Results of new glider on the road
 

Well, I have just shy of 6000 miles on the new 2013 Columbia glider I bought. Fuel mileage average to date.... 7.52 mpg, pump to pump actual calculation. And definately not on light loads all the time. One last friday was close to a gross load of lead, with a large portion of the run on two lanes, up and down hills all the way. That one came in at 6.7 mpg. Todays fueling came in at 8.81 mpg on 630 miles. That was lighter and primarily Iowa, Illinois, Indiana 4 lanes. And that pre-egr Detroit with a bully dog ported/coated manifold and Borg Warner non waste gate turbo can really pull a hill. It is so nice to not have a valve trying to make my engine eat its own waste, a urine tank I have to fill that squirts in the exhaust, and a blast furnace under the truck to burn my stacks brown.

And for $40,000 less than a comparable spec'd new truck! No sales tax, no FET, no emissions junk. What a country!

Is there a thread on this that I missed?

And I'm sure you don't want to run California anyways, so all is good!

That would be true. When it comes to trucking for me, the unofficial western edge of the United States is I-25 since '99. Everything west of that is fine to visit, but have no need to take my truck further.

I didn't recall, if you said anything about financing on that glider? Was it difficult to get? How was the rate, compare to a new truck?

The guy who works with me has 2 Pete gliders, he told me there was NO financing available, as gliders are sold as parts, at least with Paccar they are.

The 2 Pete gliders required a hefty deposit with the order placement, these trucks had reman trans and rears already installed though

i spoke to freightliner in kalamazoo a few months ago. you can get financing for them just though some companies.


i really wish i knew if ny state would let me get one..

Yeah, i've heard about that, just wandering if it's still true....

Ok... you bring up two interesting issues based on nothing. I can't say anything about what Paccar and Pete are doing, I can only speak to Freightliner and my glider here.

1) Yes, there is financing available. I had a laundry list of options in that regard including my local Credit Union that wanted in on it. I went with GE Capitol and got a rate of 7.75%. Not terrible, not great, but not bad, and I didn't have to show any financials, tax returns, or other stuff. I was approved within 24 hrs.

2) True, a glider is basically a parts order, but depending on dealer doing it, you do not have to bust the piggy bank for a deposit. I only had to put 5% of the total completed cost down for deposit on my order. And the dealer put in the order before he actually had my money. I ended up putting almost 25% toward the purchase so I financed 75%, but I only needed 5% deposit to order it up.

The key to all this is who you are dealing with in getting a glider. Some dealers hardly do them or don't even want to, so they put on all kinds of stipulations and are not very helpful. Some dealers, a rather large chunk of what they do revolves around gliders. In those situation, it is no different than ordering a new production truck and is relatively painless.

How fast do you run to get those mpg's? Thx