An Essential Piece of Equipment

You’d be hard pressed to find a farm these days without a semi for hauling grain and other tasks. In the last few decades, they have become an invaluable piece of equipment for modern farm operations. 

Sales of new trucks are slowing, but the used and auction market remains strong, especially among farmers looking to upgrade or add to their fleet. As one might expect, factors such as age, condition, and brand play a big role in used pricing. Used trailer pricing and availability is also holding steady. 

In this podcast, Andy Campbell and Dave Mowitz discuss the use of semis on the farm and the value they offer, along with insights into where the used market may go for these machines. They also share their own memories of the evolution of semis on the farm and how their own families have found benefit in them. 

Meet Andy Campbell

Andy Campbell is director of insights at Tractor Zoom. As a past engineer, professor, and entrepreneur, Campbell is passionate about bridging the gap between data and action for farmers, dealers, auctioneers, and ag lenders. He continues to help operate his family farm in Iowa.

Tractor Zoom was started in 2017 to help farmers and other decision makers have access to current equipment values and make data-driven decisions about heavy equipment.

Meet Dave Mowitz

Dave Mowitz worked at Successful Farming from 1982 to 2022, covering equipment trends for Successful Farming magazine, the Successful Farming TV show, and the Ageless Iron Almanac. Although recently retired, he continues to serve as a contributing editor and now podcast host.

Mowitz was raised on a family farm in Nebraska, of which he is now a part-owner.

Listen to the Podcast

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Episode Highlights

• Semis are practically essential in today’s farming environment. More and more farmers are using semis for long hauls in addition to harvest needs to capture better pricing.
• Demand fluctuates based on seasonality. Pricing is affected by age, features, and brand. 
• While Peterbilt has historically been a popular choice, Kenworth is currently dominating the auction market.
• Trailer technology is advancing and changing the market for new and used trailers. 

Transcript

Please note, this transcript has not been edited.

Dave Mowitz: Hello, this is Dave Mowitz with the machinery report. Today we’re talking about one of my more favorite topics, that’s semi trucks and hopper bottom trailers. And of course, joining me is Andy Campbell with Tractor Zoom. And people assume that Tractor Zoom would just focus on tractors, but actually since its start, a decade ago, I think more or less, it has expanded enormously, not only in the number of auctioneers that are participating, but also in the machinery that it’s tracking, representing, not only showing auctions and upcoming auctions, that’s the basis of the Tractor Zoom, but now you have analysis as well, which is your job. You do a lot of analysis, Andy. So the number of truck listings that you have have gone up exponentially, haven’t they?

Andy Campbell: tremendously. Yeah. I mean, I was just sorting through all the, trucks, that we have. And, I mean, obviously the category truck is large, and it contains a lot of different nuances, but, we’re easily talking hundreds of thousands. and so, which makes the analysis a little more difficult and which is also why I am thrilled because, you said that it’s one of your favorites because for me, it is one of my least favorites. but, absolutely.

Yeah, but from growing up in the farm, my memory and my recent memory just from this past year of working on trucks involves sticking my hand down through the floorboard of our freight liner, trying to grasp something that I cannot see. And my hand is way too big. and now we have a bolted piece of plywood on the floor of our freight liner. and no, yes, no.

Dave Mowitz: Hey, sounds like a pickup I used to drive. Never wear a suit on rainy days in that pickup. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: my gosh. Yeah. The, if there is something wrong with our truck and I don’t drive it that often, but it is still probably because of me. mean, the dented in a step coming in the side is where I backed into it with the tractor. yeah, the whole fiasco that we had this past year, it’s love, hate relationship.

Dave Mowitz: You know, previous podcasts, we’ve talked about your relationship with your dad’s equipment, that backhoe that underwent some repairs. it, I sensing a trend here? When you come to visit, does your dad just start putting stuff away and locking it up or what?

Andy Campbell: There’s a trend. I bet it’s a, it’s a challenge for him because I get stuff done, which is probably why things also break. And so it’s just a, you know, he just balances the good with the bad.

Dave Mowitz: Well, there you go. Yeah. Well, no, it just happens. You’re using the equipment. That’s what happens. Well, it’s it. The reason why it’s one of my favorites, my dad had a real affection for semi trucks. In fact, I think he’s one of the first farmers in his community to buy one, but also they’re kind of the princes of the farm. Cause guys like

Dave Mowitz: Well, you see the trucks going down the road with the names of the farms on the side. It’s a way of not only advertising, but to proudly say who we are. But the big thing that happened certainly in my time, and I’d been covering farm machinery for a long time, 40 years, was this change from straight trucks to semis. And now semis just dominate. And where you used to have one semi, now you may have three or four or five.

