[A to Z]

Looking for some advice on a 2006 Medium duty truck... Must have at least a 33,000 gvw. I am wanting to haul 10 tons or more so I will need a pusher axle in addition to stay legal. Any advice or past experiences would be helpful - International, Freightliner, Ford, GM, Peterbuilt, Mack???

[Matt Kulp]

We have been using International now for 2 years. Have been very happy with the truck. If you are buying a truck to put a ton of miles on and keep it for a long period of time, make sure you get a sleeved engine that you can rebuild. I would not recommend a auto trans., we have a Allison auto in ours and it is great. The only draw back is shifting so much under heavy loads, and the fuel mileage is not as good as it could be. We will be switching to manual trans on the next truck we buy.

[Bill Schwab]

We lost the last Ford truck I'll ever own (except if it is older than 1950) before Christmas. So, no on Ford, they are incapable of making trucks used for serious work. Freightliner makes a decent truck, but does not really have a following to gain the resale you should get come time to flip it. Cornpicker makes a good truck, but I have never been keen on the extremely reliable DT engine series. Plus, the future of that company is in the wind, as Ford is having thousands of problems with the new 6.0 PSD's and there is a strong rumor they are going to change engine builders for 2007. The DT-466 and others are pretty gutless in my opinion, especially if you are going to run heavy. BFI had an entire fleet of garbage trucks in Melrose Park Illinois and those things could not pull a booger out of a wet bucket of snot.

Peterbuilt, good truck with a following, be sitting down when you get a price, and, if ever you need to repair damage, OUCH!.

I had one and traded for the Mack Visions that we have now. For heavy hauling, Mack owns the market, will bring pleanty of resale, and if you look at the performace records comparitively to any class 7 truck, yeah you pay more, but you will make it up in performance. If you absolutley need that tripple axle rig (front axle and two drivers) no question, hands down, I would go Mack. Get the EZ-427 engine, 21,000 lb front and dual 38,000 lb rear axles. Get the 100,000 PSI frame and you are set. All you will ever do is oil, grease and shine it for 10 years. Or, of you want to wait until 2007, they are introducing a 985 cubic inch engine pulling 600 HP that will exhaust air cleaner than it takes in. Plan on $100K with a dump/roll off, etc body.

GM, we have some of them as well, mater of fact, those are the work horses of the fleet. The most recent was a class 6 series 6500, powered by a Duramax and an Allison manual trans.

This is our undisputed best work horse for what we do, it has a great ride, awesome turn radious, (out rurning an F-450 that was 5 feet shorter in wheel base. We're getting between 12 and 14MPG loaded or empty. It has electric over hydraulic brakes and with the combination of the engine brake, we can stop it loaded with a 20 ton trailer and machinery going down a 7° grade very well. The cool thing, since it uses hydraulic brakes, and, is in the class 6 weight class, it insures for the same price an F-450 did when it worked in the fleet. Now this is a dual axle truck ( front axle and single rear drive) and we can legally carry 7 tons, and a trailer.

As soon as you add that back drive axle, your insurance will double per truck. So, unless you already have, I would really weigh weather you need that axle or not, and project what it will bring you in terms of revenues to recover that extra cost. The other cost consideration is fuel.

Anyhow, goodluck with whatever you purchase.

[A to Z]

Thanks for the advice - I am narrowing down the field. Matt - Why don't you like the auto in the International. Is it the 6 speed Allison Auto? Everybody and there mother keeps telling me the the bugs have been worked out of the new Allison Autos. I will only put about 10-15 thousand miles a year on the dump. I feel I can keep it a reliable rig for at least 10 years or until I can't afford to repair it... I get conflicting advice on the the issue of auto vs manual. Both salesman at Peterbuilt and Freightliner said there is no need for a manual in a medium duty truck - mostly due to the fact of too many different drivers in the truck ruining the clutch.

Bill - your 6500 is equipped with what - the 6.6 or 7.8 Dmax? Would you buy it again? Exactly why the manual over the auto???
What about 4 x 4??? Thanks...

