With the bottom falling out of dry/intermodal freight, 670 large , medium and small freight companies bit the dust in 2019. And it is expected run well into 2020 to at least October 2020. it was taking a year on delivery of new tractors now it's dropped to two months, truck manufacturing fell almost 65%. There will be thousands of used tractors hitting the market, only problem is most are low rate fleet spec'ed equipment and needing most likely a ton of repairs, because those companies ran the crap out of them with no maintenance because they knew the end was near. And for the rest that are still operating same thing-running tires, brakes and what have you right down to nothing. Which doesn't make for safe highways. JMHO and Fact.
Paccar Leasing is headquartered in our town. Right behind the Peterbilt plant, they have built and opened a new, used truck facility. The lot is loaded with what appears to be fleet speced trucks from either lease returns or possibly lease/purchase defaults. I bet there is already 200 trucks in that new lot.
Freightliner had the same problem back in the late 90's early 00, a ton of lease trucks came back/returned so they built a plant in Utah that removed the integral sleeper-reskinned the back of the cab and made day cabs out of them to sell them off. Came completely inspected with fresh paint and new interior. Trucks will be piling up like 737's only by the thousands.
I recall in the early 2000's Paccar lease returns were an excellent deal, 150K miles on a lease maintenance program. Today I would be more than a bit leary.
What about the driver shortage they are crying about?
Maybe this will help weed out the gimmegrants that can't and won't learn our language. I'm not talking about just the ones from down south of the border, but the Europeans, middle easterners, south Americans and the Haitians. When I was in heavy truck , during the 90s, trucks were maintained , it was planned and budgeted. Somehow towards the early 2ks we went from scheduled maintenance to breakdown maintenance. At the same time I observed an influx of unskilled non communicating foreigners running rigs into the ground. I could be over generalizing, but that's how I observed it.
Unfortunately what happens is freight rates will get under cut, the gipo trucker will undercut the rate and still go under. It won't weed out the drivers that will work for a plate of ham and eggs, german dogs or a bucket of greasy chicken. As long as they can afford to buy a new wife beater shirt they will work for nothing.
It is only a sign of things to come. Call in the dogs, **** on the fire and head it on back to Bow Legs.
It's one reason I've always tried to work for a refrigerated truck line, two things a person absolutely has to have 1st is water 2nd is food.
Dont forget garbage, it sucks but the garbage always moves. That's what I was doing during the Obama recession. If it wasn't for landfills and transfer stations I would have surely been laid off.
That's true-but it takes rotten food to make garbage what it is, so first it has to hit the grocery store.lol
Because of the overflow of used trucks [about 35,000 trucks] the bottom fell out of trade in value about $10,000 to $15,000 less depending on truck specifications and brand.
What are you guys seeing in this sector now that a couple months have gone by?
I imagine nothing good. BNSF Gardner Intermodal yard was looking sparse this weekend.
Went buy the used lot at Paccar yesterday. It is crammed full of trucks for sale. Noticed some big names on the doors of some of them.
And yet the dimwits are still advertising late 1990s power in the $20-30K range needing all manner of work because is a Pete or KW.
The other thing is these trade in over the road trucks are not really useful for construction guys and I dont mean as work a voc truck should be doing but there is no second life market But most make a terrible lowboy truck or anything close there just to cheap and geared to high for city work
I believe it. Then add in the ELOG inflation on top of that for the folks that can't make a nickle unless they run illegal.
No lockers, no ground clearance, castrated engines, tiny tires, autos, light power train, suspension etc. Pretty much just shake apart once you leave the pavement lol.
Sounds like a truck spec'd to bean counters