My daily work truck is a Freightliner Columbia. It went in for service today and they gave me an IH 9400i. I was never an IH fan, but this truck is much nicer than the Frtlnr.
The Frtlnr has 130k on it, the IH 270k, but if you didn't know the mileage you'd think it was the other way round. The IH cab is tighter, the trans is tighter, the interior is nicer, I think it even rides better. I just got the Frtlnr last week, and it hasn't been serviced since June, so it's overdue, but even the one I had with 170k wasn't as nice as the IH.
I wish I could keep the IH!

 

At the family construction company, we have always run internationals. Currently we have 3 9300 eagles, 3 9400s, 3 new Paystar 5000s, 4 new 9900i's, and the truck drivers love them over any other trucks. We have always had very good service and reliability out of them. They take a beating and last forever. We had a couple Macks like 3 years ago and they just couldn't hold up, and the service wasn't great. We have had a couple peterbilts too, but there isn't a dealership close so thats why we got rid of them.

 

IH has come a long ways. My first choice, whenever I had one, was always Pete. I don't think I've ever driven a decent Frtlnr. Macks, at least R models, were tough, but not comfortable, I had a CH for a while, which was only marginally better than a Frtlnr.
I drove an older Volvo once, and was impressed, I'd like to drive a newer model and see how they've improved.
I'm limited to a company truck now, leased Ryder units.

 

I think that IH is one of the best, right up there with Peterbilt. The new IHs are really nice trucks, even though after so many miles their doors still suck at closing just like the older 9300s . I never really liked freightliner or volvo. It seems like the older Freightliners were put together a lot better than these new ones they have now. We even had a couple of old IH Fleetstar 2070As and they lasted FOREVER. They both had 290 Cummins in them with 5 on 4s i think. Kinda sucks though that Cat isn't going to be making truck engines anymore. We have a couple 3406Bs, 3 C12s, a C13, and 2 C15s. All the rest are Cummins. Don't get me wrong, Cummins made great truck engines. The new ISX is an amazing truck motor.

 

I've been mostly Detroit since I started this job,except for a year or so in a Mack. Used to work for a company that hauled Cummins parts, among other things, so we had all Cummins trucks.
Drove a few Cats, and some Macks over the years.

 

At work I drive a 99 IH eagle with the C-12 cat. I really like the truck

 

We have this C12 Cat in a 9400 at work, it's got like 800,000 on it and it hasn't ever been rebuilt. We used it to pull a belly dump for most of its life, so you know thats a lot of gravel roads. It goes through 2 gallons of oil a day! I think it leaks half of it. But we haven't bothered rebuilding it because it's just a backup lowboy right now. Our 2nd lowboy is a 1994 9300 with an N14 Celect Plus Cummins. It has 650,000 on it and all we've done it replace the cam followers in it. That one leaks quite a bit of oil too.

But you gotta remember these are trucks that are in constant stop and go traffic, through town, idling, and a lot of gravel roads.

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Our #1 lowboy is a 2007 9900i with a C15 in it. After the warranty was off, we turned it up from 475 to 525. That is one sweet pulling truck. most of the time its out to montana, western south dakota, wyoming, north dakota, and nebraska. We do a lot of custom hauling with it. Haul a lot of mining truck tires and loader tires for the mines around there.

 

I have a 92 9400 IH with a series 60 detroit and the truck has 1.6million km on it and runs like a charm, the drivers door is getting a little sticky but still seals good,I have 2 volvo's 98/2000 both detriots one with 1.4 mil km and 2.7 mil km those truck have the best cabs on them you can find drove in a ryder columbia with 70,000 and the old IH was quieter in the cab and had less rattlesmy trucks are used for dump trailes and belly dumps so the see many constrution site and alot of stop and go and loaded to the limits+

 

I have always heard that those 60 series detroits are junk?

I've seen a couple 12.7 60 series detroits with blown bottom ends and only like 700,000 miles on them

Our bellies are graveling township roads probably 70% of the time so they get into a lot of dust. One of the C15s we had to rebuild at 300,000 because the driver was too damn lazy to check his air filters everyday when we were doing townships

 

never had any problems with my detroits other then one flew apart with 1 million miles on it ,bent both exhaust valves on #1 cyl.,dropped in another one this spring with 800 000 miles on it and it is still going,we are allowed 41500kg(91500lbs) legal on a tandem trailer and I only run legal on gov jobs(they will only pay legal weight),I run around 102 000lbs. on private jobsmy fuel mileage is around 7 mpg with all my trucks the IH gives 7.5mpg on average,my tandem with a dt466 IH will give 9.5 mpg at times if I try