[Bill Schwab]

A-Z:

It's a pretty basic truck in terms of yuppisms that trucks don't need. It's got the 7.8 in line six. The manual transmission. I chose that option because in all honesty, automatic transmissions in large trucks only pencil out if you have alot of start/stop situations like garbage haulers, short run deliveries, etc. Even though the Allison is a very reliable tranny, when it scatters, it will cost you $6,000.00 for the repair, and, it is a $3,800.00 factory option. The terrain we have in San Diego county is not at all like you have in Iow, where it is flat for the most part. We are in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, and it is very common to pull or drop down long 6° grades. A manual transmission works much better in that situation. If you are going to have multiple untrained drivers, then I think the auomatiic might pencil out better when you consider a clutch job will run over $1,500.00.
The truck is a 26,000 GVW that is the same truck as the 33,000 less air brakes. 80K frame. 208" wheelbase, with Alcoa wheels. They got funky on putting a verticle exhaust on it, so I'm doing that next weekend with a hollow flow muffler. It ain't a truck unless it barks ya know....The cab is standard 2 door, cloth seats, crank windows, air, cruise, engine brake.
There is a 3' wide tunnel box behind the cab that I would not ever go without again. The body is a 14' roll off reeving hoist. We have a cloaking device (Roll-A-Tarp), pintle style hitch with 2 3/8" ball and slide in 2" reciever under that.

Why I would buy another duplicate is following. First, it will easily haul 7 tons, and does everything we need it to do. It is a little underpowered, but that is just me. I like over powering things, that photo circulating with the Chevy v-8 in the walk bahind snow blower is my style. And in all honesty, when we got next to a Ford 650 that had a C-7 Cat and 6 speed stick, hauling almost the same weight I pulled away from him going up the grade, which surprized the heck out of me. My sales rep told me the Dmax had more power than the Cat and I did not believe him.
So, it was not as underpowered as I thought. It has a nice ride, and, it will turn tighter than the F-450 we had with a 12' box on the back. Keep in mind, this rig is 208" long, plus the overhang past the axles.

It came with a 75 gallon fuel capacity, 25 gallon on the passenger side, and 50 under the drivers side and the engine draws from both tanks without one of those electric switches that always seem to fail.

Tax freight and out the gate, this truck was high 53, almost $54,000 range. Add air brakes, and the price will run near 57K. But that is with the body, box, and all the bling. You get into a 35GVW Mack or Pete, plan on 69K for the Mack chassis and about the same for the Pete. Then there is whatever you want to spend on the body. Since I put this truck on a 7 year company plan, it should last that amount of time without undue inscheduled repairs. We took the GM trac-lease* which I would recommend to anyone who wants to keep the money they make, you put the first and last payment up front, make payments of $1200 or so per month, and after 5 years, pay a small price and it's your ride until you trade.. This truck looks like one that cost alot more money, and it works like any of them in that class. There are many Caterpillar powered 6500's running around here that are over 10 years old.

Anyhow, that's my story.

[Matt Kulp]

A-Z,

I may have spoken a little to early on the auto. We have a 4 speed in our 98 4700. Some of the things that I do not like about it, I know they have changed with the more recent year trucks. The biggest is that they now have a parking gear. Ours does not have a parking gear, it only has neutral with a e-brake. Another thing that I noticed with our truck and the auto trans seems to shift at higher rpms and thus uses more fuel then I believe the manual would. It does not matter if you shift it manually or just keep it in 4th gear. If you are loaded and climbing hills you have to shift manually or the truck will continue to shift and loose power. I have only been able to get about 8-10 mi. per gallon out of our truck, and I have a colleague that has the same truck except for manual and he is getting close to 15. One last thing. Our truck does not have an engine brake, so when going down hills you are in coast unless you manually down shift the truck. When loaded this becomes a little tough on the brakes.

I know the newer Allison's have worked out alot of the bugs, so these may not be issues for you. As far as drivers, the auto trans has been very easy for a driver to hop in and go. When we go to purchase our next truck, I will probably take a hard look at this same issue. It has been a great truck, I have 145,000 mi on this truck and the only thing mechanically that has went for me is the fan clutch and the oil pump. If you have any other questions, let me know.

Mk