A little long but try to bear with me.

I've been fighting a bad ride issue with my truck for about a year. I've spent a lot of money on it and it still does it. It will start bouncing on a perfectly smooth highway. I've done everything including:

- Ride height
- Air bags
- Shocks
- Added a crossmember
- Fuel tank straps
- Bushings
- New tires all the way around

A lot of this stuff needed to be done on the Volvo anyways, so it wasn't a big deal. The big deal is that the issue is still there, so I decided last month to retire the truck after a brutal trip. My back has been sore ever since. Doesn't help that I got into a MVA a couple weeks ago with my F150 (she turned right in front of me). To be quite honest I think I hurt my back more from standing on the brakes so hard rather than the actual accident. My head hit the roof.

What I'm looking for in a used truck:

2000-2003 Kenworth T800
At least 60" sleeper
13 speed or 18 speed
Detroit series 60

What I want, but am willing to sacrifice:
- Grey VIT interior
- Full gauges
- Side exhaust
- 3.70 or 3.73 gears
- 11R22.5 tires
- 244" WB
- One piece windshield

Truck #1 was a 2000 T800 at Ritchie Brothers auction in Edmonton. I actually drove 850 miles to get there. It was all polished up, and the guy had a fresh safety on it. It's pretty obvious the safety was crooked by all the leaking wheel seals. Not only that the front diff was bone dry. It had side exhaust, VIT interior, 18 speed, and a useless to me PTO. It also had cracked glass and the air compressor pumped a lot of oil. The engine oil sample came back great. I decided it was worth maybe 18k-20k to me at most. It went for 34k!

Truck #2 is a somewhat local truck that I've been looking at in the past few days. I also took it for a drove and it seemed to run good. Oil pressure is good but I haven't mechanically checked it out yet. However I did an oil sample and they said it was so contaminated it plugged up their unit. The guy said to get another sample from the middle of the oil. The truck seems to be in decent shape, but it needs paint. It has a 13 speed, 3.70 gears, 11R22.5 bald tires. No side exhaust, or even tool boxes for the batteries. It has the tanks right under the door. It's a bit more of a company truck compared to #1. The air compressor was pushing oil, and I found invoices indicating a low/high transmission problem probably related to the pushing of oil. They're asking 22k for this one, but the contaminated oil sample is really turning me off. I'll try to get another one to ease my mind.

If any of you guys can locate me a decent truck with the specs I want I'd definitely be willing to pay a finders fee. My sources include truckpaper.com, trader.ca, truckandtrailer.ca, ebay.com, kijiji.ca, searchtempest.com (all of craigslist), and every auction site you can imagine.

 

I found my truck on commerical truck trader it was owned by a private carrier, so far all i have done is changed the oil and replaced the steer tires, they were worn a little on the inside, I looked for around 3 months before I found it, very happy with it.

 

I was going to suggest those sites.........

Try truckers buying guide, the have editons for all the areas, also TNT which is truck and trailer magazine, its primarily in the northeast, (a long stretch for you) but ya never know, you can always get someone from the area off of the forum (like me) to check it out for you if you find something.

There are lots of dealers who DON'T advertise on truck paper, the truck you want is probably sitting some where just waiting to be found.......try looking for a KW dealer list, then start calling the ones that don't appear on truckpaper.com

 

I just want to add to what's been said. Even if they are in a "paper", they might not advertise such an old stuff. So get on a phon!

 

People are still getting good deals on truck repos. Although we don't stock any repossessed trucks (we are a truck financing company) there are many truck financing companies that have whole divisions set up to liquidate their repos.

 

Thanks for the tip! Where can I find those?

 

I believe the Truckpaper still has free classified ads where you can put an ad to see if you can find the truck you want. Put all your specs in the ad along with your phone number or email and wait for the phone to ring. I have also seen some decent looking trucks by driving on some of the back roads. You can also make a few calls to some dealers and see if they can keep an eye out for what you want. MHC Kenworth has a lot of dealerships across the U.S. Rush Peterbilt also has a lot of dealerships across America. I am sure that they could post your wants on some sort of internal board. I don't think either are all that cheap, but I did get a very good deal on a KW from MHC several years ago. By the way, The Truckpaper also lists all of the major equipment auctions on their website.

 

man i hear ya. thats pretty much the exact truck i'd want too.. but with a cat or cummins.

did you look in to MHC? they have a huge online search with a lot of trucks.

 

Still not having any luck. The only truckpaper responses I get are ****ing daycabs with cat engines. The furthest thing from what I want. Do people just not pay attention?

 

Found one in TNT go to TNT Truck N Trailer Magazine and look at the online magazine and go to page 41. It wouldnt show up when i looked on their website. But it is in the book.

2000 T-800
Detroit 450HP
13speed
60in walk in sleeper
Says 6.5 MPG
220in WB
Does have side exhaust