Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Because compared to a MDT, it cost about half as much to run a dually pickup!
IFTA is >26K, not 25K. (We have four trucks at work with 25,900-26,000 GVWR; none have IFTA stickers.)
Bingo!
I have both MDT's and LDT's.
The MDT's are a lot heavier in expense on taxes, insurance, fuel, maintenance, everything. They also really suck to drive as well. The air brakes on my UDs and Internationals feel like they have exactly two settings: Applied and released. Like stomping a brick since new. All the others I test drove felt the same way.
Fuel economy? Best unloaded highway fuel economy has been 7.4 mpg, with maple syrup acceleration.
I recently had to purchase a fan clutch for $1171.00 for one, and a $1343.00 radiator. That MDT stuff sounds fun until you have to pay all of the other bills that come along with them, and store them.
Do the maintenance yourself, and be prepared to buy a lot of new equipment you have never thought about owning before. You can't even change a tire with standard equipment.
Have a company take care of the things that will come up, and be prepared to wait, listen to a load of bull, and then pay a ridiculous amount of money for the whole process.
Of course, we are talking straight-trucks with boxes. I simply cannot acquire a 1-ton with refrigerated boxes as large as the MDTs, and the larger boxes are what ultimately make the finances of an MDT work out, because they can run longer delivery routes without coming back home, as they carry more stuff. Running one MDT beats running two LDT's when the numbers come in.
But this also comes with the obligation that they must be used to total and complete maximum potential at every outset. Were I not to have two LDT's worth of goods going out on every trip, on two LDT's worth of delivery locations, the whole thing goes down the drain real fast.
On the shorter runs, it makes greater sense to send two of my smaller trucks to simultaneously hit two separate locations at a time than it does to send a larger truck to spend twice the time hitting the same spots. For the far-out stuff, with bigger deliveries per location, it absolutely adds up to send a larger truck to hit all of the marks. There, the potential to end up sending two smaller trucks to deliver a split-load to one spot exists.
My Ram 1-tons do relatively local boat pickups and deliveries on a regular basis. Purchasing and maintaining an MDT for this would be completely stupid. Sometimes the boats are 34' cruisers and 42' fishing boats, but sometimes they're significantly smaller.
Overloaded? Hardly. The last big one I picked up myself. Big 33' cruiser with a sedan bridge. When the Travelift sat that thing down on the trailer, the springs settled about 2-3" at the most. I used the airbags to level it out, because I have that option available to me.
The thing that people always forget when considering the weight of a load on a truck is Vertical Tongue Weight. There's no need to crush a truck under VTW. I go by the tried-and-true formula of 10-25%. A properly designed boat trailer is more than happy at 15%. That's only 2700 lbs. at 9 tons load. The trailer does its job, which is to carry the rest of that weight itself. You'll always notice that a good boat trailer is going to have multiple axles directly under the heaviest part of the boat. Plenty of other types of trailers are made exactly the same way, and the truckers (especially the auto-haulers) will load their trailer to preserve this situation.
But again, that's the whole thing about big vs. small. Every time you don't fully utilize the size, that's a financial kick in the nuts. The bigger the machine, the bigger the kick will be.
Using an LDT gives you greater versatility in how you make your money. With MDTs, you have to say "no" a lot more than with LDT trucks.
The magic of the LDT is that its operating costs are so minuscule; greatly resembling many typical privately owned vehicles, that you don't have to look to always carry heck's half-acre every time it moves. You take the smaller stuff, you make money. You take the bigger stuff, you make even more money.
So how's the rest of it all hauling big loads with a 1-ton? Boring. 1-3mph feels kind of heavy, but after that, I can keep up with traffic just fine. Braking? Boring. Put the foot down, and it slows and stops fine. Turning? definitely less dramatic that turning an unloaded MDT.
And at the of the day, I just unhook whatever is back there, and drive the truck home. Fits in my driveway, can park it out on the street, can go through the drive-thrus, can park in the front of the lot at the store, and doing work on it is pretty similar to doing work on anything else I own. The real kicker is that I'm not subject to any of the commercial vehicle restrictions that exist within my community, or any others. Right through the front gate, no questions asked.
Now I know some people are going to say, "But what about the GAWR/GVWR/GCWR? Those are the real numbers!".
Those numbers are arbitrarily reduced, increased, and invented in the first place. This is coming from a person who has had the GVWR properly and legally reduced on a truck in order to avoid certain fees and insurance penalties. Manufacturers do it all of the time as well.
Real people are using these trucks for real heavy hauling. Their MC/DOT numbers are not something they slapped on last night. Road after road, state after state, their loads are passing inspection after inspection. It's real.
It's not about avoiding a CDL either. I have one, so do my other guys. Whether you haul with a Ranger or a Peterbilt, you're not going to move anything oversize/overwidth without one, especially not for commercial purposes.
