We predominantly have Sterlings , which are proving to be "throwaway" trucks.. there is absolutely no quality in the parts or design......
We had two Sterlings where the plastic radiator overflow tanks sprang big leaks,...to the point of shutdown...No moving parts there,..just cheap materials...
Rattling dashboards, unadjustable doors, knobs breaking off,....switch assemblies failing...these tractors have reached the end of their useful life,.....and have entered into a new phase as being rolling hazards to both the public and the employee.
Out of our little fleet of seven, at any given time, at least one of our trucks are down for several days........Plus, we're expected to provide "spare" tractors to the 20 or so HVXP and road drivers who pass through our terminal each night....Our three vendors can't keep up.......
We look at Estes, FedEx and even R & L driving around in two year old....or less......trucks.........and then we get in our seven, eight ....ten....or older.....900,000 mile trucks,.....cross our fingers, and hope we don't break down more than once a week....
Gordon Food Service went through there Sterling phase as well, company had Ford's for 30 years and then one day Ford was done making trucks and they decided to go with the abomination known as Sterling that came next. Well they did have some White GMC's and First Generation Volvo's, but the Fords and Sterlings were the main truck of the late 1990s and early 2000s, however around 2000s they started integrating the fleet a little bit buying second generation Volvo's and while that was going on though the Volvo's were out performing the Sterlings and the company started buying more second generation Volvo's and the Sterlings were not well recieved by the drivers or the shop.
GFS has since gotten rid of all the Sterlings to my knowledge, well there might be a few up in Michigan still running around someone where, but I know the fleet shop in Springfield, Ohio somehow the manager said he was fed up with the Sterling's and somehow got rid of all of them, I don't know how, but he got rid of them.
I know our company had the Sterlings like I said late 1990s and gosh I think there all gone now, the Internationals are next, but they are slow to get rid of them, they had a falling out with Volvo around 2007 and went and bought some International's had problems galore with the Internationals and cancelled there PO with International, but there are still a few around most are spares, but there pretty roughed up, and this is the year there all 10 years old and due to be replaced, but for some reason they have been slow to get rid of the Internationals.
I can't say GFS is cheap with equipment and they have not been afraid to buy new equipment they bought 14 new trucks for our division this year and I wouldn't be surprised if they bought more next year, I think they had no choice though company has a lot of 10 year old Volvo's that are probably ready to be phased out in a year or two.
I don't know how they figure there equipment budget and what there going to spend, but our company profit sharing was fairly good this year, so they must have it all figured out. I know though at our yard we have some older trucks, however some of our transit units there not running as long as they used to they used to keep those trucks on the road 4-5 years before down grading them to city and now it's like 12-24 months and there switching them out, of course they said the 2015 Volvo's had tons of problems and recalls and the company was having problems with the Volvo's and I think some of the 2015's were being to problematic I know we had one at our yard 2015 Volvo VNM air leak computer control problem had to be sent to an outside shop which performed some kind of mal-practice and then it had to be sent to the dealer and fixed again and the company just gave up on it and replaced it with a new truck.
Our shop though, while it's our own a lot of the mechanics do not have a lot of experience and there straight out of diesel school and there trying to fumble there way through and there fighting a big learning curve and it's been difficult the shop tries hard, but between the trucks and then an entire fleet of refer trailers that needs maintenance too plus we have converter dollies just like you guys do, it's a lot for them to handle and I don't know who's incharge of the trailers, but I'm surprised our refer units work as good as they do, I've had very little trouble out of our refer trailers, I know they have a corner of the warehouse that's all trailers with broken refers and Thermo King I think comes out and works on some of the stuff, because it's just to much. You take some poor kid who's struggling to just do regular PM's and then tell him here go fix this refer trailer, he or she is going to struggle.