1-ton Dually vs. Day-cab Semi Tractor? Pros/Cons

I am looking at about a $4,000 repair bill on my dually, in perfect condition sans the tranny I don't mind putting the money into it at all but have wondered for 20+ years what the pros and cons of buying a smaller day-cab semi, no sleeper, etc.. to use to haul my gooseneck around instead. I put about 7,000 miles per year on the dually hauling farm equipment (mine, not for hire) and hay, grain, cattle, etc.. around the area. I need some help thinking through the pros and cons, I am sure some of you out there are driving a semi instead of a pickup?

Things I have thought of are:
1)Less passenger space in semi, my dually is an extended cab,

2)likely slightly reduced fuel economy in semi, my dually gets around 8 mpg,

3)I have no idea which would cost more for insurance, likely the semi?

4)If I am using for personal/farm use (I have a 1/2 ton pickup and several cars for daily driver of course) and it is not -for hire- would I still have to pay heavy-use road tax or whatever that hefty annual fee is called?

5) I am guessing maintenence/parts would be higher for semi,

6) I am also betting the semi would pull the snot out of my 30 foot gooseneck stock trailer and flatbed, and although the dually (460 gas) holds its own, it would be no match to a small diesel semi tractor,

7) I bet I would have to stop at more scales with semi, I seem to be able to get by most with my dually,

8) I am almost guaranteed to need a CDL where my dually is under (when empty) the weight cutoff for CDL,

9)Other things?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

The dually is alot nicer to drive and is a nicer rideing rig. I have a 89 kw to pull a flatbed and a small 450bu trailer with. I pretty much use my duramax for the flatbed now. The truck is a 9speed and is a little chopper rideing with 144" wheelbase. Here in the dakotas it costes about a $100 to licence and $93 to run liabilty, Of course it is for farm use not for hire. It does handle the 450bu trailer like a dream and leaves me a little disappointed in my duramax

Better brakes would be a plus with the bigger truck.

You already know what you facing.
More money,laws less comfortable.
460? Sounds old.
Why not newer one ton with say,Cummins 5,6 speed?
Any newer truck with Diesel/stick. would be better.
Wait until you start maintaining a Class three truck.
TGP

Brent,I have both types of trucks.In Iowa heavy use tax is $575 however there is a form you can get at any I.R.S. office that you can get that makes a farm truck exempt if not used commercially .2290 is form number.More big trucks get 5MPG or less.I think a county plate is $675 for 6 month.As far as power and ruggedness the semi is made for heavy duty work not grocery shopping.Can make good case for both.

Brent: Been there and done that, must have owned a dozen trucks lifetime, and try as I might, I could never get efficiency from a 1 ton dualy. The chassis is very little heavier than a 3/4 ton, and man they hate to drive by the repair shop.

In 1975 I purchased a new single axle highway and two used trailers, One high boy and one low boy. In grain season I was able to rent dump trailers by the mile. This truck did two things hauled equipment , hay, silage and grain but most of all it kept my tractors off the highway.

It reduced repair bills, both truck and farm tractor. Most folks never stop to think what it costs to run farm tractors on black top. If your hauling the same loads the fuel bill will change very little, tractor, dualy or highway tractor.

Now here is the kicker, how well does your state treat farm trucks. If I remember correctly our farm truck lisence fee was 1/6 th of commercial rate, and any truck registered as farm truck got almost the same benefit on insurance. I realize these issues have changed. I notice here in Ontario, a lot of farm hauling being done by farm tractors. I suspect they have been driven to it by truck rules and regulations. I also suspect the new rules and regulations are the result of farmers breaking the old rules.

