Bullheaded

That is sweet. Love that truck!

OK thanks Hobert62. Do you wash the pads with water when you are done to clean them out for next use? What do you do to care for the pads between uses?

Yep, I can picture that as a dump truck!

Looks like it's been there a while, LOL. Wonder what kind of shape it's in?

Nice Truck Shop! We don't have Harbor Freight's here, but I guess our Canadian Tire and Princess Auto are about the same kind of deal. Got any tips for me? I guess just keep going steady straight lines back and forth?

Well, did an internet and you tube search. Seems all the professional detailer's use a specific model of Dewalt. But I couldn't find one cheaper than $285 around here and I'm cheap. I only have one truck to do the odd time so I don't need anything that fancy. So I went to Canada's go-to store for cheap junk...Canadian Tire. LOL. Got this on sale for $71. It is variable speed from 600 to 3800 RPM.

I realize that. I'm just saying there is not a lot of thought put into stuff these days. And trust me, I can fill a book on Western Star screw ups that were built into my 2013 that seem to be improved a bit on the 2020.

Believe it or not, with the chemicals they use along with the salt up here, even Durabrights are no good. They stain and tarnish after one winter. Alcoa will replace them once (maybe twice if you really fight) under warranty.....then they give you a set of regular polished rims and say have fun with that. That's why normally once everything get tarnished I just do the SOS pad shine. Stuff just don't last here.

That's kinda like with my dump trucks that have heated dump boxes. You have an air ride cab with cab mounted exhaust. But then when they plumb up the diverter box for the exhaust to go to the dump box, they use a piece of flex pipe that is so short there is no bend to it at all. I always know when that piece of flex pipe finally breaks.....because the ride quality suddenly gets way better! LOL. There is zero thought put into anything any more. Except them getting paid, and making it live until the warranty runs out.

So what's everyone's preferred brand/model of low speed grinder/polishers for using with clay bars? Up until a few years ago I used to just stay on top of it and use Autosol and buff by hand. But now that I am getting older and extremely lazy, think I'll buy a buffer, just not sure which to buy. Recently I've resorted to using nothing more than SOS pads since the nature of my business is the truck gets dirty every day. But since my new truck doesn't have me hating life yet like the last one, I kinda wanna take care of it, LOL. This is what the old one looked like with just SOS pads on the wheels and acid on the checker plate under the cab. It's good enough for what I do, but since the new one is still shiny new I don't wanna take SOS pads to it yet, LOL.

WTF!!?? LOL Kinda looks like every Peterbilt I see at every large car show. Hahahahaha.

Yes, I'm lucky Mack Tech. I'm not in the big cities. I get to play in the bush and see wildlife. I tried long haul for a couple years on the big roads and I HATED it! LOL.

Ya, that's why mine didn't seem under powered. I have an 18 speed and 4.30 gears. I was at 1650 RPM at 60 MPH.

What year is yours? At the end this spring just before we sold our 2013, we found out two big causes of my issues. Number one....because of all the other problems I had with it, the dealer mechanics poked holes in all the wire harnesses with a test light and the harness that controls the DEF system corroded. Number two....apparently there are bungs inside the One-Box that are known for cracking and breaking off. And I think what was explained to me is the pipes inside go out of alignment? I was always wondering why mine when it was getting close to doing a parked regen would make trumpet sound in the exhaust. That was the cause. Had to replace the whole one box. When my old DD15 ran right, I was happy with the power. With just the truck I can gross 80,000 and 140,000 with the pony. All our trucks have Eaton 18 double low, double overs with 4.30 rear gears on 22.5 rubber. (my new one has 4.10's) And compared to our Coronado 122SD that had a 600/1850 ISX in it......from a standing start I could smoke our driver. It would accelerate and grab gears faster. But come a hill, I could hold equal until I had to drop that first gear. Then he would wave good by. The way it worked out because I drove all three one day doing the same job, same loads...the ISX was 10 MPH slower on the hill than my 550 Cat and the DD15 was 15 MPH slower than the Cat. (on that particular short hill.) And a hill that I could maintain 55 MPH with the ISX, the DD15 would drop to 40.

Ya...that's what they are....Mekra. I haven't seen a recall from Daimler, but they did replace his under warranty.

The one that blows my mind is that they can see a whole 3D image of the inside of your home through your wi-fi. Luckily I have no shame, so have at 'er. LOL And another benefit of being a broke-ass trucker......I don't have anything anyone else wants, hahahaha.

My buddy recently got a new Western Star 4900 and he also had to have his mirrors replaced. They also started separating from the backing. Must be a bad supplier for all of them?

What kind of work do you do? How was yours as far as regens? My 2013 DD15 was plagued with parked regens. It couldn't go 8 hours without a regen. And all kinds of DEF system problems. Only time it was any good was when I was pulling the pony grossing 140,000 pounds on the highway. It did not like dump truck duty....especially hauling light snow loads in the winter. I know they have made changes to these new ones. One thing is they no longer use air to purge the DEF system. It is all electric pumps now. And this one has smaller diameter exhaust piping under the cab and it is all insulated now.

I haven't had time to get real scientific data. And of coarse this one has no miles or hours on it yet either. But as far as trip average I could have got as high as 6.4 MPG on this trip and this time I got 5.4. And it is using 2.5 gallons of DEF per day. The DD15 would light up quicker after a shift with that compound turbo it had, whereas this one has a bit of turbo lag, but it will pull from 900 RPM and pull harder than the 15 once it spools up. And it shows a little over 5 PSI more peak boost on the gauges. I'm usually right in the 5.3 MPG average range. Except when I am pulling the pony. Then it's 2.4 in the winter, LOL. Like I said....I don't track it dead on. For the work I do, it is what it is. Lots of on/off road, lots of low speed work, lots of PTO time. Hard to get good fuel mileage.

There not much of anything better than an R Model, LOL

You can get 16 front and 46 rears for sure. That's what the above truck has. Actually you can get 69,000 tri-drive also. I have pics of that posted in this forum somewhere also.

Had to get her dirty. First week of work, so far so good. The first week with the blue 2013 I could fill a whole book with the issues it had. I do find this DD13 505 louder in the cab and harder on fuel than the DD15 505 and the ISX600 we had. But it will easily outpull the DD15 505 because it has more torque. And the kind of scenery that makes you kinda like trucking. I just wish the Mack Granite 505/M-Drive would have loaded closer behind me so we could have seen how they compared on the 10% grades.

What are you spec'ing the day cab tractor for 41chevy? The Anthem is getting popular around here now for live bottom and wood chip haulers. Here is one I took a pic of last year I have posted in the forum here somewhere.

It was 1993 then. I couldn't remember. My old R Model was built there. I remember going buy the plant when they were still operating and you could see from the highway a line of big M Series off road haulers, CL350 ST loggers and RD800's. What a sight! I wish I had pics of that. I would love to see that again. I only have the vision in my little pea brain, LOL.

Oakville was still going when the CH came out? I didn't realize that.