trucks

[truckwife]

My husband and I are newbies and are thinking of buying our own 22 foot straight truck. We read that some freightliner owners were having trouble getting replacement parts for their trucks and costing them alot of downtime. Would some of the owner operators that have purchased several trucks give us advice as to which trucks they have found to be the most service reliable. Thanks in Advance
TenTen

 

[davekc]

The Freightliners we have owned in the past were nothing to get excited about. I only have experience with the FL70 & 80's. You will have to read some of the posts on here relating to the M2's. As you stated, we had many part availibility problems. While I am sure there are some good dealers, our experience with them was poor. Either work was done incorrectly, used wrong parts, or left our truck sitting for weeks as they were too busy, or were waiting on parts. Keep in mind this only relates to my experience and the FL70 and 80. I see many Freightliner Century trucks but can't comment on those.
As far as resale, best service,locations, ect, I would have to go with Kenworth. We have a T300 with 300,000 on it, and our cost to date on repairs is half what the Frieghtliner was. Never had to wait or go through a bunch of game playing on repairs ect.
The downside to KW and Pete is they have smaller cabs. Alot of folks run a class 8 and that might be worth looking at, but will cost you more.

 

[carstea]

No question and no answers from me...just a comment...

Your question was outstanding...thanks for asking it and the response from davekc was very helpful.

Thanks again! Just thought I should pass along kudos for the topic...it is something all of us newbies want to learn about.

 

[ATeam]

My wife and I have driven two Class 8 Freightliners in our brief (9 month) career as expediters. These are fleet owner provided trucks. Based on our experience with them, we're going with a different brand when we buy our own truck.

The hard-to-get parts issue you describe is well known throughout the industry. We've experienced it ourself. However, that in itself is not a reason to shy away from Freightliner. I've heard that parts are getting hard to get with most brands. It seems the new practice is for dealers to stock some parts, but to order overnight from a larger supply of parts kept at a central location.

I recently had occasion to write a letter to Freightliner's President on another matter. I was surprised to receive a personal response from him and his request for a letter back from me explaining why we decided against purchasing a new Freightliner. We're working on the letter now.

I was surprised because I figured Freightliner, like all big brands is mostly concerned with fleet sales and customers that buy dozens, hundreds, even thousands of trucks at a time. The President's interest in one lone expediter was a genuine surprise.

We'll be nice in our reply, and also frank.

 

[davekc]

that is a surprise! I think his intentions are good. I would explain to him that the problem is related more to there dealerships and part networks. Better yet, refer him to this site so he can see some of the posts regarding them and maybe make some corrective changes.

 

[ATeam]

Exactly.