First let me say I am not an OTR trucking outfit. I have a 16K acre ranch here in CO where we are drilling for oil like crazy. I am starting my own trucking company to haul water for the drilling and fracing operations on my ranch and other local areas. I do not need new Pete 389's or anything fancy as my trucks will not go more than 35 miles away from the shop. I've been looking at a few '06 International 9400's with cummins ISX (around 775-885K miles) and '05 Freightliner Columbia's with MBE-4000 (around 600K miles). Will be buying 3 trucks to start with, priced around $15K each. Any recommendations or pros and cons between the 2 models and motors? Thanks

 

Run, run fast from the Mercedes, don't know much about the isx but I haven't really heard anything bad about it either.

 

Exhaust brake on MBE 4000 has bushings that fail, and leak exhaust that ends up in the cab when HVAC fan is on. The actuator fails after awhile, I suppose because the bushings being out puts too much stress on it.

The actuator failing causes the exhaust brake to come on and not go off, and it does pretty much stop you from driving until you get it tied open so it can't deploy..

After that was repaired, no exhaust in the cab and the thing worked as advertised with less noise than ever.

Since it makes no excess noise, the exhaust brake was useable everywhere, and it did brake a decent amount, worth having it working.

MBE is very lightweight, but is rated as a 600 k engine(50% fail by then). If you downshifted early they tended to pull pretty well. I didn't like it with an Eaton Ultrashift, though.

From other drivers, C-13 used plenty of oil and DPF equipped ones were very troublesome, but I have no personal experience. Also, light weight but not as light as the Mercedes.

 

isx far better than merc ,have driven both

 

mbe 4000 , fuel rail pressure, fuel leaks, RPMS too high, crappy engine brake, I had a brand new truck, and in first 10k miles , broke down 18 times, then they didnt have parts to fix, the fuel filter is the worst in the industry of any engine....POS.

 

MBE is the biggest pile of crap ever built. Garbage! Mercedes brags about them being lightweight, but they should have bragged about the lack of durability. I can't say enough bad things about that boat anchor of a motor. If you are planning to buy three you may be lucky to have one on the road at a time. Just sold the one i had. Four sets of fuel lines in the last thirteen months. Better just get two and then buy a wrecker with the isx to tow the freightliners to the shop. No power, average fuel economy at best, zero reliability and almost no resale. Colorado is too far from a deep water port. Trust me if you purchase those three frieghtliners you'll want to drive them to the coast and find a long pier.

 

I'm gonna say ISX, even though my 2012 ISX AND that of one of my co-workers are in the shop (his with injector issues, mine with DEF issues, so the DEF junk will be of no concern to you).
The Internationals will probably be better trucks than the Crapliners, especially for off-road work.

 

ISX. Hands down. EGR delete , from PDI , you'll be good to go. ISX turbos are good for about 500,000 miles. Might check to see if they've been replaced.

 

I wouldn't own the Mercedes because it does not hold up. I owned a 2001 ISX, which was built after the first couple of years had problems that Cummins corrected. It was a great engine, but few shops will work on it but Cummins. I think if I was going to do oil field work I'd get a truck with a Cummins N-14. They are strong, dependable, and a lot less expensive to work on than the single giant head ISX. The N-14 has three small heads. The ISX will get better fuel mileage over the road, but in your application, that won't matter. It's north of $20,000 to overhaul an ISX, and even used engines are going for $15,000 not installed. I've seen used N-14's go for half of that. My two cents worth, I'm sure the CAT guys are gonna think differently.

 

my isx in a kw408 [your 660 i think] 2010yr still goin good 400,000 ks,no problems 2.14 ks per litre hauling logs.merc i had before was no where near this