I basically had the same choices you had first bought a single axle GMC road tractor with a 429 and 5 speed 2 speed rear did a good job but was hard on gas.Then bought a Ford F550 with
a 6 speed.Its a great truck its rides and drives like a 1 ton but will handle far more weight.Have the 7.3 Powerstroke in it and gets 13MPG open road and 10MPG pulling a large loaded trailer.Also is easy on fuel making short runs like hauling hay where the gasser would burn lots of gas

you have pretty much answered your own question, power wise the semi will make your dually look silly , the down side is you will need a cdl, even with farm exempt, as you will be over 26000 and have air brakes , not a big deal but you really need to sit down and talk with your state mvd if your going for exempt plates because you will need to know all the answere to the questions you'll be asked when stoped at roadside inspections or scales, you will have to stop, even if your are running exempt, the dot guys in the field wont know that until they get a better look at your truck, im not exempt so i dont know all the paper work for that but you better have it all because thats the first thing they want to look at, a semi tractor no mater what its doing is a commercial class vehicle and you will need the million dollar liability coverage you will need to get a dot number, its not much but its a way the dot gets info on your truck, basicly it tells then who owns it, where its based and what kind of hauling it does, plus a few other things that vary state to state, mantenence on a big truck will cost a lot more than your dually, just a oil change on my kenworth is over 200 dollars and thats with me doing the oil change , 2 new tires on the semi will cost more than all the tires on your dually, if you decide to buy one dont buy unless the seller can provide mantenence records and show proof of any claimed major componet overhaul, [ if he's claiming the truck has a fresh engine he'll have paperwork to prove it], a overhaul of a 3406 b caterpillar engine in a pete just cost the company i work for over 18,000 so thats a expence you want to avoid for what you want to do a truck with around a hundred thousand on a overhaul will last you as long as you are able to drive it if you take care of it

a few more thoughts, right now trucks are cheap you can get a runner for 12,000 and 20,000 will get you a nice ride, if your budget allows just for information, we bought a 2005 peterbilt 330 series, which is a kind of a "baby class 8" or it might be a 7 in some places, its a little expensive due to the newness, but the gross weight rating in this one is 54,000 lb, and it gets average of 8 and sometimes 9 mpg, which makes it drivable, thats twice what my kw gets running the same routes, if you want to look around at prices and get a idea of whats out there go to truckpaper.com, if you find the one you want, pay attention to where the truck is, as you'll have to go drive it home,

That sounds pretty high for a tranny repair ?

What truck and what tranny ?

Brent--- most of the responses to your post are giving you info. on a full blown class 8 truck. the size truck you are asking about is between the dually and the "big" truck. the issues about ins, tag, dot regs, DL etc, probably be the deciding factor. as one said,"depends on how your state views farm trucks". At scales and roadside inspections DOT can do whatever they like. they tend to make the laws on the side of the road,and thier goal is raising money.

I went to a Freightliner FLD112 to pull my tractors to shows. It has a 120" bunk and is tagged with RV plates. The only problem with the RV plates is you can't use it for hauling grain, livestock or any other commercial purpose.

I think you will find that the insurance could get pricey. You need to figure out all the cost involved and put it on a per mile basis. In IL the tags would cost you about $800, farm rated insurance for 7000 miles would be about $1200/ year, semi annual inspections, and road use tax. A new one that you will need to consider is the Uniform Commercial Registration that requires you to have a DOT.

You are headed the right direction thinking that you need a better power unit. Just think it through to decide if it is for you and possibly avoid an expensive mistake.

1. Get a tractor with a bunk. You won't have seating but you will have lots of space.
You can also get extended cab and 4 door cab tractors, but then you're running into an odd truck; hard to find used.

2. A small bore tractor will get 8-10 mpg. Probably no worse than the 1 ton and possibly better... with gobs more power.

3. Put it this way. I pay 500 insurance on my pickup. I pay 220 on the tandem. Insurance is a lot less for PLPD on larger farm trucks.

4. I'm not aware of anything like that other than the IFTA sticker (fuel permit). We only need that here if we're travelling out of province. I'd asume you would only need that or a pro-rated licence if you're travelling outside your own state.

5. Not really... A lot of common parts are quite a bit cheaper actually. Big ticket items are expensive, but if you have a major blowup then used is ofen a better avenue. For that you'll not spend any more than you're already spending on that transmission...
Tires are the big killer. A set is hard to take for infrequent use, but they do last a long time so it balances out.

