Who works on there own trucks

I only fix things I'm comfterable doing. rest is done by a ma and pa shop down the road. If I did everything myself I'd only save about 5-9k a year. That's not worth it if you don't have a garage and correct tools.

 

I don't know any other way other than to do all my own work. self taught. on a lot of things.

 

How does having a new truck equate to needing to turn over a 100,000 miles a year?

My last truck, a used truck, I spent somewhere in the ballpark of $41,000 in repairs and maintenance on it in one year! Granted, not every year it would be like that, but with a new one under warranty I'll never even get close to that.

 

The whole trade in on the warrantee expiration cycle is what I was referring to. For that to be financially feasible, most guys will need to run a #### load of miles. For those that get better revenue per mile than the average Joe, adjust accordingly.

 

Doing the work yourself...or not... is debatable. You already have both sides of that debate on this thread.

My thoughts are more towards understanding the mechanics of the truck so that you can be pretty good at diagnosing problems and keeping up with preventive maintenance. Whether you do it or pay somebody to do it is debatable, but you better know exactly what needs to be done. I have no problem paying for repairs myself. I don't want to spend my days off working on the truck. In fact, I don't want to SEE it when I'm home...lol. But, Ive always made a point of knowing everything I could about the truck so that I could give specific instructions as to what work I wanted done.

That's my 2 pennies. BTW... I don't currently own a truck, but have owned and operated in the past and quite likely will again in the near future.

 

Sometimes when the turbo blows 2000 miles away from home and you have a Spare in the compartment. You gotta do what you gotta do lol. It is actually a lot easier to work on these diesels than you would think. I have never feared to open her up and poke around.

 

I really thank all those for the feedback. I took time and gave it some thought. Even so as of now im still wondering what should i buy. Im not rushing it but just getting different opinions.

 

Honestly, what truck to buy is an entirely different conversation. But new or old, it's gonna break.

 

Winner! Doesn't matter who owns the truck. Doesn't matter what year the truck is or the warrantee. Whether company driver, lease or owner OP, you want to know all you can about the truck. Because if you do not, that's you taking a truck to a shop for them to experiment on. The first thing they will do is ride the clock. That costs you the driver time. Loss of time is a loss of money, even for a company driver.

 

The worst of paying someone to work on truck. Especially dealership shops. The truck owner pays for the mechanic to do tests/diagnoses to determine what they think is wrong before any work is done, raising the bill hundreds of dollars.
The first time I had an ECM go bad, I had determined this in my driveway in -20 degree weather. I had it towed and sent a used replacement ECM with truck. When I went to pick up my truck they had $800 on bill for testing.
Thank fully they reduced that part of bill to $400. The next time my ECM went bad. I bought a new one and changed it myself, took about 1.5 hours.

If it's broke, I can't break it any more. SO I turn a wrench and learn. I have a couple of local mechanic that will help over phone or stop over if I can't handle the mental part. I have most tools needed thru years of buying when needed for a repair.

I really like not having the stress of no truck or trailer payment when I'm sitting or waiting for a repair. Truck doesn't always break at home.