[LandArts]

I'm thinking about buying a used diesel NPR 13' flatbed, 9 years old, 115k, under $9k.

Am I crazy?

[mcabbage]

Hi Landarts,
What will you be expecting from the truck?

I resently sold our 07 nqr Izusu and for my company I hated that truck, but in all fairness had the wrong wheelbase for the the job it was doing.

If you didnt wear your seat belt you would smash your head on the cab ceiling, rode like a bucking bronco. wore out tires over 50% when i sold it we had put only 6,000 miles in about 10 months since brand new.

It had a great turn radius but was very underpowered, we had an 18' cube box on the chassie and the whole rig weighed 14 k and was rated for 18k.
I added four leaf springs on each side and still was saging out on me.

All components are very cheeply made and felt like i was driving a fish bowl!

I could have saved a lot of time, agravation & a lot of money if i had bought the truck i have now in the first place, a 25,900 GMC.

Im not bashing Izusu some guys love them, but the truck has to be speced out right.
Mike

[Mac]

there is a local company who uses them exclusively for their maintenance crews with the piggy back beds. I cant ever remember seeing one of their trucks broken down and they have a number of them dating back many years.

What are you planning on having yours do for you?

[LandArts]

I just got a new trailer and our Sierra 1500s are having trouble pulling it with a few yards of soil up steep hills. Our need is for a truck that can haul a few yards of crush/run or a couple of pallets of pavers or stone and get into very tight spots. I'd rather have a cabover flatbed or mason dump and keep the trailer off the job site. The trailer would be used to haul a mini skid and lighter rental tools plus plants, mulch and pinestraw.

If I get a used flatbed I'd either have it converted to a dump or eventually replace the bed with a new mason dump.

[PSUscaper]

the npr isn't going to pull anything better than a 1500 sierra. The engines run forever but they don't have much power.

If your thinking about pulling a trailer, get rid of the 1500's and get 2500/3500. 1500's have little value except costing you a lot of money in repair work doing jobs they really aren't meant for.

If you want to get materials like stone and soil, why would you even want to mess with a flat bed? Get a dump now. Why waste money on something that isn't really what you need. It would be nicer than a pickup, but a dump is the only way to go.

Is the new trailer a dump trailer??? Maybe a new pickup and dump trailer would do the job very well. I ran a 2500 pickup with a dump trailer for about 4 years and had very good luck with that set up and found it very practical.

I also own a npr, 14,500 gvrw with a gas engine. I'm been very, very pleased with truck. I've owned the truck for 3 years now, and have worked the living daylights out of it. I haul 3-4 tons in it on a regular basis wheters its stone, soil, or block and pull my 864 bobcat with it. No real problems with the truck I have almost 36,000 miles on it and still on the first set of tires. Should get another year out of them. Its not the fastest truck, but it gets the job done. I also own a gmc 2500hd with the duramax and allison....the pickup is only 2 years old, does about 1/5 the amount of work, and has had 5 times the amount of problems.

I can not wait for toyota or someone to start making heavy pickups. I'm sick of the crap americans are building and would trade my gmc in a blink of an eye.

Also, don't get sucked into the diesel craze. Anyone do the math lately????? Diesel has been 50 cents plus more a gallon around here for almost a year now. Its simple math, you are not saving much over time with a diesel engine, so don't think you have to have one. Its funny how 'power hungry' everyone has become these days. Gas engines have been putting out more and more power these days and becoming more dependable. I don't know why everyone has to be able to drive up every hill at 75 miles an hour. A gas engine will get the job done. Besides that, most of the time a truck will fall apart before the diesel engine does anyway, so what is the point of having a motor last for 200k miles when the rest of the truck falls apart around it?

[LandArts]

We are going to continue having materials delivered to the job site and just bring in smaller amounts on the truck or trailer. I ended up not going with a dump trailer for a few reasons. Most of the time we are better off just loading right off the trailer or flatbed. I could have a flatbed converted to a dump for around $2800. We don't need to drive up hills at 75mph, I'm just concerned that the 1500 is going fall apart if we keep pushing it beyond it's capabilities.

[Squizzy Taylor]

I run a 97 NPR with the pre-turbo engine. I roll at...lets see...(gets at calculator metric to imperial) 21,000 lbs, Truck Trailer and Excavator.

Reliabilty and fuel economy are the biggest factors here and the ISUZU is so far ahead its not funny. I typically do better than (sigh, calculator again) 18mpg. The build quality is excellent but the Japanese are (just like their cars were 20 years ago) only just getting around to doing something called comfort in the cab. Late models are improved and most dealers have an option for seats with air suspension.

The power issue is much a factor of what you are used to and what you have grown up with. My rig aint doing much on hills (its pathetic) but it stays with the traffic around town no problems...and thats what I use it for..its a town truck. That year/model is infamous for lack of power. 05 onwards has heaps more power but the Japs build them to pull their full load, all day every day. They acheive this with gearing and keep it economical. Do you really need 8 cylinders, 300 Hp and 8mpg to haul 4 tonnes around a city???. In the 2nd Hand market Hino generally has more power pound for pound against ISUZU.

The cab/over thing is also a matter of what you are used to...some don't like it but servicing and maintenance is an absolute breeze...simple and everything accessible, just tilt the cab. I had a look under the bonnet of an 07 F250 the other day....what a nightmare. I changed the water pump on my Isuzu in well under an hour??. Its also worth noting that NCAP rates most late model cab/over Japanese trucks as better off in a frontal collision than 2500/3500 size long nose pick-ups.

It could be a matter of whatever turns your crank.......but with Diesel prices what they are...I'll upgrade to a new ISUZU when I've flogged this one into the ground. It hasn't got twin chrome stacks and big V8 sound but hell it gets the job done.

My two bobs worth...

[LandArts]

That particular truck was sold before I could grab it. Now I'm looking at buying a low-miles box truck and replacing the box with a dump bed. There are lots of used box trucks out there.