TeamsterGrrrl

With mining in a recession worldwide, not much new equipment is being bought.

Probably just metal fatigue hastened by overloading. You've gotten your money's worth out of it, time to replace it with a Mack!

Yup, the Scammell version looked much more "truckly"!

Most Social Workers work in government, and because the job generally requires at least a 4 year degree, they're well paid. Back in the 90s before Minnesota upped the prerequisites for licensure I could have gotten grandfathered in based on my having a 4 year degree with some social work and psych courses and experience working in social service agencies, and my social worker friends tried to talk me into it. Probably would have paid about the same as the Postal Service and similar benfits, so didn't make much difference that I stayed in trucking.

Actually the T45 crossed the Atlantic to America in several forms. For a start, Truck magazine ran a couple articles on Leyland testing the T45 in Canada in winter and Death Valley in summer. Their was an outfit in West Virginia that imported at least one T45, did enough "assembling" to call themselves a manufacturer, then tried to sell them to the state, taking advantage of a "buy local" preference. A few years later T45 cabs popped up on rebuilt American chassis in western Canada, but I don't think that effort at truck "manufacturing" went anywhere either. BTW, there were a lot transatlantic deals like this that resulted in one off or short production runs or importing of Euro trucks in America- For example Schweing concrete placers brought over and mounted their concrete placer on at least one Terberg with a Volvo F10 cab here in Minnesota, Advance-United trucking used Mercedes cabovers for city tractors, etc..

So you think I should have been a social worker instead of a truck driver? I had the credentials for licensure in either profession...

When you're all by yourself, "independence" is sorta overrated...

Well, if you really want a Mack medium truck... The Mack/Renault medium shared it's cab with DAF, and Volvo and Magirus back in the 80s. That alliance is still sharing a cab, though Magaris has been absorbed into IVECO and dropped out while Paccar has bought DAF. Paccar owns KW and Pete too, which means you can buy the current Mack/Renault medium cabover with a Cummins engine at your friendly local KW or Pete dealer. Who'da thunk it? BTW, the Leyland T45 medium finally made it to North America thanks to Paccar also, they sold it here for a couple years before replacing it with the current "club" cabbed DAF.

Always seemed strange why someone would forego a good job with health insurance and a pension to drive, fix, and live in an old truck for less money. In some cases it was alcohol or drug addiction that kept them from passing drug tests, or mental health issues that got them fired. In some cases they were trying to avoid their responsibility to provide for their spouse and children. But in some cases it's plain and simple just the lure of the road and independence... I hear that calling every once in awhile, but then I get out pencil and paper and "do the numbers" and they don't add up.

The story I've heard is that when Volvo bought out GM heavy trucks, there was a non-compete clause in the deal whereby Volvo agreed not to sell a medium truck that would compete with GM's. Thus the Volvo FL cabovers were dropped in the American market about 20 years ago, and the Renault/Mack mediums were dropped shortly after Volvo bought Renault and Mack about 15 years ago.

Anyone with decent technician skills can make more money fixing trucks than driving them, and get to sleep at home too. Sounds to me like you're a hobby trucker.

So when you gonna be able to retire?

Much ado about nothing... I haven't done paper logs in over two decades, starting using electronic logs at UPS back in the early 90s. As far as pre 2000 trucks hanging around to avoid ELDs, most of those old trucks are on runs that are already exempt from logbook requirements.

TS7, North Dakota and the other "petro states" are all feeling the pinch of low crude prices, but most like NoDak have other businesses like farming, manufacturing, and software to fall back on. I've never owned because every time I've done the numbers on buying my own truck I found I would be much better off as a company driver. As far as taxes, that's one of the reasons you buy a new truck- much easier to deduct depreciation than shoeboxes full of parts receipts and tow bills!

Dirty, good to see you got a decent deal. As for the baubles, "Chrome won't get ya home". As for the Ranger, great truck, but after 20 years service it's probably getting retired. Sure, I could strip it to a bare chassis then de-rust, replace all the failing bits, and repaint. But with a 2003 TDI to handle the trailering duties and serve as a spare, I don't need the Ranger and makes more sense to spend my time restoring the Cooper S instead of a garden variety Ranger. The 2013 TDI is about to go back to VW, it's being replaced by a new 2015 TDI that I'm picking up thursday, and I'll come out a couple thousand ahead on the deal.

You guys really expect me to believe you got six figure sums in the bank, but you run old trucks because you like 'em? If that were the case you'd be preserving your old Macks instead of working them! Saw a study the other day comparing average vehicle age with average income in Kentucky... Turns out the biggest determinant of how long people keep vehicles is income. In the higher income areas people trade for new every 5 years or so because they can, in the low income areas they buy vehicles that are at least 10 years old and run 'em into the ground, because that's all they can afford. I learned about this early on working for fleets... SOP was to trade the vehicle before it got so old as to be unreliable and needed a lot of expensive repairs. For a high mileage fleet this meant around 5 years, before an engine overhaul was needed, and about the time the extended warranty ran out and and as soon as they could claim a depreciation tax write off on it. For a lower mileage fleet around 10 years was common, with the vehicle put on close to home low mileage runs the last few years. That's why back when the trucking industry was healthy in the 60s and 70s you didn't see many trucks over 10 years old on the road. Today rates have been cut to the bone, the big fleets get huge discounts on everything, and the only financing smaller operators can get is on credit card terms. There's no shame in admitting that you're poor and underpaid, but it's stupid to stay in that rut. When you're having to spend $10k plus to overhaul a truck that's worth $5k, it's time to look for a better job!

Sorry that this forum is about all the computers you can handle, remember the weeks it took some of you to adapt to the last software upgrade? And while you caveman are busy gettin' greasy trial and error replacing parts, I've neatly plugged my computer in and fixed the problem. I mean... Can't you guys even handle VMack 1?

And if your union hating business strategy is so successful, how come you can't afford a truck with a computer controlled engine?

Thanks for telling us what you really think, guys! Rowdy, being as you don't need gov'ment and that levee we built for you, we'll take the fill and repurpose it for light rail lines. Milkman, sorry, but hauling that white stuff around your rural "white homeland" won't make you any whiter. As for saving your "white race"... What "white race"? Science tells us that we all trace our genetic roots back to Africa!

Nice try, Rowdy. For an "individual", you sure seem to slavenly follow Faux News philosophy... I hear the same lines from you as I hear from a few million other olde white guys impoverished by giant corporations they can't even comprehend. But fear not, you're still free to sweat it out in your old Mack and await the flood in your double wide down by the river. And Euro economies pale in comparison to ours? Germany probably has the strongest economy in the world, and most of the EU ain't doing so bad either. Meanwhile, the world's huge corporations are building plants here because we undervalue our labor and environment almost as much as China. Which economic model do you want your country to follow? As for "Radical Islam", It's hard to consider a movement so weak and disorganized that it has to resort to terrorism a serious threat, but they're slight more serious a threat than socialism, which ain't much of a threat at all.

Seems to be working quite well in Europe. And maybe you guys didn't get the memo a quarter century ago, but "socialism" is no longer the enemy, it's been replaced by "islam".

Back on topic, Venezuela is in an economic crisis because oil prices are down. They let there economy become too dependent on oil and are suffering for the lack of economic diversification. North Dakota is having the same problem, though to a lesser degree.

Well Rowdy, If you're smarter than the gov'ment, how come you're not rich?

So you got no problem with electronic logs?

I know how it's done... Guys buy their own truck, then cheat on their logs and fix the truck on their one day off a week... Then they whine about the Teamsters who demand more than sub minimum wage for their labor.