Andy Campbell: You’re right.

Dave Mowitz: So it’s become ubiquitous to farming. So it’s a big, big deal. I know it’s a keen interest when it comes to auction sales and online sales as well.

Andy Campbell: And I mean, on that part, I was actually doing the research for the last couple of days and I thought it would be good that we eventually got here at the beginning of our discussion. Like why, you know, because honestly, a lot of the semi truck auction data, they look at, you cannot look at it in farm isolation because it is essentially the hand me downs from what we get from the over the road industry. But why is it even a thing on the farms? And it’s really a strategic tool that you need now. And with the scale and the size of the farms.

Dave Mowitz: yes. Right.

Andy Campbell: I mean, I was just texting my dad a little bit before this, trying to figure out exactly when we started to get a semi versus the straight axle that we used to have. And it was right around the late nineties, early two thousands of when we had to adopt that. But if you look back on the progression of again, more row crop country here, but you’ve got the boom of ethanol, renewable fuels that helped the, the corn economy in the early two thousands and also the, you know, and it’s still growing, but it really,

prior to prior to COVID early 2000 and 2010s storage on farms. It just gives you such a strategic advantage to be able to deliver that, especially the ethanol plants, but also to co-ops in towns and deliver it across different places. It might have different basis. And so it’s helping you bring in more volume. You can exact a better price cause you can now choose where you want to deliver it to. so I think from a strategic standpoint and farms, it’s yeah, it’s a point of pride where you can trick out your truck and have it look incredible.

Dave Mowitz: Yes.

Andy Campbell: be proud of it, but it is a huge strategic advantage to be able to market your grain better. So it’s a good topic that we’re talking about.

Dave Mowitz: Oh, you know, the old rule was, you you marketed your grain more or less within 10 miles of where you live, even less than that for some farmers. Now a hundred miles. I mean, it’s, see guys trucking to ethanol plants or feed lots or river ports. Um, you know, and they don’t think of going that far, uh, to be able to take it down on the truck, which is kind of an interesting trend. was tracking in about 2020.

Andy Campbell: at least.

Dave Mowitz: 2020 and 2021 of the emergence of triple axle hoppers that now farmers were going after because it could pick up an extra 200 pounds or 300 pounds of weight to be able to haul more grain further. So otherwise prior to that, it was always a double axle, what 46 inch, 40 foot, I can’t remember the dimensions of the most common trailers that were there, but yeah, it is.

Andy Campbell: But yeah, it, it’s, it allows you your farm to exact that higher price, especially, and it depends where you live. And I haven’t done the research County by County yet on our data on the double axle versus triple axle, but like our farm up in Northern Iowa, we are a corn sink. We’ve got golden grain on one side of us, Valero on the other and a couple of co-ops. And so the, the amount of corn that gets chewed up by those ethanol plants pulls from Minnesota. It pulls from middle, middle of Iowa.

Dave Mowitz: wow.

Andy Campbell: And so not an issue for us to have anything like triple axle, cause we can’t go any further and get about higher price. But down here where I live now in Southern Iowa, we’ve got, and I used to work there for a while at Cargill, Eddieville, and we’d have trucks come down from Marshall town. You’ve got trucks coming in from Missouri. They’re lined up on, 163 just so they can be ready to dump early in the morning. And for those, it certainly makes a difference if you can carry a few more bushels and have to make less round trips.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, so we got some news we talked about in the previous podcast and that is new trucks are not selling or it sales have stagnated thanks to the tariff situation. I was going back, this, this was from the truck paper, manager, guy named Scott Lubisher said new truck sales have stagnated the new pre-buy behavior.

uh, moving from, has moved from 2025 to 2026, which means pre-buying trucks has now been forestalled a year and OEMs are cutting back production. Uh, and of course, uh, given the uncertainty clouding the global market, many buyers are stalling, but inventory levels are stable and deals are still being made. So this leads me to look forward to what’s happening now this summer.

and then even a year from now, hopefully, when the economy returns or whatever the issue is, what tariffs kind of stabilizes, and we start seeing more trucks sell. First of all, this ties up the good used trucks that normally would come onto the market, doesn’t it? Because they’re being used for another year.

