Zudnic

I have car knowledge, owned a high end pre-owned dealership and repair shop. Also have a little boat knowledge and I like trucks but not big rigs. Since I'm the resident car/boat and even plane nut in the office my mission is finding new to us commercial trucks.

First Need: We own a fresh juice company (mostly apple), our local Pepsi distributor will vend our product in their machines. We need our product refriged, Pepsi does not have trucks with cold. So part of the deal is we buy the truck. What would fit the bill? Around $30,000 I'm thinking for budget. Also thinking we will need in near future full long haul semi tractor and trailer.

Second need: We own 600 acres of orchard and need a simple flat bed for hauling bins to our packing plant. I'm also into cars, so the flatbed like the tow companies would be nice for me.

Makes Models and even attempts at selling me your stuff is welcomed and thanked in advance.

dukenrock

I own a telecom company and have over 18 vehicles on the road every day. I have been loyal to the GM vans only because of the fact that the layout of the vehicles make it nice to work out of for my techs. Last week I was speaking with ny neighbor who is the GM of one of the largest Dodge dealerships in the area. He gave me a brochure of a vehicle manufatcured by Mecedes and labeled Dodge. Has a diesel motor and sturdy as heck. (Ugly as heck too) 23+ MPG, great layout to work out of. I'm seriously looking at making a switch. Check them out, you may be pleased.

jordy

That ugly Dodge/Mercedes is called a Sprinter van. We've got a couple at my shop and run the wheels off them and they get 23 or so mpg. Pretty amazing really. I don't know about setting them up as a reefer though. I'm sure it has been/can be done, I just haven't seen them out here setup that way.

dukenrock

From what I've been told, they'll set them up however you want too. I was pretty excited to hear about these. If you only knew how much I spend on fuel and maintenenace for my company vehicles, you'd be amazed. My boat fuel expense won't put a dent in it. And I'm just a little guy. I feel for those big companies. If I can take my vans from 14 to 23 MPG, I may just buy another boat! .

Zudnic

Our Fed-Ex just got the Dodge/Mercedes things. We might need a little bigger. But I'll look into them. Bigger only because two of our distributors keeps ordering small filler amounts. We fill both these places 40ft trailers with product two days latter both need an extra pallet. Hiring a truck is expensive for this, so I've gotten those orders in my Excursion, not on the pallet. It would be nice not to have to un-load and put these on a pallet. Just put the whole pallet in and un-load and be done. Since we will also be paying for the driver, time is money. Since the vendings machines (schools going sugar free, yeah) truck will only be used twice a week. I just thought of it, we would use it to deliver to some of our local grocery stores as well. A little larger might be in order.

The buy another boat comment made me think of getting max use for the dollar out of our truck!

dukenrock

Should check them out to see if they meet your needs. If you end up with a new boat over it, you did your homework!!!! (WT Heck, get the boat anyways )

hillbilly24

As far as the reefer truck you will have to go with a box truck of some kind. The van looking things don't convert well to refer units. There are alot of option as far as box trucks go, everything from Iszuzu to Freightliner and most of them are decent trucks. There just isn't as much room for krap in the commercial industry. Becuase most commercial trucks are fleet owned and fleets see the benefit of paying higher initial cost over higher maintencnce in the long run, most of the poorly built or designed trucks just don't last long on the market. I have always been a fan of the Iszuzu even though they sound like they are about to scatter at any minuit they run like a mule forever. The old Freightliner FL-60 is a pretty good truck too but they changed the model name to something else now, Jordy is more up to date on this stuff(I work on off highway equipment now, to many hacks with no tools calling themselves mechanics and willing to work for 15 bucks an hour in the truck industry to make any money.) The one thing that is importantant is fleet standardazation. But everything the same make and engine manufacturer. You will save alot of money becuase you throw all your parts and sevice buissness to one guy and he will give you better pricing then if you spread it out to 3 or 4 diffrrent places. hope this was of some help

dukenrock

Hillbilly,
You mentioned Fleet Standardization. That's just as important as the vehicles you choose. As I mentioned, I have been sticking with GM, not particularly because I like them, but the dealership I purchase them from knows my business. My Operations Manager has been given the authority to make my vehicle purchases. I pay him a lot of money, and I don't need him shopping vehicles, etc. He just calls his rep and says, "DITTO", and a week later we have our vehicle with racks, LOGO, etc. Plus we know where the shortfalls are and try to anticipate them. If you can afford diesel up front, do it. I'm not far from making the change.

dukenrock

Forgot to mention the incredible service we get because we buy all of our vehicles from one place. That's worth it's weight in gold.

hillbilly24

the benefits of fleet standardazation are endless. I worked for Durham School Services and we had 15,000 busses nation wide. over 8,000 of them were CAT powered. When we asked CAT to jump they said how high? The same concept does apply to smaller fleets right down to those with 4 or 5 vehilcles. Another nice thing is that if you do your own maintence and repairs in house, you don't have to stock as many parts.