Your thoughts on Peterbilt 387 (13 or 18 Speed)?

I've probably got more miles in reverse than you do forward... junior. I'll bet my CDL is older than you are.

I notice you have contributed exactly nothing but vitriol to this forum, so why are you here?

 

well said lNf:
ProduceH is just another V6Lenny. Gonna argue anything, showing us how knowledgable he is.
Keep posting PH, your showing us with every post, how much you know.

 

Oh, come on guys I'm just kidding. Nothing wrong with wanting to learn. All it takes is to ask - we are talking about really fundamental things. It starts with equipment utilization term. OK class - who give me idea what is it?

 

7k a year buy whatever u want with the room u need or renting may b a better option once u figure everything in

 

^^^That is perfect answer for the OP and utilization thinking at it best. These things used to be simple but were screwing with makers/salesmans profits since trucks builders figured how to build trucks that last forever. And it was long time ago, todays trucks are only stronger. So, we started to see that dumbest bull*hit pushing "advanced", "efficient", "groundbreaking" etc products all around which turned our society into morons constantly replacing cellphones, cars and trucks as well. With no real reason other than empty promises and.... UNRESTRICTED CREDIT AVAILABILTY. Thats how most of todays "truckers" believe that they need that truck payment along many other bills.

Which is totally dumb, especially talking about American trucks - extremely robust compared to European trucks - built by socialists for socialists

The point is, you are being robed on your own request by believing that big-fleet approach is good for single guy. Truth is - one truck can be enough equipment for life.

 

The 13 and 18 are geared the same on the top end, so no difference in cruising RPM. The 18 has a lower low if you're going to need to creep, plus the extra ratios in the rest of low range. Mechanically, the two are nearly identical, to the point that most people would be unable to visually differentiate the internals of the two.

I think, as somebody mentioned above, that for what you'll be doing with it, as long as it's geared the way you want, any transmission will be fine. Drivetrain problems are fairly rare, as long as there's no abuse. I'm approaching 600K miles in my carhauler, and haven't touched even a u-joint; and we run higher duty cycles than just about anyone but the heavy-haul boys.

You asked in you're original post for preference. The 18, but only because those extra ratios come in handy once in a rare while. They feel identical beneath your hand...

As far as the 387 goes, I seriously looked at one when they came out. One look at the exhaust routing below the mufflers changed my mind. Here's this truck supposedly engineered for fuel mileage and you idiots put all these tight radius bends in the exhaust? I was not impressed.

 

Truth about the doors is they screwed u something from beginning - under strong wind conditions you would get them flex outaward at the top causing noise as a bit of air would go in. At some point it was fixed, at least my 2007 isn't doing it anymore. There is nothing flimsy about them - they shut really nice (on the driver side of course, passenger side failed as wasnt used at all) - and I had Volvo guy stumbled when he experienced that luxury car feeling when he made them "click" effortlessly (trick is - these doors are really heavy, as the whole truck is). Thats what I can tell you about the least problem you have