Andy Campbell: It does. Yes. Well, and also an important thing to think about and just, this is really a, a mind shift that has to happen if you’re thinking about how farmers buy at auction versus how trucks sell because seasonality is different here because again, a majority of these trucks are not used for farm. They’re used over the road and also their business model when you’re going over the road is more, way more transactional. And so if you need it for a month, you buy it then, but then you could

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: you can unload it and get rid of it because it’s just, it’s a burden on your business. Whereas farmers will buy a machine and they’ll at least hold it for a year, but probably much, much longer. And so you’ll see this, the truck market fluctuate way more often based on current demand. So where you’re saying on the, um, you know, the tariffs and the implication of the tariffs and the OEMs pulling back on production of new orders. Yes. But on the used side, what we actually saw in the early spring, really March, April timeframe when

Dave Mowitz: yes. Yes.

Andy Campbell: tariffs were right upon us and we knew and we saw it within consumer demand. It’s like, get me that stuff now because I know it’s not going to be here this summer. So the used value of used trucks and I’m pulling here from our data, but also pulling from JD power data. So three to six year old sleepers, the used value shot up because people like we need to get goods from point A to point B while the demand is there now.

Dave Mowitz: That’s the sweet spot. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: You know, once, once we go through probably a shortage of everything coming from China later this summer due to no ships being on the water, it’s probably gonna drop. Right. So I’d expect that happen.

Dave Mowitz: What’s a predict, they’ll predict to be June, I think. Yeah. So, so I just extrapolate from that. Hold off buying right now. Maybe by June, July, August.

Andy Campbell: I would. Yes.

June. Yeah. Especially if, mean, if you’re like most farmers and again, I know you’re probably going to be delivering stuff to the destination all throughout the summer. I know we always are, but if you’re looking to ramp up and you need an extra truck or want to replace a truck for harvest, I would certainly wait till at least June, but I’m probably talking July, August to when we have some economic pressures that push those used values down.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing that’s going to be inspiring guys to buy as well as the size of the combines is not getting any smaller. So the fleet of the machines that they need to have to take it out of the field and get it to the farm requires it even more trucks. So demand may be stiff enough this summer a little bit. We don’t see huge numbers of farmers buying the super-sized combines, but we do know that more and trucks are running.

Andy Campbell: they’re out there.

Dave Mowitz: in the field. So in fact, it was so much so that an observation was made. I think it was Dan Sullivan at Sullivan Auctions, how guys now have generations of semi trucks. They had the semi trucks they use every week to deliver to their markets, you know, year round. And then they have the old semi truck, one of the first ones they bought as farmers are not apt necessarily, always get rid of the old equipment, right? How many old?

Andy Campbell: Ha ha.

Dave Mowitz: Disks are sitting in tree lines. Dan’s observation is those are still kept running, but they’re only brought into service during harvest. They become just ponies to get stuff from the field into the farm. And I’ve been watching on farms and you do see that generational pieces of machinery kind of build up after a little while. So, um, now it’s, it’s a fascinating marketplace because

What makes it fascinating, much like construction equipment, it’s a whole different world, isn’t it? You have your players when you’re buying a tractor, a combine, a baler, or what have you, your world of guys, right? It could be some Hispanic buyers that may be outliers, but mostly it’s folks that are farmers. Not so true with trucks. Who knows what you’re going to be running up against at an auction.

I didn’t know it. So are the trends that you’ve seen with prices? Truck paper says they’re relatively stable right now. There hasn’t been a downward trend.

Andy Campbell: That right. And, what I saw it just to give some historical context on how tied these, these are to the overall economy and really think about kind of the consumer economy that when I’m looking at, probably about a six year price graph that we were pretty low. and actually the low point, within six years was almost right around COVID time. It had been trending down in 19, but then about may of 2020,

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: It hit a bottom and it stalled there for a little while throughout 20. Well, we were all at home figuring out what’s actually going on. But then I think once people realize like, Oh, people still need toilet paper. Uh, then, uh, also truckers were considered essential workers. Then that started to shoot up all the way until 20 January 22 is kind of when it peaked. But I mean, we’re talking average auction selling price of a three to six year old sleeper was sitting around $40,000 back in time when COVID first hit all the way to January of 22. We’re talking, some of them were, you know, this average point was 120, 130. So that’s just an incredible increase that just inflation driven, a lot of speculation driven of couldn’t get parts, couldn’t have replacement pieces needed to get everything from point A to point B. But then it was a short spike. So you go kind of three to four months on either side of that January 22 timeframe and you’re still like 80.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: at least 80, 90,000 average. And that just as sharply dropped off to kind of bottomed out in late 23. And so to your point where you said it’s kind of stable, really in 24 minus seasonality bumps that we saw, 24 super stable within the used trucking industry. And it really wasn’t here until this whole tariff talk recently that we’ve seen some used prices shoot back up.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, I just noticed that, you know, and I know that the, they talk about increases or decreases on several of the sites I looked at, they’re talking about two or 4 % plus or minus. So we’re not talking huge swings one way or the other. We’ve seen times in the past, like you discussed where you had an oversupply of trucks or for some reason you had, what was that four or five years ago after the COVID run?

we had some big carriers go bankrupt and they dumped a lot of trucks in the marketplace and that’s what drove the prices down. it’s seasonal that way. So plenty steady. If you can find a good truck, go ahead and buy it. Typically when we’re talking about a good truck for farmers, is that still generally a, like a three, about a four to seven year old truck day cab?