6. I wouldn't worry about the trailer. You can only haul what the trailer will haul. You can only drive as fast as the roads allow. If you make a habit of hitting all the holes in the road, you'll destroy it on the ton too, along with the ton. There would be the big difference... the tractor will survive that.
This wouldn't be a consideration to me other than making sure that you can properly level the trailer on the fifth wheel.

7. You're driving on borrowed time if you're bypassing scales now...

8. Again, you're running on borrowed time if you're running without a CDL. Ours are done on GVW and vehicle combination here. The ton would require a heavy trailer endorsement with a class 5 here, but generally it's getting in the class where a Class 1 is required.


Since we parked the ton I find that vehicles cost us quite a bit less even with some upkeep on the tandem. The ton was constantly nickle and diming us to death. It's not that the tandem doesn't like some parts too, but it's mostly simple stuff that fairly easily changed most of the time. You'll also find that you probably have a lot more uses for the tandem once you get it because you'll be doing jobs you could never do with the ton.

I'd suggest finding a decent used tandem in the 10 grand range, no more than 10 years old. These are 800 mile trucks. Ususally have had some major engine work already. Just find one that's clean and straight and starts and runs well.
You could probably find a single axle too, but I find that around here they're generally more money because they're not so common... and some people will pay to have one. For all you'll be doing with it, cheap is better up front. Line haul tractors with light specs and small engines are easy to find and worth little more than scrap. Something like an IH 9200 or 9400, or Freightliner century's and Columbia's are perfect examples. you'll probably find them with C13 Cats or M11 Cummins engines or a lot of 60 series Detroits. Lots have 10 speed transmissions. Anything like that will work fine. Look for a clean one, probably with a bit higher price, and then make a real low ball offer. The nice ones aren't really worth any more than the not so nice ones because they're all worth scrap. You just need to find a seller than is aware of that fact. Dealers are not so bad to deal with on those things.... because they know that fact.

Rod

For all around useage the duelly will be the one up grade to F 450 or such. You are getting raped on the trans job.

You really need to study your state laws and decide based on that. While your 1 ton most likely meets and falls under some of the same rules as the larger truck; as you have stated you get by with it because it is a 1 ton. You will not do this with a larger truck because they stick out more. In other words the larger truck is viewed as a bussiness and the 1 ton could be veiwed as personal even though it is a bussiness also.

In a quick I did look at some of yours rules for Iowa.
Lets assume you are a legit farm and you will tag the truck as such.
Farm trucks over 10.000 lbs need a federal annual inspection.
All brake work needs to be done by qualified personal.
You are exempt from CDL laws as long as you do not go out of the state.
If you are over 26,000 lbs and you stay in the state your tag is good; but if you go out of state you will need a tag for each state you travel or a trip permit; This is called IRP tags.
You are exempt from IFTA fuel tax laws as long as you do not go out the state.

So the big question is.........
Will you cross a state line with this truck????
Lots of Iowa farm laws here

Hi Brent,

I would strongly urge you too listen too what John has to say as he consistently yields the correct answers on this type of questions. So how do we know his info is correct? John will post the written word (DOT rules) on the subject.

IMO, As too a 02 F350 DRW PSD 6spd being cost effective, yes at under 26kGCW if driven easy for 7k miles/yr. If time is money then no as it's just too light weight too handle OTR stress while pushing it hard.

There's a guy over on thedeiselstop.com that uses a F550 for commercial use at 33kGCW and he's been thru a couple differentials, clutch and transmissions in less than 100k miles with him being the only driver, so even a F550 is not adequate for that load weight.

I would not look at less than a F650 for OTR use.

T_Bone

I bought a 2002 International 8100 single axle air ride day cab with a C10 Caterpillar, 10 speed and 3.9 axle ratio. I have pulled horse trailers for years with both duallys and an old (1988)F700 Carolina Freight city truck. There is no comparison...I should have had somsething on the order of the 8100 all along, For the first time, I even look forward to my hauling chores. My mileage is averaging around 8.5 MPG pullng a 42' 9 horse trailer.

