.