Is that the preferred one that farmers are still going for?

Andy Campbell: from, from what I’ve seen, actually really depends on their operation. So we’ve seen more sleepers go with some farmers. But again, like I was talking about, it depends on your use of the truck and your delivery point, because if you are, you know, long hauling, some sleepers actually do help just because the demands on whoever’s driving it. But I would say that right now later in 25, so we’re talking still that summer, June, July, August, look for some potential deals.

but also understanding the seasonality if you’re looking for the best times to buy. So from a seasonality standpoint on trucks, you’ll typically have higher auction values in March and April. and then also September, October, just with demand spikes of, Hey, holiday pre shipping. that there might be, that might be thrown into a tailspin this year, depends on if there is actually stuff to ship, how that all works. But those are typically your high points, your lower points.

So times two actually by May to June again, typically is a slower activity. and then November, December though is especially a good time to buy because those auction values are lower. And that’s really because the trucking industry is pulling back. They’ve already delivered stuff for holidays. So they’re getting downsizing their fleets, their inventory turnover slows. And so you just have less competition with over the road buyers.

Dave Mowitz: May have to patch up the truck and make it through another harvest is what some of your advice is, or just look for the sweet deal when it does come along. Or that, that, I’m sorry.

Andy Campbell: Yes, but and then I guess to your. Well, I was going to say to your other point when you said like how old is an actual legitimately a good truck and I would say on this one that I would go at least from what I’ve heard and I actually called up one of my good friends used to run a trucking operation so he had eight different semis that he would run and manage fleet delivery. He said that it’s based. He would base it more off of hours and oil.

Dave Mowitz: Yes.

Andy Campbell: So he said, it obviously depends on how good of a condition the truck is in. He’s like super hard to tell. Not all sellers are honorable sellers and knowing who you’re buying it from is really important. And if you can’t figure that out, he said the quality of oil, if you can test it, if you can see it, that usually is an early indicator of some kind of engine decay. But general rule of thumb, if you can’t or, you know, if you do or don’t know the seller in the history of it, then, uh,

I’ve heard anything from 500 to 800 or 500 to 800,000 miles is usually about time for an overhaul. Although he said you can easily go over a million miles if the truck has been really well cared for before you need a massive overhaul. And then you’re talking 30 to 50,000 potentially in some kind of engine overhaul.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, I remember when I was tracking it more keenly, the sweet spot always seemed to be about a half million to 600,000 miles, about four to seven years old was kind of the target that farmers… This is after we had the tier four conversion because there for a while back then, not been that long ago, when tier four came in, there were some guys that just paid premium for…

engines that were not tier four that hadn’t gone to the exhaust circulation, ex, exhaust gas recirculation and death. And I even knew farmers that were buying pre tier four engines, especially cat engines and holding them. They’re going to swap out engines at a later date. I think we’re over that now. And guys have just accepted, okay, tier four is here. and by the way, one, one rule, it’s always a warning.

Because every time I hear a farmer or an acquaintance say this about how they delimited their truck or they delimited their pickup with a diesel, I just kind of groan. go, gosh, know, besides the fact that you can’t run in some states, if you pull over on a way station and get caught, you’re in deep trouble. Also, your vehicle takes a huge loss in value if it gets delimited.

Andy Campbell: Yeah. Same thing with tractors. I’d say the same thing that dealerships will look at that. And if they see an auction, good model, good everything, if they see delete on it, they’ll even do a word search on our, tractors and pro database. And if it says, yeah, if they says delete, then they’re like, they, completely push it to the side just cause the risk is so huge for them to take it. so it tends to devalue it significantly, just like you mentioned, it’s the legal risk or something bad happening.

Dave Mowitz: are they really?

Andy Campbell: They don’t want to touch it.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, it’s become kind of with some people a little bit of a political thing and others has become the stigma that I’ve never understood. I understand you have to handle death and I know that when you have to go through and do the maintenance on and the diesel particulate filter, it’s not cheap. I get that, but here we are and everything now has gone that way. It’s funny because I’ll see guys that will delete a semi truck or a tractor.

they don’t touch their pickup. You know, was like, okay, what are you using more than the other two things? And you keep pouring death down that thing. anyway, I’ll get off that. Is there a preference in brand?

