Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

Rawze

(04-04-2017 )Sledge Wrote: ...
I read that nothing but ISX can be properly de-mandated, am I wrong in this?

All I am really looking at right now are ISX Prostar/Cascadia.

Although I would not own one myself, gearhead and Unilevers can do Detroits on the same level of quality. They are the only one's I have seen that can though. Everyone else who does them is just poking blindly at them with the wrong software it seems. DDDL, DDDE, winols, are NOT anywhere near the correct software to do custom tuning on them with properly, so if someone tell you that is what they are using on detroits,.. run like hell the other way.

(04-04-2017 )Sledge Wrote: Currently at $33,000 CAD ($24,626 USD), slowed to $500 CAD once goal was reached.
Originally was planing for a +15% downpayment on new truck, but no longer thinking that way.
I have thought of what you suggested, one of the reasons I'm not feeling gun-ho.

I had only driven trucks for about 1 year. That is when we decided to buy our own. At that time, I had enough in the bank just sitting around to buy my truck brand new for cash and park it in the driveway if I wanted to. -- I was not stupid though, because I would have had nothing left.

I offered to drop half down up front, and got a deep discount on the truck (I gave $88,000 for it brand new), then half way through the deal, I re-negotiated and ...

* Got the payments down to about $420/week by pushing half the price out to the last (balloon) payment. This pretty much guaranteed my profitability margin would be good no matter what.

* Went on to pay on it for about 1.5 years, then just wrote them a cashiers check for the rest, and got the title. I saw no point in paying interest and we were successful, so I decided to just simply pay it off.

===

With only my one truck, above all my household and other expenses, I have managed to...

* Put all the $88k I spent on it back into savings in less than 2 years.

* Pay out the remaining $78k on my house in one lump sum to become completely debt free.

* Start an Internet forum so that I can help others do the same, costing me $700/month to run.

* buy the property and house next door for another $50,000 without even financing it.

* Spend the money for an inframe on the truck last year and didn't blink an eye about the costs, already had the money set aside for it even after buying the next door property.

Then out of nowhere, like being side-swiped by a freight train...

* Wife got breast cancer that came from nowhere without any warning. It grew so fast, in a couple months it was the size of a golf-ball and had spread fast up into her left arm by the time they cut it out of her a few weeks later. With no health insurance, it cost us roughly $33,000 out of our own pockets total. Hopefully they got it all, she is doing well and back to driving for now. In fact, if it were not for forum donations keeping the forum going, I would have likely had to shut down the forum. Thanks for all who donated enough to help keep it going.

* Keep our heads above water through all this with no regrets on our financial decisions.

I am still 100% debt free and slowly we are starting to recover. Looking back at it all, sure we could have not purchased the neighbors property and held off that inframe maybe a while longer, but she got the cancer with no warning shortly AFTER we had done these things. That is what life does to you, so if someone thinks they got it all figured out,.. Let me be the first to say that they absolutely do not!. You take it as it comes and work through whatever is tossed at you the best you can. I am very glad we do not spend our money, we save every penny we get, and we squeeze every last red cent possible out of your truck when it is rolling. If not for that, our story so far would have looked pretty bleak.

My point is that even if you have all the money to buy a brand new truck,.. don't shoot yourself in the foot. You never know what life is going to bring you in a week, or a month, or a year for that matter

My own story is a very strong case towards being successful by slowing down to roughly 60 mph on your own, saving as much fuel and operating costs as possible, and maximizing your profit margin above all else while out on the roads. Anything less and your just feeding your ego at the cost of being away from home and your family. To me it is not worth being out working hard if you don't press out every last red cent in what you are doing. Nothing else than that matters in comparison. I have never seen any money come from a bottle of chrome polish. I have never seen any profit margins or gains anywhere close to what we do in a square-nose truck. I have never seen anyone get close to our profit margin when they fly down the freeways trying to get that extra load in for the week. I also have never seen any higher profits in having the power turned up in your truck. those things are NOT good business decisions, I don't care who you are, or how you try to justify it. - Argue against this all you want to but It just don't happen that way. You are only fooling yourself at the end of the day.