My six month insurance premium (multi vehicle discount) is $125.71 through the Farm Bureau.

I think having a road tractor to haul a large gooseneck is like having a front end loader for your tractor, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

A lot depends on how much truck you want and how far you are going to drive it.Depending on what kind of license you already have,how much weight you want to pull,and where you want to go,you could get a light single axle tractor with a smaller Diesel motor like a 3208 Cat and it will pull a couple of tractors and maybe be under 26,000.If you look long and hard you might find one for maybe a little more than 4000 dollars.
You should have a CDL anyway if you are crossing state lines.What do you do bypass the scales and see if they come after you?On a day when they are in a bad mood you could end up in trouble,they will be in a bad mood if they come after you.
Insurance is another thing.If you have a good agent and explain everything to him,you can probably get some for about what you pay now.
If it was me,and I needed a truck,I would talk to the Insurance man and weigh the difference in what a real truck would cost compared to a smaller one.It might not be all that much.Then road use tax is 575 dollars a year on big trucks,you have to have a fire extinguisher and triangles,copy of DOT regulations,physical card,and fuel permits for the states you run in.
Besides all that you will want a real trailer that you can haul stuff on,and by then you could haul for hire.Get a couple of good paying loads and it would pay for all of this stuff.Tires are expensive,everything on the road is expensive.
I dont see how you can bypass scales now.If you drive over 100 miles,haul loads over 26000,and cross state lines,you look like a target for them.Say you have 2 or 3 tractors loaded up,you are under 26000,but you look like you are hauling a big load,they most likely are going to look you over.Then it will be whatever they say at that scale house,and if you get 4 or 5 tickets at 200-275 a piece,it doesnt take long to have that 575 road use tax and state fuel permits paid if you look at it that way.
The worst I can think of is if you have a 80,000 license,that can be 1500 dollars in Missouri depending on what states you want to run.I dont know what a farm license would be,but you can get a license for a 300 mile radius thats only 350 or something like that,for 80,000lbs.
The bottom line is it will cost more.Probably not as bad as you think,especially if you are a farmer,have a good Insurance agent,pick a good truck,know where you will run,and can pass the CDL test.On a bad day at the scale house in either truck,it probably can cost more than all that in fines.
Like everything else it depends on what you want to do.It costs a lot any more to run a truck across state lines.Far as repairs you could buy a 9 speed transmission rebuilt for about 1500,a take out from a junk yard for 1000 or less.Give somebody about 6 hours labor and it would be changed and probably last 100,000 or more miles.A motor would get expensive,but most of the time it can be fixed if you keep water and oil in it.

Mine is a different situation, but I think has a couple of relevant factors. My 1990 8100 IH dump truck averages 8mpg. Cummins L10 set for maximum emergency vehicle HP(350) Gross about 54000#, tare a little over 18000#, generally fully loaded half the time, empty other half. I think I would let someone else do the hauling if I had to go back to a truck without air suspension.
A light single axle tractor appropriate for you is probably a lot harder to find, and maybe even more expensive than a full sized road tractor!
Good luck

Between the time I read this discussion and hammered out my comments-tg in VA below hit the nail square on the head!

I'd thought about that. Then I saw 3 or 4 at the stock yard one day pulling stock trailers with single axle day cab tractors. Looked kind of cheesy. Chainged my mind.

I traded my Duramax for a used lo pro International.466 engine 6 speed 4 wheel hyd disc brakes and air ride. Can be tagged under CDL,gets 10-13 empty,8-9 loaded. No DOT hassles,rides well,It has enough suspension and brakes to handle a 25'+5 gooseneck with ease. If you arent a big Farmall fan,Chev,GMC,and Ford have lo pro models.It's enough truck to do what you want for about the price of a 1-2 year old dually.