Andy Campbell: yes. Glad you brought that one up because yeah, I did a lot of the research from our Tractors in Pro database on brands. Just, I’m curious to know.

Dave Mowitz: Because we know there’s no John Deere Semi, so we don’t have to worry about green underwear, right? Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Exactly, exactly. No, there’s no red, green, blue, orange, yellow battle that I need to worry about right now. So what I did is I looked at all top truck brands that we’ve seen at auction that have presented themselves at auction. And I looked at auction sales just in the last six years. the number one, number one, two and three vote getter are so close on like total miles. I first looked at it in total miles driven.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm. No.

Andy Campbell: Cause I’m not only interested in, you know, what’s out there, but what’s actually being used the most, international freight liner and Peterbilt were the most used miles not followed far behind by Kenworth. And then, then you get a little bit smaller and then you got Mack and Ford. But again, your, your Mack trucks, your Ford trucks are going to have less miles because those are just more power, but shorter distance utility type of trucks. when I looked at just overall volume, it didn’t change a ton.

Dave Mowitz: Peter. Yeah. Kenworth. Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: Certainly.

Andy Campbell: but it changes a ton over time. And so, yeah, this is the one thing that I thought was fascinating, but this is also why I’m so glad that you love trucks. and you’ve got a little more history on me, not to say that there’s a much of an age gap between us, but, there’s a little bit of an age gap between us.

Dave Mowitz: You saying I’m old? I embrace my sage-ness.

Andy Campbell: There you go. Wisdom. So that’s what I’m after here. I’m just after your wisdom. OK, OK, good. Well, you can tell me what happened in the early 80s because I was running around the diaper then, but

Dave Mowitz: Not wisdom, just sage-ness.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Don’t tell you what I was doing in the early eighties, but yeah, anyway.

Andy Campbell: Okay, well let me show you or at least tell you what I’m seeing in the data and then maybe you can enlighten me here on what’s going on because market share of manufactured years when I’m looking at. I’m still looking at auction sales that have happened in the past six years, but of all the things that have come across in the past six years, when were they produced? And if I take it all the way back to the early eighties, it is primarily Ford trucks and international trucks with a sprinkling of others.

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: and okay. But then Ford really dies off over the next 18 years to the point when we hit like, you know, 98, early 99, they don’t hold a candle of market share. mean, they’re barely a blip on the radar. Okay.

Dave Mowitz: They gave up on semis, the large class eight trucks. They just decided that’s not what they’re going to do. And that’s about the time they shifted towards an emphasis on pickup trucks. Because they discovered the, well, first started in Texas, but they discovered the urban buyer. Now that market was taking off. So, okay, let’s just focus on that and then service trucks and the heck with semi, big trucks, straight trucks.

Andy Campbell: okay.

Andy Campbell: Hmm. Okay. Can appreciate that. Know what you’re good at. Well, then international is the other one because again, early eighties was Ford and international international held some market share, a considerable amount of market share, probably 25, 30 % longer. They held it throughout the, you know, to early 2000 and then even almost a 2010, but by about 2012 that started to diminish to, you know, to your late 2015s where

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: their market share maybe is 10%. and so they tailed off just probably almost two decades later than what Ford did. So now that what

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Dave Mowitz: I’m not sure why that happened. I’ve noticed that too. I’m not sure why Navistar lost the market share that they did. Maybe it was just, I don’t know. I’m not going to speculate on that one. I do know what happened with Ford.

Andy Campbell: Well, okay. And maybe it’s a bit of competition too, because really what happened in, you know, Kenworth was around in 1980 and barely was a Freightliner was there, but they were a blip on the radar. But both of those starting probably with Kenworth in the late eighties started to gain considerable market share. They poured gas on it in late nineties, two thousands to where now at least, you know, in 2020 Kenworth has got a significant market share. And then

Dave Mowitz: yes.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Uh, Freightliner similarly, um, they’re a little later to where, let me make sure I’m, uh, actually take that back. Uh, Kenworth ported on in right around 2000 and then they grew and then it was Freightliner who was just around until about 2010 and really almost 20. Now it was looking at the data here, 2010. They might’ve had a 10, 15 % market share, but 2020.

We’re seeing almost a 24 % 30 % market share. So a pretty significant growth by Freightliner here in just the last five years.

