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maybe a blog to expand and develop a bit more on the points I bring up relating to truck fuel efficiency... stuff I've worked hard on, off and on over 20 years. Or, check out a real world tracking of my current super fuel efficient custom trucks progress. A few of the trucks I have recently had custom built for my customers, these past 18 months or so are state of the art fuel efficient custom sleeper trucks. I am beginning to track and report on what my customers are telling me and continuing my efforts toward delivering great truck fuel economy while meeting the power and fit to use expectations of the truck owners. LD 06-13-06
~ Watch for a relative up-tic in used quality aerodynamic truck values relative to their more classily lined brothers. LD 06-13-06 ~The clock is ticking as the new "trap" truck engines are 190 days away or less. If your existing truck wont last a reliable 36 months or so... You are in a short window of opportunity to order custom built trucks with proven engines while they are still available. If you have not made a truck buying decision... your next good opportunity to affordably buy new proven class 8 trucks will fall around Jan. 2009. One of the trade publications reported all time record truck orders were placed in January of 06. No surprise there. If the truck manufacturers don't get too
greedy, there is a
reasonable possibility that by the end of
February or maybe into March of 2006, every pre trap engine build slot for C15 and ISX engines that Historically, It is not unusual for truck build dates and deliveries to be out a year or longer. Because of the major EPA mandated heavy truck engine changes due January 1st of 07... if we have any economy at all as we go into 2007, a years worth of truck production will sell out in a matter of weeks. Actually production capacity for some key truck components has decreased since the last major surge of diesel engine pre-buying in the weak economy of 2002... So, change could happen even faster this time. ld Dec 13, 05 ... New trucks are starting to move off dealers lots again... helped in large part by aggressive support from the factories for old inventory. Slippery trucks are gaining some favor again. The classics are still popular, just not quite as popular as before the hurricane season. The bottom line is that if you are in need of a truck, chances are that the dealer will sell it for a bit less than last month... late September 05 It could be quite ironic... dealers loosing their rear by paying interest on the wrong mix of a lot full of stock trucks, and the truck operator needing to buy new because of the "trap engines" are just 500 days away... where is the winner? late july 05 |
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early june 05 I've been away for a while... a couple months -busy, deep into the changes facing America's trucking community. One of the biggest deals facing trucking may be that there is almost no - nice, low miles used equipment and high, no - no, exceptionally high new truck prices. Two reasons stand out... First -As I write this we are 18 months 28 days from diesel engines with particulate traps. A present due in from the EPA January 1st 2007. Just now we are still learning to accept the Oct. 1 2002 EPA engine... we have been fighting through: Poor fuel mileage, inconsistent or poor performance, reliability issues, costs more, oh boy! A second reason for high truck & trailer prices is because there were many trucks and trailers produced from '96 -'00 model years... but relatively speaking, few produced from 01-03 1/2. During the years the economy was most sluggish dealers had plenty of 96-00 used trucks to sell. Now the economy is at least slightly stronger and the '00's are to old and there were darned few later models produced. Manufactures feel they must make large profits NOW, because they can... And, unless there is action from an unexpected direction, manufactures can be certain that there will be minimal sales of 07 EPA equipment until long after January 1st of 2007. ...very bad news indeed, both for the manufactures and their customers... forcing yet another shakeout: business failures; fewer choices; fewer customers; fewer jobs. Hmmm... Oh sure, there are other things going on too. More later.
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