Are the 2018 Kenworth T680 with cummins x15 engine a good reliable truck?

I drove a 2015 as a company driver and hated it. Was towed twice in 6 months and spend 10 days at the Ontario, Ca Cummins dealer getting it fixed. The interior is cramped, the engine is noisy as hell and the fan throws up a cloud of dust anytime you travel on dirt. A Freightliner would be a better choice or a Volvo is you can afford it.

 

I have a 2018 with the x15 and it’s been rock solid. How many miles does this one have? I’ve owned mine since new and taken care of it. The x15 is a far more trouble free system then the isx was.

 

I drive a 2019 that I bought new and now has almost 250,000 miles on it. It's never failed me, never broken down and never been towed. It pulls great on hills with a heavy load and is a great all around truck. I wouldn't drive another Crapcadia or anything else for that matter. Did I mention it gets great fuel mileage too?

 

I had a 2018 v15 put 120k miles on it no problems. 2020 x15 189k miles zero issues other than a plugged fuel filter last winter. Great engine so far.

 

It's always difficult coming on a site like this, and asking what truck is best. History has shown, "some like Chevy's, some like Fords". Trucks can't talk and can't express the abuse they may have gone through, especially when new, when it's most important to take it easy. I'm partial to KW, and there was a time when one truck was clearly better than others, but I think all trucks today are pretty good.

 

Truck reliability is not about the brand or make or even the engine, it is how it has been taken care of.

Testing it, no matter what the mileage is, lessens the risk of it being a pos truck.

This includes important things like a dyno which tells you how much rated hp it is making, generally if it is less than 80%, pass on it.

The dyno allows you to get a blowby test because these tests for these engines happen under a full load and shows the condition of the rings and cylinders. There are limits that are set for each model engine and if it exceeds those limits … pass on it.

Getting the fluids analyze is important because it tells you what is going on inside the unit - engine, trans, diff.

A full ecm dump is needed to show a lot of things, idle hours and settings that can be changed to suit your needs. But it also shows you if the ecm has been replaced or firmware has been modified among a lot of other things.

a full and thorough inspection by an independent mechanic can locate issues that should be discussed with the seller for either correcting or for discounting the price. Dot inspections are a joke, I sued one place (and it was settled out of court) because they found nothing wrong when the enforcement officer found two very serious violations … the inspection was done at 9am and the level 1 was done at 10:30, things don’t break that fast.

 

I beat the piss out of two trucks as a newby with CFI one old and wore out one brand new.
No break downs at all, did have a clutch go out of the old one but it had the most miles out of all cfi trucks I believe. Almost 800K

 

I would buy one, if I had a laptop and a nice size drill bit. Why x15 and not paccar 13? That is a lot of weight if your not going over 80k gross

 

The Paccar engines had some major design and mechanical issues until recently, and a lot of people still won't buy them because of those past issues. They may have ironed out the bugs, but it will take a while to win the confidence of people with long memories.