Dave Mowitz: And I know what happened in that case. Both of them invested very heavily in advanced technology and trucks and engines and transmissions and electronic controls. They decided to get into the business seriously. I mean, not that they weren’t building before, but they decided, no, we want to be a truck builder of renown. We want to be a Peterbilt, I guess. There’s always that gold standard.

but they went after Navistar and they went after the market shares that they wanted to go. It’s very impressive what both companies did. Trying to remember though, Freightliner, now they’re separate ownership, because there is some ownership overlap over here, they got real serious about over the road trucks, I know that.

Andy Campbell: Yeah, in this freightliner and I was Sterling. Are they owned by Daimler? Or were they? OK. Right, I know it gets changed hands so many times.

Dave Mowitz: Could be at one time that all I have to go back and look, it gets a little confusing after a while. Yeah. And, and, and they were also getting prompted by companies like Volvo coming in with pretty decent trucks and they tried to really establish it. And that was the old white truck line that Volvo came in under. So, there was more competition, but I think.

Andy Campbell: Yeah. And Peter built.

Dave Mowitz: Over the road truckers were demanding better trucks, better engines, long, better longevity. And those guys that stood up and delivered those trucks were the ones that succeeded in that 2010 to 2020 range, especially better from, you know, 2000 to 2020.

Andy Campbell: Yeah. And Peterbilt really, they’ve been there in the game in the eighties, uh, you know, about with, at least from what I see in my auction data, 10 % market share, they’ve roughly, uh, held that sometimes a little bit weaker, sometimes a little bit stronger. But I, I would say in the, in the 2015 era, they started to increase up to about 20 % market share, uh, all the way to 2020. Although it does look like, you know, the Kenworth has really

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: I mean, just whatever they’ve done, they produced a lot more trucks. And again, we’re seeing it laggard here and showing up at auction. So it’s after they’re produced, after they’re used in their back on the auction market, but they, man, Kenworth is really dominating the auction market right now, at least in terms of volume out there.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm. Come on.

Well, I know with a lot of farmers there, there is not the, the mystique of owning a brand necessarily. I’ve met farmers that only own Mac, only own freight shakers as they’d love to call them or Kenny’s. But, I know for sure the one truck line that almost every farmer kind of would like to have and that’s Peterbilt. They’re just a mystique around Peterbilt.

that the Model 379 is extremely popular or a lot of people aspire to have that. But you pay the price for them. I mean, it can be double the price in a market for equal number of miles. So it is best sold as a mystique. I tracked a 2008 379 Day Cab. It 700,000 miles, had the CAT C5 engine in a 12-speed manual.

manual and 20 218 inch wheelbase sold now no 2008 truck right we’re talking my math it’s 16 years old sold for sixty six thousand dollars wow this thing has almost eight hundred thousand miles on it but guys love peterbilt if it’s sweet looking machine they’ll pay a premium for it

So I didn’t know what you’d seen on pricing and ranges when it comes to these other trucks and things like that.

Andy Campbell: I will say on the Peterbilt, the things that I’ve heard, and this is anecdotal, this is in data. Some of the drawbacks people say it’s tight, it’s tough for a big guy to fit into. But that’s usually, that’s what people say almost as a disclaimer of like, yeah, this is maybe the one drawback, but I love this truck. And again, you’re right. Similar to the conversation we had very early, it’s like the, the look, the mystique, the how sharp they are is

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. They just have a, they do have a look. It’s not the most handsome truck. No gosh Navistar has that pretty, I can’t forget the model has a pretty grill on the front and Kenny’s and Freightliners are really nice looking trucks. The Peterbilt is just, it’s a Peterbilt. It looks like a Peterbilt. You see them, you know, when you go home to Northern Iowa, I head out to Nebraska to go see family and friends out there.

Andy Campbell: It’s a brand. It makes a difference.

Dave Mowitz: I can spot a Peterbilt a mile away going down the highway, in the interstate when I’m driving. You know, you could just see that big snout coming out at you and it just says truck. Not that it’s any better, but.

Andy Campbell: Yeah.

Right? Well, I will tell you something that sticks out when I look at data though. So this isn’t anecdotal. This is sifting through the data and I’ve got to first describe this graph that I did. so when I looked at, and I just looked at these top brands, so I looked at the longevity essentially of internationals, but really Freightliners, Kenworth and Peterbilt’s with this, I looked at all the different manufacturing years from 1980 till today and the average amount of miles that are put on

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: all these different trucks throughout all those different manufacturing years. And it kind of looks like, you know, the things that are only one or two years old, it’s it ramps up, right? Because they haven’t been on the road that long and everything and everything. Most of the data points are close together. But once you start to get older than 10 to 15 years, that diverges to where some trucks just don’t accumulate very many miles. Other ones do. So they accumulate way more than average miles. So whoever’s using them is using them way harder and longer.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm. Right.

