bought another Mack, what to do with it

[Ezrider]

well i guess i have not picked it up yet as i have been swamped lately (why i have not been posting much)

 

i saw a old friend of mine out on the road i have not seen or talked to in a while he is more or less retired now, had 5-6 trucks running at one point. he has a mack that is almost a twin to mine, almost the exact same setup, its a couple years newer (not elog exempt like mine) it has a mack 427 rather than the 460 like mine but those are about the only differences same transmission rear ends ect.

 

 when i saw him out on the road i gave him a call and we were talking for a bit and he asked if i would be interested in his old mack, that he hit a deer with it an put a repairable crack in the hood and he parked it about 3 years ago and it has not moved sense, but it was in good shape other than the crack in the hood when he parked it. high miles on the engine without a in frame said it burned about a gallon of oil every 5k miles. 

 

he then stated that he was not going to have a use for it anymore as he isn't planning on putting it back on the road so if i wanted it i could have it for free just come pick it up. i told him i didn't want to take it for free so he said pay me scrap price for it then and its yours. so i agreed to that. 

 

he was thinking i would use it as a parts truck but i know the guy is extremely good about maintenance so even though its probably going to need a few things from being parked for a few years its probably still a very serviceable truck but will probably be needing a in frame at some point. 

 

so the question is what will i actually use it for. i was thinking maybe putting it on the road as a spare truck for a while and let me take mine down for a while to actually do a paint job on it. (clear coat is failing) witch is something iv been wanting to do for a few years but the truck would be out of service for a while once i start it witch has been the main reason i have not done it yet. 

 

im also thinking maybe i could put a seasonal driver in it for my summer time gravel and road work stuff i do i have a couple different gravel trailers already i could put one pulling the belly dump and the other pulling the side dump. e logs would not be a issue as its mostly air mile work. i probably would not be able to put a driver in it year round as i only have 1 hopper trailer, i don't think the margins are good enough to pay a good wage and lease another trailer and still leave enough meat on the bones for me, plus id need to find someone that could run cross border loads from Canada. 

 

the other thought is i could just rotate the trucks myself use the one for gravel work and not beat up on my e-log exempt truck for my highway work and keep a few more miles off that truck. 

[dogg rescue]

I would use it as a spare, hiring a driver sounds like a pita. Or sell it to me for parts.

[hatcity]

what will the costs be to just get the truck ready for the road (tags, insurance,...)

think of all the expense of putting another driver on (wage, taxes, WC,...)

then think of anticipated revenues from additional truck on the road

my opinion: switch them out day to day. find out what is wrong with new purchase, fix it, then you can shut the main truck down for needed items

 

[Ezrider]

i do like the idea of having a spare truck. when something breaks and i cant get parts for a few days rather than frantically trying to find someone that has the parts i need and ordering them next day air or driving 200 miles in the pickup to another dealership to get them.  you just hop in the other truck order the parts and fix it next week. 

im not big on having a hired driver there are times it would certainly be worthwhile would be nice to find a older semi retired driver that just wanted to work a month or two here and there when the good jobs come up that it would really be worthwhile but that is probably a pipe dream...lol

i really like the idea of not having to shut down to re-paint my truck. paint has been progressively getting worse every year and its starting to get to the point that it looks bad. i know i could easily end up putting 60-70 hours into a paint job on it pretty easily to do a decent job and do it right. generally about the time i think nothing good is going to come up for a week or two and i might start on it something good comes up. or when i do get a week i think something is going to come up that i want to be available for so i don't want to start it. 

so i am thinking i will probably do that first get the truck picked up gone over and road ready then run it for a little bit while i re-paint my current truck that will give me a good chance to shake the new one down too. if nothing else it could be a good flip. surely a usable truck is worth more than scrap...lol

 

when i bought my mack i kept my old fld around for a little while as a spare truck, but i really had no desire to ever drive that fld again after i bought my mack so i rarly ever used it. it was a fair bit of money every year to keep plates and insurance on two trucks rather than just one so i eventually sold it. this one being virtually the same truck other than being a 427 rather than a 460 i think i would probably be more willing to hop in it and use it than i was with the fld. when the choice was wait a day or two for parts or drive the fld i would wait for parts. i shouldn't mind jumping in this other one. last year i had over a month of downtime on repairs that would have certainly been worth while to have another truck last year. 

