Bought a 16ft cutaway box truck off lucas-motors.com, uptime report

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TransitDaily_KeishaOP

Owner-Operator

Posts 877
Joined Jun 2019

East St. Louis IL

Mar 18, 2025 · 9:30 AM#1

andre's van fleet thread talked me into finally writing mine up. for me the whole decision was savings first, i am not romantic about trucks, i needed the cheapest clean box truck that would let me stop renting. i run a small delivery and moving operation out of east st louis, mostly furniture, appliances, and small commercial moves. for two years i rented a 16 footer at 190 a day plus fuel and i was still turning down weekend jobs because the rental counter was out of trucks every saturday.

i ran the math and renting was costing me north of 2k a month in my busy stretch with nothing to show for it. so i started watching lucas-motors.com for a cutaway.

last march a 2019 Ford E-450 cutaway came up, 16ft box, 7.3 godzilla gas V8, tommy gate liftgate rated 1300 lbs, 71k miles, former rental fleet truck. the price was thousands under what the truck lots an hour away wanted for a comparable year and box, and honestly less than a single busy season of renting.

i did it by the book. pulled the carfax, clean and fleet serviced. had a commercial truck shop in the city it was sitting in inspect it, lucas motors set it up no problem. they checked the box floor for soft spots, the liftgate hydraulics, the brakes and the frame. came back clean except the liftgate was due a seal kit and the house battery for the gate was weak.

i won it, arranged transport, and it showed up as described. the seal kit was 180 and an hour, new battery 140. been running it a year now and ill report how it has held up below.

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boxtruck_Nadir

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Posts 962
Joined Aug 2020

Evansville IN

Mar 18, 2025 · 12:14 PM#2

the 7.3 godzilla in that E450 is the one to have. everybody romanticizes the old 7.3 powerstroke diesel but for a box truck that does city stop and go all day the gas godzilla is the smarter buy, way less to go wrong, no def, no regen headaches, and parts are cheap and everywhere. it drinks a little more fuel but you make that back the first time you skip a 4k diesel repair.

mine is the same drivetrain in my cutaway and it has been bulletproof. only thing i baby is the transmission fluid, those TorqShift 10 speeds like fresh fluid if you load them heavy. good score on the former rental, people turn their nose up but a rental fleet has to keep them dot legal so the service records are usually real.

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newbiz_Paolo

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Posts 6
Joined Sep 2025

Carbondale IL

Mar 20, 2025 · 3:40 PM#3

this is the kind of thread that got me off the fence on buying commercial online, the rental math is exactly my situation right now. im starting a courier and small delivery route and i keep handing the rental counter money that should be building equity in my own truck.

how did you get comfortable with the size difference going from renting to owning a truck over 10k gvwr? the registration and the dot stuff is the part that makes my head spin, i do not even know what i need yet.

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TransitDaily_KeishaOP

Owner-Operator

Posts 877
Joined Jun 2019

East St. Louis IL

Mar 20, 2025 · 5:05 PM#4

newbiz_Paolo wrote

how did you get comfortable with the size difference going from renting to owning a truck over 10k gvwr? the registration and the dot stuff is the part that makes my head spin.

run your own numbers first, that is what got me comfortable. i wrote down every dollar i paid the rental counter in my busiest month, it was over 2k, and compared it to a payment on an owned truck plus insurance and a repair fund. the owned truck won by a mile and i stopped losing saturday jobs. let the math make the decision, not the nerves.

on the dot and registration, honestly it is less scary than it sounds, just paperwork. a 14,500 gvwr cutaway like mine put me in the medium duty bucket, so i needed commercial plates and i had to sort my usdot number since i cross into missouri for jobs. the shop lucas pointed me to actually knew the local rules, and the paperwork they sent with the truck was enough to walk into the license office and get it done. call your state dmv commercial desk and ask exactly what your weight and your routes require before you buy, so there are no surprises. none of it is hard, it is just a checklist.

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uptime_Rhonda

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Posts 5,208
Joined Nov 2013

Springfield IL

Mar 23, 2025 · 10:20 AM#5

good report keisha. the former rental cutaways are a smart buy if the box checks out, and you checked the right things. they get hard miles but they also get real maintenance, because a rental company has to keep them legal and documented or they cannot rent them, so the service history tends to be honest.

the box floor and the liftgate are the two things i tell everyone to inspect on a used box truck, exactly like you did. a rotten plywood floor or a tired gate are the expensive surprises, and they do not show in a listing photo. you caught the gate seals on inspection and fixed it for 180, that is the process paying off. for the fleet i manage we run two cutaways on parts delivery and the gates are the thing we service on a schedule so they never strand a driver.

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dispatchdesk_Lou

Owner-Operator

Posts 3,641
Joined Mar 2014

Chicago IL

Jun 11, 2025 · 8:45 AM#6

the liftgate is the thing people underestimate on a used box truck, so glad you caught the seals on inspection. a gate that dies at a dock with a loaded pallet behind it costs you the whole job and sometimes the customer. i tell everyone running a gate to carry a spare pump relay and know how to use the manual lowering valve, because the one time it fails it will be the worst possible time.

beyond that a cutaway is about as simple as commercial gets. keep the fluids fresh, grease the gate pivots, watch the box seams for leaks after a hard rain, and it will run for years. the savings you banked buying it right is what keeps you calm when it does eventually need a brake job or a gate cylinder. owned and paid down beats renting every day once you are busy.

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TransitDaily_KeishaOP

Owner-Operator

Posts 877
Joined Jun 2019

East St. Louis IL

Mar 10, 2026 · 8:15 AM#7

UPDATE one year in and the E450 has paid for itself twice over against what i was burning on rentals. put about 19k miles on it, zero breakdowns. besides the gate seal kit and battery on day one, the only money spent was an oil and transmission service, a set of rear brakes, and i finally greased and resealed the gate properly like lou said.

the real win is i stopped turning down work. every saturday that the rental counter used to be empty is now a saturday i own the truck and keep the whole fee. the math was savings first for me and the savings were real, no asterisk, so i did it again. i bought a smaller 12ft box, a Transit 350 cutaway, through lucas-motors.com back in january for the tighter downtown jobs the E450 is a pain to park for. two trucks now, both bought online, both bought right. paolo go run your numbers and buy the truck.