Andy Campbell: And they’re just putting on more miles for how old they are. And Peterbilt stands out here because I mean, they’re almost putting on 80 % more, almost twice as many miles as the average mile point for a, uh, looking here at about a 30 year old truck. So when I look at this graph, that was one thing that stood out, especially from the 1990s production point to the pretty much 2000, that time period of manufacturing for Peterbilt.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: seems to stand above the market for the ability to put on so many miles and still be and it still works.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. Oh, I think the truck’s very well built and it’s known for its longevity and durability. And so, yeah, you may have to do an engine overhaul, but the rest of the truck is going to stay with you for a while without requiring a major input for some time. And of course, if you’re a farmer, you may be hauling your grain further away, but in a way you’re not putting on the accelerated

miles that an over-the-road truck will have. I could see where there’d be an advantage if you wanted to pay more money like this 2008 with that many miles that, you know, it may be on your farm for another 10, 15 years if you’re just running 20-mile runs to wherever you’re taking your grain to. So I can see that. It’s just not, you know, I get the mystique, I get the look. I know guys that when they have a Peterbilt they almost brag about it.

as they should probably, but it is a well built truck. the funny thing about Peterbilt though, Peterbilt options out more engines than I think anybody else. They have a pack car engine that’s the engine of their manufacturing, the CAT and the Detroit. So you need to kind of watch and that engine will have an impact on the price of the truck. So I know you need to look at that.

And then engine change ups occur with other manufacturers too. So I know that has something to do with it.

Anyway, other analysis when it comes to semi trucks and we’ll get on the hopper bottoms.

Andy Campbell: Oh yes. Uh, I mean, I would say that we haven’t really hit on overall volume. I know we’ve talked about it a little bit, but if people are just concerned, like, you know, are there a lot of semi trucks out there? How does it compare now versus a while ago? Cause I think most people hopefully are fairly aware of what farm machinery is out there, but from, um, common like sleeper semis three to seven years old, uh, we’re pretty tight supply in 21 again, no surprise.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: Everything else was tight, trucks, cars, farm equipment. And that lasted until late in 22. And then we started to see the supply grow and it probably peaked in January 24. So again, not a whole lot different than what I probably saw on our, combine market. And then, but since 24, they’ve drawn down the inventory and it probably locally bottomed out here in January 25.

Dave Mowitz: Yes.

Andy Campbell: and I will say though, it is jumping back up. So right now the overall supply is probably most common with what we saw beginning at 24 and it may be right before COVID hit, in late 2019. That’s kind of the supply. I’d say a good steady state, not overabundance. the most overabundance that we saw on these kind of trucks was actually right when COVID shutdown got announced.

I imagine probably a lot of people are like the world’s collapsing. Nothing’s going to be used. Let’s, know, let’s unload our trucks, cut down on our costs and our business. And then that was short-lived, because then they were gobbled up to ship stuff around.

Dave Mowitz: Well, and like I mentioned before, I suppose it’ll maintain that position until next fall, late fall when the Christmas supplies, toys, and gifts have all been delivered and there might be more. But also, you know, once the economic, the terror situation is kind of resolved, settles out and we get back to just building and transporting.

then I bet we might see a possible increase in used trucks because there is definitely a lag in buying new right now. And there’s always that pent up demand and you’re right, that industry of trucking, they just buy because they have no problem going out and buying a whole new fleet and turning it over. So we could see maybe next winter a surge of used trucks hit the marketplace.

They might have more miles than they normally do though, because they ran an extra year, but that’s just pure speculation. All I know is I know the auction you want to go to, if you ever want to have fun, go to Florida in the winter, go to the Ritchie Brothers auction in Orlando, where they have literally thousands of used trucks. It’s a city of trucks and buyers there. I watched it online.

Andy Campbell: Yes.

it’s a city. huh.

Dave Mowitz: A guy will buy, you know, they roll the trucks through and a guy will buy the first truck. And then they’ll say, well, I forget how they phrase it. Do you want others? And sometimes they’ll buy it like the next 67 trucks. They’re all Kenworths from a fleet and they’re getting loaded up on a ship, you know, 50 miles away and going overseas because we do have big demand for American trucks overseas.

Andy Campbell: Correct.

Dave Mowitz: They love them in the Middle East and they love them in Eastern Europe. So that market kind of siphons off these trucks that normally are there. So it’d be a fun trip.

Andy Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. That, that auction. mean that they do a whole publication, whole analysis just around that event down there in Florida. Uh, and yeah, so I’ve often, uh, joked with my wife that my daughter who’s now turning 14 in a week, I’m like, that’s where I’m to get her first truck. Not a semi granted. Cause nobody needs that on the road, but, uh, some I do.