[Mack Technician]

If it will keep you out of a DOC, DPF, SCR, DEF cripple for another decade........heck yeah! End-of-life, do it yourself user, truck buyers like yourself are going to really suffer from the emissions garbage. 

Edited May 21, 2018 by Mack Technician

[Hayseed]

9 hours ago, dogg rescue said:

I would use it as a spare, hiring a driver sounds like a pita.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Plus 1 to what he said..

[Ezrider]

7 hours ago, Mack Technician said:

If it will keep you out of a DOC, DPF, SCR, DEF cripple for another decade........heck yeah! End-of-life, do it yourself, truck buyers like yourself are going to really suffer from the emissions garbage. 

i think by the time these trucks are old enough to not be feasible to keep them on the road anymore. it will probably be time to buy a new truck off the lot. assuming i am even still trucking at that point. with all the problems the dpf scr def trucks have new id hate to even think what it would be like owning one at 18-20 years old. 

[Rob]

If it were me; I'd use the proceeds from the sale of equipment to purchase a nicely restored, (or do it your self) older truck with some current updates. There are a lot of older trucks still out there and many of them will still be plodding along when the newer generations are melted down for new trucks. 

[Mack Technician]

 

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 7:33 AM, Ezrider said:

i think by the time these trucks are old enough to not be feasible to keep them on the road anymore. it will probably be time to buy a new truck off the lot. assuming i am even still trucking at that point. with all the problems the dpf scr def trucks have new id hate to even think what it would be like owning one at 18-20 years old. 

Are the newest production trucks beating your truck on fuel mileage by a good margin? 1 MPG or more, same application? I enjoy free agency to hate the EPA standards, but if they are that might justify the headaches and $$$, maybe bring it to a wash? Maybe not with variables like the downtime it causes? 

The guys I talk to with MP’s don’t have mileage locked down since they all pull into the factory with a log truck or other vocational ap. With these guys it’s about good habits and PTO time. Joe might be driving five miles back in the woods on a frozen snowmobile trail today, there goes that number. Haven’t seen a lot of posts here with guys crunching fuel numbers on MP series. Another number which is hard to produce is the amount of fuel consumed by regen. I had a CAT 9.3 with, I think, 15K hours that consumed 1,000+ gallons of fuel out the 7th injector, Interim 4.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Mack Technician

[Ezrider]

i don't really run side by side with many guys running new trucks, most the guys i run with are running big kitty cats, acerts,6nz's 550+ hp i beat those guys by a good 1mpg in fuel economy when you compare ifta's not what the drivers claim they get. or you fuel at the same spot run the same load and fuel at the same place and time the next day i almost always use 20-30 gallons less fuel. a lot of variables in the stuff i do as well. one day i might run 750 highway miles the next day may be back and forth across the same 5 mile stretch of road all day long. always heavy 90k-100k lbs idle time the winds we get in this part of the country can kill 1mpg pretty quick on a windy day as well. my 1/4's normally range from about 4.8-5.2mpg 

[Maxidyne]

A lot of that 1 MPG advantage you're seeing is the cumulative effect of Mack's little advantages- Less parasitic drag from the smaller 12 liter Mack engine, lower drivetrain losses due to the Mack's better driveshaft angles, better aerodynamics due to the Mack's more rounded cab and sloping hood, etc..

[Ezrider]

well iv got work for a second truck if i decide to go that way and iv got someone that wants to drive it. im going to be starting on a 2 year project i could add another truck on next week. hopefully going to find time to go drag the other Mack home here in the next couple weeks and see what iv even got. would be a good job to do it on if im going to do it very short hauls hourly rates should be pretty decent margins. its all going to depend on what kind of work this other truck is going to need to get it road ready. i have not committed to anything yet. 

 

i guess im kinda looking at it as if i don't have much money in the truck i don't have much to loose by not trying it. if they blow up the truck or destroy it in one way or another it becomes a parts truck witch is kinda what i bought it as in the first place. having some good work for it where i can put my truck side by side with the other should eliminate a lot of potential headaches and if we have some minor issues with the truck i can have my service pickup parked within a few miles of anywhere the truck will be. 

 

so i guess im thinking i might try it out and see how it goes. i told the contractor as well as the potential driver that even if we do this its going to be at least a month out before i am ready and im not going to say that we will or won't do it until i get a chance to drag the truck home and look it over.