Hopes high, we trotted off to Oklahoma City on the great truck quest. We arrived armored with our typical skeptical concerns about the prospective Hags chariot. Dyno results? 13 speed? 10 speed? autoshift? 455 hp? 515? Overdrive? No overdrive? BlowBy? 24.5LP tires? All of those questions had turned Fernando into a whirling dervish.

The guy had told us before we even left the house that the truck was DOT inspected and ready to roll off the lot. For those of you who aren’t drivers, a DOT inspection is a list of parts on a truck that must meet minimum requirements to be considered safe on the road. It includes things like no fluid leaks, all lights must work, drive tires must have a minimum tread depth of 2/32nds, horn must work, etc. Keep in mind that these are the minimum requirements for a truck to legally be on the road. If a truck can’t pass a DOT test it doesn’t move.

Another test that’s important when you’re buying a truck is the Dyno test. What is a Dyno test you ask? Well… let me tell you… mostly it’s a secret mystical ritual in which all the mechanics of a shop dress up in purple and black robes, with bone and feather headdresses and RedWing work boots. Then they light candles, beat on hubcap drums and chant magical words. They butcher a rooster and look at it’s innards. Then they charge you $250 and tell you what kind of shape the engine is in. This includes the horsepower that the truck is putting to the ground and another measurement of engine fitness called the “Blowby.” The blowby number is this mystical measurement of the amount of oil getting by the rings. Clearly, a large blowby number indicates that the rooster innards were not in alignment for you on that particular day.

Now… I am reaching a point in my life where I’m starting to know myself a little so I decided to have the Dyno done first. I’ll tell you why. See here is what I was thinking. The sales guy said the truck was DOT-inspected and ready to roll. And the pictures looked really good as you all saw in a previous post. So… I was afraid we would get down there and I would fall in love with the truck. Then I would take it to be Dyno’ed and the test would go badly cause the stupid rooster would escape out the back of the shop and the numbers would say don’t buy the truck. Then I would have an awesome seriously cool truck that I would have to resist buying because of some stupid BlowBy number. You all know I’m not good at resisting things. So I thought I would head that whole unfortunate situation off at the pass and have the Dyno done first so I would know the state of the engine before I fell in love with the truck. Tres mature, huh? I thought so, too.

The sales-guy was nice enough to offer to have the truck delivered over to the Detroit shop for the Dyno so when we showed up the results were right there ready for us to examine. It showed 376 horsepower to the ground. So I asked the guy, “Seriously? That seems awful low for a truck that only has 100k on a complete inline.” Then the head shop guy started mumbling about how that wasn’t all that bad. But I was figuring in my head and figured out that the engine was running at roughly 70% which wasn’t exactly floating my boat as they say. I wasn’t impressed.

Then the shop guy started talking about how they had done the Dyno the night before and they always get higher numbers when they do it during a full moon so that probably explained the low numbers. I guess I looked pretty skeptical because he then tried a new approach. He started out telling us the trouble they’ve been having getting decent roosters, but when I started rolling my eyes he quickly said that he thought the engine was actually set up as a 430/475 horsepower engine so the 376 number wasn’t that bad after all.

Bullshit. No salesman is going to advertise an engine at 515 horsepower when it’s actually a 430/475 engine. I was pretty much done with the shop at this point. So we walked out to where the truck was parked to check it out in person. Good lord there was no way to really be prepared for what we saw then. I’ll continue that in the next post.

Uhhhh… as it turns out I was just informed by the love of my life that this is only our 18th anniversary.

Damn it!

Can you believe today is Stace’s and my 19th anniversary?! Sure doesn’t seem possible that it’s been that long. Doesn’t seem like we’re old enough for that unless we got together when we were 7 or something.

And at the same time, it seems like we’ve been together forever. I honestly can’t imagine my life without her — the picture gets all fuzzy and out of focus. Life sure wouldn’t have been a fraction of the fun it’s been without her there by my side. I know couples grow up over the years and things change. Some of them grow apart but I can honestly say that I enjoy her company more today than I did back when we were kids. I am a lucky lucky Butch.

So what did I decide to buy my bride of 19 years for our anniversary? The same thing she wanted to get me:

HagMobile... better gift than a box of sugar-free diabetic chocolates? Yes!

Yup, that’s the potential new HagMobile in the flesh. It looks black in the photo but it’s supposed to be a really dark blue. Nothing is settled yet since they sent us a group of pictures and we could see right away from the photos that the truck didn’t have an upper bunk. Sigh. That was one of the first things I asked him since that is a must-have on our list of specs. He had told me he thought it did but come to find out he was mistaken. So he is now having one installed by his guys.