(quoted from post at 08:58:07 01/20/09) A lot depends on how much truck you want and how far you are going to drive it.Depending on what kind of license you already have,how much weight you want to pull,and where you want to go,you could get a light single axle tractor with a smaller Diesel motor like a 3208 Cat and it will pull a couple of tractors and maybe be under 26,000.If you look long and hard you might find one for maybe a little more than 4000 dollars.
You should have a CDL anyway if you are crossing state lines.What do you do bypass the scales and see if they come after you?On a day when they are in a bad mood you could end up in trouble,they will be in a bad mood if they come after you.
Insurance is another thing.If you have a good agent and explain everything to him,you can probably get some for about what you pay now.
If it was me,and I needed a truck,I would talk to the Insurance man and weigh the difference in what a real truck would cost compared to a smaller one.It might not be all that much.Then road use tax is 575 dollars a year on big trucks,you have to have a fire extinguisher and triangles,copy of DOT regulations,physical card,and fuel permits for the states you run in.
Besides all that you will want a real trailer that you can haul stuff on,and by then you could haul for hire.Get a couple of good paying loads and it would pay for all of this stuff.Tires are expensive,everything on the road is expensive.
I dont see how you can bypass scales now.If you drive over 100 miles,haul loads over 26000,and cross state lines,you look like a target for them.Say you have 2 or 3 tractors loaded up,you are under 26000,but you look like you are hauling a big load,they most likely are going to look you over.Then it will be whatever they say at that scale house,and if you get 4 or 5 tickets at 200-275 a piece,it doesnt take long to have that 575 road use tax and state fuel permits paid if you look at it that way.
The worst I can think of is if you have a 80,000 license,that can be 1500 dollars in Missouri depending on what states you want to run.I dont know what a farm license would be,but you can get a license for a 300 mile radius thats only 350 or something like that,for 80,000lbs.
The bottom line is it will cost more.Probably not as bad as you think,especially if you are a farmer,have a good Insurance agent,pick a good truck,know where you will run,and can pass the CDL test.On a bad day at the scale house in either truck,it probably can cost more than all that in fines.
Like everything else it depends on what you want to do.It costs a lot any more to run a truck across state lines.Far as repairs you could buy a 9 speed transmission rebuilt for about 1500,a take out from a junk yard for 1000 or less.Give somebody about 6 hours labor and it would be changed and probably last 100,000 or more miles.A motor would get expensive,but most of the time it can be fixed if you keep water and oil in it.

Click to expand...

I only put on about 7,000 miles per year doing farm hauling. Luckily live smack dab in the center of the state so my circle of farm-miles-to-home is fairly large and don't have to mess with crossing state lines. Livestock markets are well within 100 miles and that is the furthest I typically go. I probably mis-stated above when I said "get around scales", I should have said I never attract enough attention with the dually to get a DOT to pull me over and scale me on the road with portable scales. I don't live near or drive past any permanent scales so those wouldn't be an issue. I used to work for a trucking company in the 80's back in North Dakota and saw many overweight fine receipts come across my desk...I am sure those fines and scale-skipping fines haven't gotten any cheaper since the 80s.

Thanks for all the advice, I will post back once I make up my mind.

Im biased because of driving big trucks.You could be fine just driving around your state.It would be night and day difference with even a single axle diesel light truck and a ton truck.Trucks are cheap now,look up Truck Paper.com and see how many are say 5000 dollars,look for a single axle International,Freightliner,Ford,Mack,even one with a box on it or something.Some will be high priced,but some wont.A lot depends on why they are being sold.Some sellers are in it to make top dollar,others are in it to move stuff.You might be surprised what you can find.If you did manage to tear the transmission out at 7000 miles a year you would be doing something.Might even get better fuel mileage than you do now.You want to stick with a Cummins motor,then maybe a Cat or Detroit.Probably in the late 1980s early 1990s before the computers for cheap maintenance and easy to fix.You might find a Volvo,with a Volvo motor,but who knows where you could get parts for it.A Ford diesel motor might be great,but you might be in trouble if you need an injector pump.Old 2 stroke Detroits would maybe be cheap,but they are getting old and harder to find people to fix them unless you know yourself.Air brakes are way better is the reason most people give up on the ton truck rig.Usually after a close call.