Peterbilt 385?
 

Hey all, I decided to step up to a later model truck and found a Pete 385 that suits my needs pretty well but i got afew questions. I did search and wow truckers will argue about anything on this board! So this thing is a LWB former tanker chassis 680k miles C-15/475 with an unknown 10 speed. It was converted into a dump truck, and I know the guy who did it so I am ok with that aspect of it. My questions are what the heck is a 385 catagorized as? Vocational? It has a 3/8 frame and unknown axles/ratios. It looks like a 377, just looking for someone who has had experience with them as I have none and got BS from Pete sales reps.

I would consider the 385 more of a vocational truck, depending on how it was spec'd. Some short haul or local companies may use them. There are otr trucks that are 385. Personally, I would consider them more in the vocational class as a general statement.

I guess its just not a real popular model, of course it all comes down to how each individual unit was spec'd. I am just worried about getting something that was spec'd for OTR and converted to a dump and may not be heavy enough. I did talk to a fleet guy at a Pete dealer and he said that a majority of the 385's are used locally with only a small percentage that he knows of being OTR so odds are it will be pretty close to what I need. Even though I have a two year long gig coming up I am still worried about jumping into a payment.

I would not want to take on a lot of debt right now.

Re: Peterbilt 385?
 

SoCal...can you find out which tanker company in the area started off with the chassis?

For my experience, as far as vocational truck / trailer chassis doing tanker work on the west coast goes, Chevron and Unocal (Sentinel Transportation now) were the primary Pete chassis buyers.
From them, the carriers like Cox Tanklines, Cool Transport, and various others, bought the units, as they were swapped out at around 350-450K miles.

Unocal had a habit, like Arco, of ordering trucks in the mid 90's and later, with one primary drive axle, then one tag axle behind. Chevron stayed with the power divider on all it's purchases. Chevron's typical unit had the cat engine, Rockwell 10-speed, and 4:11 rears from Dana/Spicer(same tranny/axle combo as Arco). There should be tags on each component identifying them. Chevron was ordering a lot of their trucks with the full locking differentials, like Arco started doing, in 98 and later.

A Pete 385 is primarlly a light daycab road tractor.