I was also planning on having him take off the fancy-pants chrome bumper with all the chicken lights and replacing it with a Plain Jane bumper since all those lights cause a tiny drag on the alternator and will decrease your fuel mileage slightly. I’ve never been a chrome-type person anyway. But… the more I look at it the more I think it doesn’t look that bad after all. As a matter of fact, I kinda think I like the look of the chrome one, and I doubt if those little tiny lights would really make that big a difference in our fuel mileage anyway. Good god what’s happening to me?!

Well, whatever we decide on the bumper, when he’s done making changes to the truck, he is going to take it over to the local Detroit to have the Dyno done for us. That should tell us what kind of shape the engine is in right now. Then we will head down there and take it to the Freightliner ourselves to have them go over the truck with a fine-toothed comb.

If everything checks out we will be good to go. Except for the actual purchase, that is. God, I’m dreading that. Stace and I are not wheeler-dealer type people. I know that there are probably guys who could walk into that office, offer him $5,000 cash, a non-running 1978 Honda TwinStar bike, the “actual” cb mic that Jerry Reed used in “Smokey and the Bandit” and $278 worth of coupons for I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter and walk out with a 2006 Pete with 300k miles on it. I’m not that guy. And Stace is even worse than I am. The whole idea of haggling practically gives her hives.

The last vehicle we bought was in 1989 when she bought the Trooper. Basically we took it for a test drive, decided it was the one and said she’d take it. Our one big victory was telling the salesman there was no way she was paying $800 for “undercoating” and getting that taken off the invoice price. Oh, and we also got them to throw in a no-cost full-sized wheel and tire for the spare instead of the donut that was standard. Stunning victories, huh? Haven’t bought a vehicle since. Sigh. That doesn’t exactly build confidence in our wheeling and dealing skills.

So my plan of attack is to get it really checked out carefully at the Freightliner and take a list of everything they find wrong with the truck with me to the salesman. It’s supposed to already be DOTed so hopefully they will just repair everything that needs to be fixed on-site before we take delivery. I guess another option would be for them to drop the price so that we could have it fixed ourselves. Either one would work I suppose.

Oh, and another thing, I ran the VIN through CarFax and found out the truck was in a “minor” wreck in New Jersey in 2005. Couldn’t find out any details about the wreck though. I did notice that the reman was done about four months after the wreck. Also, he sent me the copy of the paperwork for the in-line and, according to the paperwork, the engine only has about 130k miles on it  –  not the 300k he originally told us it had. So it seems like the truck has only driven about 130k miles in the past 4.5 years. That does tend to give weight to his original story that a local old man owned it, rebuilt the engine, bought a new tranny and clutch, got sick and couldn’t drive it much the past three years, and finally sold it to the dealer in the fall. Not sure what bearing all of this should have — if any — on our final decision concerning proper purchase price though.

One possible ray of hope is that I found out the same sales lot has a trailer we might be interested in buying. I sent him an email mentioning this and asked what kind of deal he could give us if we bought both at the same time. The trailer price is slightly higher than I was looking to spend, but if we could get both the tractor and trailer in good shape from the same place that would be awesome. Also, I’m hoping if we buy both I can get him to cut us a deal on the trailer since I know for a fact that it has been sitting on their lot for quite a while.

So anyway here’s where everything stands at the moment:

• Still madly in love with the same old woman.
• Thinking the potential HagMobile looks a hell of a lot better than I expected for the price.
• Wondering if I’m actually becoming attracted to chrome after all these years.
• Hoping the Detroit and Freightliner don’t find anything too dreadful during their inspections.
• Furiously clipping I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter coupons in case I suddenly sprout the wheeler-dealer gene.
• Dreading the actual purchase like it’s a root-canal and colonoscopy all rolled into one.
• Thinking diabetic chocolates would have been a lot less stressful… but also a lot less fun. 

Read this story over at a trucker’s site I hang out at and thought I would post it here. Posting it proves two things. 1) Much like when I was 12 years old, I still believe truckers are in general a good bunch of people. 2) I am a sap.

Enjoy:

A Truckers Story

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy.

But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn’t sure I wanted one. I wasn’t sure how my customers would react to Stevie.

He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs Syndrome. I wasn’t worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don’t generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.

The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded “truck stop germ” the pairs of white-shirt business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn’t have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot.

