Sterling at9500 355k miles or 2009 prostar?

Look I will be frank, a truck is a truck. The drive train matters not the truck. Sterling is part of the Daimler family so they've stocked a lot of the parts that would have to be there to support trucks in the field.

Find a drive train spec that works for you, like maybe a 13 sp with X ratio in the rear ends, and look for that, if a DD works, great, if a cummins will work for you, great but overall the make doesn't matter as people think.

I would worry if it is alright and going to meet your reliability needs. what I am also saying is use as much resources you can to lower the risk of breakdowns. This is why I stress a dyno and blowby done to it, and an OA (all fluids) and have your Mechanic go through everything - front to back top to bottom - and use his findings of problems to lower the cost which is why you are paying him to nitpick.

Crap sorry, I didn't answer your concerns. The emissions crap can be a headache, make sure that it has had maintenance on that, the biggest issues I've run into are sensors going bad, and I've had maybe a dozen cracked DPF units which 3 were replaced at no costs thanks to the dealer screwing them up.

If you want to find something like a 2006 or earlier, they are there, some of them are pushing a million but I've found a couple last few weeks under 750k.

 

Check it out for rust. I've got a truck that's fully discontinued and finding new hard-lines to replace the rusted ones sometimes impossible. Some stuff will be easier. We couldn't get a horn button we just mounted a generic button on the dash. The power steering lines could be fabricated but that means more downtime than just getting the part, perhaps by a lot. The main drivetrain may be standard, but it can be the little stuff that really sidelines you. Get the vin and call a parts department and see if some of the smaller stuff that might fail is still freightliner and can be ordered. I've pre-bought anything that might go in the next couple years (what I could find anyway). If one of the unobtanium parts goes I'll just have to deal with it.

 

@Big_D409 on the Sterling - he has a nice one, and a good lead on spares.

I'd tend toward the Sterling over that other . . thing.

I nearly bought one myself.

 

There's a Sterling for sale in my neck of the woods for 10k. N14 that was recently rebuilt. I'd buy it if I needed a truck right now.

Being said, some parts will be difficult and others freightliner has in stock. I bought a parts truck as it was cheaper for what parts I needed.

I can chime in more later, let me know what you want to know about Sterling. I can post the link to the one for sale this afternoon.

I almost convinced Blair to but one, but he found a better deal that same day lol.

 

He dropped price below 10.

 

I think I've seen that purple beast running around 17... If I were in the place to jump back in I'd grab that thing in a heartbeat.