Need any info on which motor to buy.

[Rawze]

(09-25-2019 )Tnhwyman Wrote:  ...
will be pulling 53' dry van, I have looked at a lot of international 9400's, Volvo
and Freightliner century trying to stay more on the aerodynamic side for fuel mileage.

does not sound that way to me.

The 9400, a Volvo, BOTH would struggle to keep up with a prostar, T680 / T700, or cascadia big time in profitability.

The century may have a chance if it has a 12/7 and the gearing right (3.79's or 3.90's) + horsepower mid-tier,.. but even still, a cummins CM871 in a Prostar or Cascadia would beat its pants off if it when tuned and built right.

ANYONE who wants to pull a dry-van or reefer -- first and foremost, if they do not spec the entire truck, engine, tires, driveline, tranny, etc. setup to be able to break 8+ mpg is shooting themselves in the foot these days!. They have to compete with low-rent mega-fleets, guys who are still cheating their clocks and log-books all the time using fake drivers, and every trick out there. Then there is the hyper-milers like me. -- if you can't set yourself up to compete with guys like me, you will never be happy not one damn bit.

Next is the matter of having the proper discipline to drive it right, even if it is spec'd properly. - Driving by your boost and pyro gauges (+ adding them to the dash if they are missing), learning to drive it OOG, learning to slow the hell down, learning to drive without cruise on and shifting often to optimize conditions and load so that it does not suck your fuel mileage away, + use the right gearing and rpm ranges when loaded and when empty, and all the other things that can make the difference of several thousands of dollars every year in operating costs.

Then there is a matter of self-sustainability. - If you can't do all your own work to it to keep it in good condition then all your competitive profit margins are going to go down the drain every year trying to keep it running and moving freight. - A person MUST any more be able to do all the light to medium maintenance and repairs (bare minimum) on it + keep after the emissions systems themselves if they want to keep any of the money they earn. - This means working on the truck every time you take a few days off and chasing the demons away before they put you on the side of the road or worse, at the end of a tow-hook.

In the end, if a person wants to be competitive at all and make a paycheck in the dry-van/reefer market that they can be proud of, they are going to end up with every tool + engine repair software for that truck + become familiar enough with their engine to do things like replace alternator, adjust valves in the engine, replace sensors and do tune-up work, + eventually learn the rest or they will simply be miserable all the time and broke paying repair shops to do things that they could have learned to do themselves but were too lazy to.

there is a VERY GOOD REASONS why 85%+ people who buy a truck struggle and don't make squat out here in trucking any more -- They fail to realize the true modern competitiveness of trucking and low rates, and especially the dry/reefer markets. Most of it is because they are not informed and disciplined enough to take full control of all their operating expenses, they drive it like a they are in some kind of race, getting pissed off every time another vehicle may pass them, nor want to see past their own ego or noses enough to realize that People like myself are going to under-cut their rate and steal their customers every time they get lazy and don't do all the things to compete with people just like me.