After that, I really didn’t care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old kid in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That’s why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn’t unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.

A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine.

Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.

Marvin Ringers, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table

Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Marvin a withering look.

He grinned. “OK, Frannie, what was that all about?” he asked.

“We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.”

“I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?”

Frannie quickly told Marvin and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie’s surgery, then sighed: ” Yeah, I’m glad he is going to be OK,” she said. “But I don’t know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they’re barely getting by as it is.” Marvin nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn’t had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn’t want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.

After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I didn’t get that table where Marvin and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pete and Tony were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,” she said. “This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup”

She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed “Something For Stevie.”

“Pete asked me what that was all about,” she said, “so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.” She handed me another paper napkin that had “Something For Stevie” scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: “truckers.”

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work.

His placement worker said he’s been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn’t matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.

Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn’t stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.

“Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,” I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. “Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate your coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!” I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room.

I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. “First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,” I said. I tried to sound stern.

Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had “Something for Stevie” printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.

Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. “There’s more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well.

But you know what’s funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table.

Best worker I ever hired.

Plant a seed and watch it grow.

I may not have a job, and my ass may be permanently attached to my big old recliner, but that doesn’t mean I’m a total loser. Really. You believe me, right? I mean, my god, I’m NOT a BIG FAT LOSER!

All this lazing about, watching TV and playing video games has actually made me a much more refined, intelligent and useful person. I’m a black hole of television knowledge, sucking in all I see, except all that stuff doesn’t get squinched down into unknowable denseness. Maybe black hole wasn’t the best metaphor.

So here’s what I know now that I didn’t know three months ago when I was still a contributing member of society –

1. It is practically impossible to achieve pro status at Wii Sports tennis, but bowling is a cinch, and you get a much cooler ball as a reward.

2. The second season of “Epitafios” completely sucked. Serial killers should be scary, not laughable, unless the creator of said serial killer is Dean Koontz, whose only talent is creating laughable serial killers. I wouldn’t want to deny the guy his living.

3. The favorite new TV word is “journey.” Everyone is going on a journey, even though they are not actually going anywhere. We’re talking a spiritual and/or personal journey here. Apparently, being on a reality show is a “journey.” Go figure. I’d always thought being on a reality show was a supreme act of narcissism. How embarrassing for me.

4. If you are feeling down or grumpy, just smile. According to some show on the Science Channel, simply using your smile muscles will improve your outlook. I tried it, and it works a bit. Cool. Except, now I feel a bit guilty about how one of my junior high teachers used to always blather to me, “Smile! It can’t be that bad,” and all I wanted to do in response was punch her in the face. Just a little bit guilty, since I’m certain she didn’t have the science to back her demands.

5. Another tip from the Science Channel — if you are like me, when it’s bedtime you are too lazy to walk all the way to turn on the hall light before turning off the living room light, which means you probably spend a tiny time every day bumbling around in total darkness, trying to find that damned hall light switch you were too lazy to turn on only moments before. Here’s the tip. Apparently, we humans do have the ability to use sonar/echolocation. So, while stumbling around in the dark, rather than bumping into the wall or tripping over the coffee table, just close your eyes and make repetitive beeping sounds. You will innately sense when something is in front of you. Seriously. It works. Try it. Think of yourself as one of those radar doodads on a submarine. Beep — beep — beep — beep — I think that’s a bookcase — beep — beep. Do it while someone is around and unaware of your experiment. It’ll keep them on their toes.

6. The vast majority of murderers don’t watch TV, or they don’t watch the right shows, since most of the things they do that eventually lead to their capture could have been avoided had they watched a couple of true forensics programs. Too bad for them, but good for the cops, I suppose.

7. I’m too old to play video games non-stop during my waking hours. And it’s not for the reason you’d think, like carpel tunnel or somesuch. It’s because I will play all day, then dream about the stupid games all night long. This wasn’t a problem when I was younger. Now that I’m older, I get all worked up in my dreams, trying to beat some level or other, or the game gets caught in a loop and I can’t get out. Either way, it wakes me up all stressed out and wired. Oh hell.

8. Drag queens can be boring. I didn’t think it possible, but it’s true. This new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race is not very interesting so far. At least I have picked up some new vocab, like “ki-ki” (two drag queens dating one another) and “fish” (a biological female). I am a bit PO’d at the whole “fish” thing, but isn’t it pointless to be pissed at drag queens?

