I heard someone on the radio saying that some of their trucks have 2,000,000 miles plus recorded mileage, mostly trouble free, they work 24/7 using 4 drivers over the week. I presume its 4 on 4 off day and night, is this a common thing nowadays?
WaggerWagger888:
I heard someone on the radio saying that some of their trucks have 2,000,000 miles plus recorded mileage, mostly trouble free, they work 24/7 using 4 drivers over the week. I presume its 4 on 4 off day and night, is this a common thing nowadays?
It always has been that way
Buy or lease a brand new truck, maximise it’s use,.double shift it, preferably 7 days a week, .and the warranty still stands right through the ridiculous milage put on it,.then after 2 years trade it in,.start again…depending on warranty terms obviously,.which minimises the maintenance costs.
At work we have a batch of 71 plate dafs ( put on the rd about Nov 21) and some of them have done close to 300000 km in a year.
Can’t remember having a lorry with 500k on it in the last decade / two let alone 2 ,000,000 , hope it stays like that , I prefer comfort , smoothness , draughtiness over nostalgia
WaggerWagger888:
I heard someone on the radio saying that some of their trucks have 2,000,000 miles plus recorded mileage, mostly trouble free, they work 24/7 using 4 drivers over the week. I presume its 4 on 4 off day and night, is this a common thing nowadays?
I’d say yes. We’ve got 18 plates which are run 24/7, and they have 1.1 and 1.2 million kms. If we kept them for another 2 or 3 years, they’d be pushing on 2 milliion, and I’m sure they’d do it. They’re still near faultless vehicles.
In 2014 I worked at a company with a 2 million km DAF XF on an X-reg. It was extremely tired, but still putting in a shift’s work at 44 ton. A subbie at that place ran a near 20 year old Foden 4000 series with 3 million km. It had done so many miles that the plastic gears inside the tacho head wore out, and he had to replace it lol.
Where I’m at mid December we de-leased the last of the 64 plates and the 16 plate DAF CFs, all near or over 1,200,000km. And then the week after they got put back on fleet because we were short of motors. They’re not running 7 days a week either but do do both day and night runs, typically on nights we’re doing 400-650km.
Any one of them you’d have no worries jumping in it and expecting to do a 650km night trunk at full weight without breaking down. One thing I’ve always found funny is that I doubt there’s any lorry drivers who get in a wagon, look at the odometer and think “bit high mileage this, hope it gets me there” yet many of us wouldn’t touch a car once it’s getting near 100,000 miles.
Pretty common I’d say. Majority of ours are 64/65 plates with around a million to 1.2million ks on. Certainly not trouble free but get the job done. Most run day and night
Highest I ever saw I think was a coach with 1.9million on.
Yeh funny that about cars. Anything over 100k usually causes a sharp intake of breath. Shame really. Mines on 145k but 20 year old.
md1987:
Pretty common I’d say. Majority of ours are 64/65 plates with around a million to 1.2million ks on. Certainly not trouble free but get the job done. Most run day and night
Highest I ever saw I think was a coach with 1.9million on.Yeh funny that about cars. Anything over 100k usually causes a sharp intake of breath. Shame really. Mines on 145k but 20 year old.
Likewise. Our old 2001 Mitsubishi Magna’s got 165k on the clock and still doesn’t use oil. Had it since new and looked after it, unlike some that don’t even know how to open the bonnet.
md1987:
Pretty common I’d say. Majority of ours are 64/65 plates with around a million to 1.2million ks on. Certainly not trouble free but get the job done. Most run day and night
Highest I ever saw I think was a coach with 1.9million on.Yeh funny that about cars. Anything over 100k usually causes a sharp intake of breath. Shame really. Mines on 145k but 20 year old.
Thing being with trucks, get 6 weeklys, mostly on a full R&M so get serviced regularly to the manufacturers specs. Cars, get an Mot every year and a quick oil change, maybe, at the same time.
