When to buy and sell your trucks

Everything has a lifespan, and your landscape trucks are no different. Managing their replacement is vital to your business because you don’t have time (or the patience) for breakdowns. And let’s face it: A truck that’s not on the road isn’t making you money. Here’s what you should know about buying and selling these key assets:

Know when to sell.

“Mileage is always one of the factors because you’re considering maintenance costs once a vehicle ages,” says Paul Seger, vice president of remarketing with Element Fleet Management. “Typically, you should look at replacing domestic vehicles at 70,000 to 80,000 miles and imports around 100,000 miles.”

These are general rules, but the goal is to sell before the maintenance expense ramps up the life cycle cost.

In most cases, that means you’re cycling through units every three to five years. But other factors may influence when to replace a unit. “We also look at engine hours of operation,” says Joe Birren, senior truck and upfit engineer with Merchants Fleet Management. “For example, you may have a bucket truck that idles more than it racks up mileage.”

Another reason to replace a unit is to improve performance through better fuel efficiency, towing capacity or to obtain enhanced safety features, such as back-up cameras. Time of year is something else to think about because “there’s more demand in the pre-spring market for these types of assets with the full year ahead,” Seger says. “Values tend to fall off in October and November.”

Read the full story from the September issue here.