9. I can watch shows about cakes (Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, Challenge, Ultimate Cake Challenge, et. al.), without actually craving cake. I cannot, however, watch more than 10 minutes of Man vs. Food without craving a 72-ounce steak, or at the very least, a three-pound cheeseburger with two pounds of toppings. And that just sucks.

10. Never, ever take your doctor’s word for anything. That weird, weeping rash you’ve had for a few years? Pitch that useless cortizone cream. Get yourself to a specialist, because it’s probably a parasite you picked up on that vacation in Barbados. I’m now uber-vigilant about odd symptoms. Anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, could be a stinking parasite. They’re never gonna get me, sneaky little buggers.

11. The ugliest woman in the world is currently starring in a program called “Operation Repo” on truTV. I may be a hag, but this woman appears to be reveling in her hagnicity. I can’t think of one more thing she could do to make herself more unattractive. The hair, the make-up, the clothes, the personality. Gads. It’s so bad, the other day we were watching and paused the show. Ugly woman was frozen on screen in all her glorious uglitude. Maggie had been napping, but happened to wake up and glance at the TV. All of a sudden she got all bristled up and started barking like a rabid critter. She wouldn’t stop until we took Ugly Woman off the screen. Now THAT is some kind of ugly, folks.

This is merely a sample of the useful information I have acquired since becoming a useless hairy mole on the back of society. I simply can’t imagine why people think TV and video games rot people’s brains. It’s soooo not true. They’re probably just jealous … and should go on a journey or something to heal themselves.

I guess the hunt wasn’t over after all cause now we have a real viable option in a whole different arena. I can’t even believe I’m saying this but we are now looking at 2000 Classic. I don’t have a picture of the exact truck we’re looking at but it’s similar to:

ok... did you ever think you'd see the day?

I know, huh!!  I never could have imagined we might be buying a Classic. In eight years on the road I’ve never driven a hood and honestly never much liked the look of them. They remind me of the Borg ship from Star Trek going down the road like a giant anti-aerodynamic block. Giant swooping blocks are just fine in outer-space where there isn’t any resistance but kinda silly rolling down the highway when there are much more aerodynamic options available.

But here’s the thing. We found this Classic nearby and it seems like a pretty good deal. It’s a 2000 and has a million miles on it. Never in a million years would I have thought I would consider buying a truck that old but this isn’t your average million mile truck. First, the engine has already had a P-3 Inframe done by Detroit. It has 300k on the Inframe. It also has only 3k on a new tranny and a little less than that on a new clutch. So basically the engine has already been rebuilt, the tranny is new, the clutch is new and the tires are almost new.

On another tact the interior is supposed to be a premium package. Course you have to keep in mind that it’s also ten years old so we have to take that with a grain of salt. It is promising that the truck was originally a Penske lease truck that was then sold to an O/O who had it for three years before he got sick and sold it back to this dealer. The dealer says he can document all of this and has all the maintenance and upkeep records on the truck. If it was an owner who cared enough to buy an ex-penske truck in the first place, he probably took good care of it. I say that because Penske trucks are almost always a lot more expensive than similar trucks you can find elsewhere. They can charge a premium because everyone knows Penske has excellent maintenance programs in place. I think that’s a good sign for us.

Another consideration for us is mpg. Clearly, when fuel runs $2.75 per gallon and you’re running 200k miles a year, mpg is an absolutely crucial part of the equation. It can make or break you. We knew in the Columbia we could look for about 6.5 to 7 mpg overall, but didn’t know what to expect from a Classic. Well it turns out that because we are looking at a pre-egr Classic we will probably be able to get 6.5 out of the truck if we’re careful with our driving. At least that’s what we’ve heard from different guys. I can certainly live with 6.5 mpg.

The other huge concern was the ride. The Classic is so much longer than the Columbia that it should ride better. The 260″ wheelbase on this truck is about a yard longer than the longest truck we’ve driven to date. Good for smoother rides but bad for turning radius. I imagine it will feel like the QE2 for a while when we first get it… if we get it.

Hmmm… other considerations… well we aren’t the type of people who like new things. By that I mean that we aren’t trade-up-for-the-sake-of-trading-up sort of people. We’ve been living in the same place for 19 years and we’re still driving a 1988 Toyota and a 1989 Isuzu for god’s sake. But why not? They run great, are almost never in the shop, and have been virtually free to drive for the past decade. The point is that we don’t get tired of our vehicles. So I would imagine that we would be the type of people to keep a truck we really liked for a very long time… as long as it didn’t start costing us an arm and a leg every month.