My BMW had done 105k with a full BMW history when I bought it, it was the guys pride and joy, folder full of receipts etc. No expense spared. Now done 114k, local specialist did the last service and I would expect it to go well up to and over 200k
The missus little Peugeot will be lucky to make 80k I reckon, was a cheap runaround (she only does about 5k a year) and I’ve got a feeling apart from the first free dealer service, I was the first to drop the oil at 60k
As an aside, she works for a company that develops oil additives, some used in the OEM oils for trucks around the world, some for marine use and some for car use. Its interesting to note different countries thoughts on oil changes and service intervals. UK and Europe are only interested in pushing out the oil change intervals as far as possible, 2 years and 20 plus thousand miles is becoming the norm. USA and Japan love to get an oil change, hence the jiffy lube kind of places, drop the oil (or suction it through the dipstick tube, quicker) every couple of months, they love their golden looking oil when they dip it. Yes they dont tend to do as much short hops as we do which helps, but the engines seem to last a lot longer from the research her company is doing.
We have new MAN trucks at our place.They have to have special oil and costs £35 a litre.It holds 35 litres,so thats a grands worth of oil for an oil change,thats mental
Worked for one food service company with Scania’s, they were serviced at dealer, but oil change only to just above minimum. Drivers then topped up oil in yard, with cheap stuff, rather than pay dealer prices for full oil top up.
Sploom:
We have new MAN trucks at our place.They have to have special oil and costs £35 a litre.It holds 35 litres,so thats a grands worth of oil for an oil change,thats mental
I think MAN are pulling a fast one.
I wonder where they got that idea…
Sploom:
We have new MAN trucks at our place.They have to have special oil and costs £35 a litre.It holds 35 litres,so thats a grands worth of oil for an oil change,thats mental
Not heard that one and we’ve about 10 on our fleet,get topped up with what’s in yard and it’s nothing special 
As long as the oil is the same or equivalent spec then it shouldn’t matter.
As for car mileage versus truck mileage. Trucks and built to higher specifications and tolerances which is why they cost more and last longer. If they built cars that could last for 1-2 million kilometres and sell them for the prices they sell them for now the car industry would be bankrupt
the nodding donkey:
Sploom:
We have new MAN trucks at our place.They have to have special oil and costs £35 a litre.It holds 35 litres,so thats a grands worth of oil for an oil change,thats mentalI think MAN are pulling a fast one.
I wonder where they got that idea…
The Swedish truck company they own now
Yorkielad:
Sploom:
We have new MAN trucks at our place.They have to have special oil and costs £35 a litre.It holds 35 litres,so thats a grands worth of oil for an oil change,thats mentalNot heard that one and we’ve about 10 on our fleet,get topped up with what’s in yard and it’s nothing special
We have a mixed fleet of Daf’s Merc’s and 71 plate Man’s. Daf’s and Merc’s are serviced at the depot but the mans are serviced at a depot 150 miles away.
I asked why and they said the Mans have special oil and if they put any other in it will invalid the warranty.
Yes maddnes
There is some element of confusion in the OP’s post I think. 2 million miles is 3.2million kilometres. I’ve certainly seen getting on for 2 million kilometers but somehow I doubt any UK tacho is showing 3.2 million km. To achieve that it would require something like 50 mph average for 20 hrs each day for 350 days a year for just short of 6 years allowing for driver breaks, swaps and maintenance. Just maybe you can squeeze an extra hour and a half each day
Trucks are very much like cars. I had an early 90s Toyota that ran 100% fine. No issues whatsoever. Only sold due to lack of space to keep it.
No reason why trucks in the 90s can not still be on the road to day.
Well, other than emission issues.
Also for a lot of firms it seems cheaper for them to lease trucks and get new ones every 3/5 years then actually maintaining them / buying them outright.
The exception to this is mainly recovery vehicles they are often so specialized that it makes sense to keep them for longer.
There are cars out there, old Mercs, volvos, jap stuff that have gone over a million miles or km. I reckon loads would be capable of doing it.
One thing is though that a lot of really high mileage vehicles have had various major parts replaced over the years. Like a recon motor or gearbox that’s cheaper than a repair so when does it stop being original lol
md1987:
Like a recon motor or gearbox that’s cheaper than a repair so when does it stop being original lol
Like Triggers Broom with its 17 new heads and handles lol 
I suppose there’s a point when the maintenance / down time / reliability cost starts to get to the same amount as replacing for brand new and that’s down to each operator to determine that point.
I imagine when your running a truck non stop on 2-3 shifts a day for 7 days a week its not worth anything when your finished with it anyway, just as well run it into the ground then use it for spare parts