Another concern is that the truck is so old that no matter how good a shape it’s in we won’t be able to lease on with some companies due to equipment age restrictions. Bleh — we don’t care. We are talking right now to a tiny little company that doesn’t care what year the tractor is as long as it runs good. And our ultimate plan is to get our own authority so that shouldn’t be an issue. There’s also the problem of California… bleh — we don’t care about that either. Freight rates are so low in Cali that it doesn’t pay anyway. They can suck it.

Yet more considerations… truck is not pepto-pink which is a good thing. On the other hand, it’s supposed to be dark blue with white fenders, which wouldn’t be our first choice. On yet another hand, we don’t really care about the color when push comes to shove. Hmmm… it’s supposed to have really good tires all around. Also, it’s a 13-speed which we have never driven but I’m sure it will be a piece of cake after a few days. A down-side is that it doesn’t have an APU already installed. That kinda sucks, but you can pick a good one up for around $3k used and have it installed. An up-side is that they are only asking $14.5k which is dirt cheap. Let’s repeat that… they’re only asking $14.5k which means we could buy it and a used trailer for what we were talking about spending on the 2006 Columbia. That’s a pretty good up-side. Also, we could just pay for it so we don’t have to finance anything and pay 15% interest, which is the best they’re offering first-time o/o even if they have good credit.

Well that’s pretty much what’s going through our minds at this point. We are going to try to go down there and check the truck out later this week, but before that I need to get with Eddie and Jeffro to find out what else I need to focus on while inspecting the truck. Even though the large-ticket items have already been replaced or overhauled, there are still quite a few parts left on a truck (duh!) and I expect that every one of them will be on the verge of failure. We just need to minimize our exposure to high-cost repairs. I’ll update once we know more.

Here’s the specs for the truck junkies:

2000 Freightliner FLD13264T Classic XL

1,050,000 miles with 300k on a P3 Inframe. New tranny. New clutch. Premium interior. Good tires. DOT inspected and ready to roll. Supposed to be dark blue with white fenders but don’t know about the interior color.

...and my mother told me to pick the very best one...

I think we may have found a truck that will work for us. We haven’t worked out all the details yet but this is what we are looking at. For all you trucking gurus out there here are the specs:

2006 Freightliner CL12064ST-COLUMBIA 120

525,xxx to 545,xxx miles depending on the unit we pick

14.0L  Detroit    515 horsepower

Ultrashift tranny (aka autoshift… hurrah!)

3:58 ratio

22.5LP tires on all aluminum wheels

235″ wheelbase

air ride suspension

sliding 5th wheel

double bunks with pretty much basic interior blah blah blah

thermo-king tri pac apu installed (hurrah!)

some misc color to be determined later (whatever)

So there you have it, truck fans. That’s what we’re working with right now. They are asking around $24,500 depending on which model we end up picking. That’s about $5,000 less than they were asking for a similar truck without an APU back in November… Hurrah! We had figured out a brilliant scheme to get the truck without paying any interest at all on it but it’s not going to work out after all. See our thought was to pay $10,000 down and split the $15,000 remaining between two different credit cards that were offering 0% interest for a year. That way we could pay the vast majority of it off before any interest kicked in… hurrah! But in the end it wouldn’t work because they can’t accept credit cards. Oh well. Guess we’ll just have to finance it the old fashioned interest-paying way.

Also, if we end up leasing on with this tiny little company that we’re considering we will need to buy a trailer. Not a huge deal though since I think we can buy a good ’02 or ’03 trailer for around $5,000 or so. This little company is tiny — they only have six or seven O/O leased on with them. They are offering us 80% of the linehaul and right now they are averaging about $1.85 per mile fleet-wide. Not like we would be getting rich on that or anything but in the current state of the trucking industry it really isn’t a terribly bad deal.

Well that’s the current state of affairs. We’re working on all the paperwork and taking things one step at a time. There is just so much to do and it all has to be done at the exact right point in the process. It can get confusing. For example we have to be signed on with the carrier before we apply for financing for the truck… but the carrier wants to know what truck we have before they want to sign us on with them. Sigh. Also, we have to actually go and check out the trucks and pick one and have it put on the dyno and have the fluids tested and hire an independent mechanic to go over every square inch of the truck to see exactly what we’re getting. Some drivers also say you should get a complete dump of the ECM but to be honest I’m not sure that I would understand all the info I would be getting so I don’t know how helpful that would be to us.

Oh well, we’re slowly inching our way forward. Hopefully good things come to those who take baby steps. Tiny, confused, bumbling, stumbling baby steps.