Dave Mowitz: No, no, but you need an excuse to go down there. You know, the excuse we need is we needed to attend that auction. We’ll take Ryan Rusnik with us and then he can pick out a couple of tractor poles on the way we can go to. Cause you know, Ryan’s deeply into tractor poles and.

Andy Campbell: He would love that.

You just committed ourselves to doing that because he’s going to, he’s going to hear this and schedule this trip.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. Well, and I know a couple of great tractor antique collections down there, big heritage, 1960s and 70s tractors that he loves. So gosh, that’d be a great road trip to take. Anyway, trailers. I love trailers. I’m fixated with trailers in some ways. And it’s for farmers. It’s the transport trailers certainly have become more more popular, but it really is the hopper bottle.

Andy Campbell: Yes.

Dave Mowitz: out there that guys are looking to go for. And it used to be a hopper bottom was a hopper bottom was a hopper bottom. There was the standard size that most farmers bought. And the only thing that would differentiate a buy at an auction that would maybe get their money is they’d be looking for egg hoppers. That would be the one thing that say, yeah, that’s what I’m looking for a roll over tarp. Yeah, that would be good too. But, know, egg hoppers.

But now, wow, the effects of diversification in what’s offered in trailers have made it somewhat of a challenge to necessarily say there’s a set trailer out there. Well, there is, I shouldn’t say that there’s a standard trailers around. But I have no auction information on trailers. I know that they’re always popular. What are you guys seeing?

Andy Campbell: I have auction data on trailers. I have plenty.

Dave Mowitz: There you go. Well, I knew that’s why we talk. You’re the data man, right?

Andy Campbell: Yeah. So well on these guys, and I wish there was more of a two horse race, but it is not. So, uh, when we’re talking to hopper bottom trailers, they’re really Wilson and Tim T, uh, in the auctions in the last six years, uh, they’ve kind of just dominated to the point when I look at total auction market share from that time period, uh, they are neck and neck into the point of, had to go down to the, um, uh, decimal points, uh, on my percentages.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: Right.

Andy Campbell: to really differentiate between the two. And so there is a little bit of a slight nuance in terms of who’s had more at auction over the past few years, but still they’re both sitting about 38 to 40 % market share of all Hopper Bottom trailers we see at auction. And then from an auction price standpoint too, and this shouldn’t be a big surprise because I know that they are price pointing each other and trying to make their new very similar and competitive that

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: The, uh, Tim T does bring a slightly higher price at auction over the past six years at about 27 K, uh, and Wilson was about 25 K, although that has shifted a little bit. So if we take a little historical look at this, and again, we’re, we’re talking minor shifts here, but from 20, oh, say 2020, 21, 22, 23 and 24 Tim T

was bringing a higher value at auction each one of those years. Now, right, we’re talking about $1,000 on average more, give or take each year. But so far in 25, Wilson is edging them out, bringing about $500 to $600 more at auction. So that’s how close it is.

Dave Mowitz: But mean, nominally higher, right? I mean, we’re not talking about a huge difference. Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: And I wonder if that’s not, again, maybe a technological advance. know TempT had some super light trailer technology earlier. No more extensive use of aluminum in their trailers as guys were looking to cut the weight of trailers. And maybe that’s what attracted more buyers that way, who also maybe have caught up. Of course, they’re both good Midwestern built hopper bottoms and great companies that I think they’re

originating companies. not, they weren’t bought up by another firm. So Wilson’s out of Sioux City, tempting.

Andy Campbell: They are out of Northwestern Iowa. I’ve called him once way back when we just started to get a little more data and chat with him and Tim T. Yeah, I’ll be screwed up, but I wanted to say that they were near Cedar Rapids, but I could be wrong on this one.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, I think so. I could be wrong, but yeah. Well, I know it’s it’s it you came into Stoutens and other trailer makes when you get to that last 20 % 20 to 30 % don’t you that show up and there there are quite a I’m trying to think of some other names that are out there all great trailers, but Boy that those two seem to dominate are there particular

Characteristics of trailers. Well, anyway, let’s talk about prices on trailers more than anything else Hopper bottoms always struck me as pretty steady year in and year out when it comes at a Good trailers gonna bring you Well about twenty five thousand twenty three twenty four twenty five thousand dollars at auction Don’t they they just seem to be always held holding in there?

Andy Campbell: They they do. There was a little bit of the natural COVID peak and I should say before I forget because I’m definitely going to forget that Tim T’s David City, Nebraska. So I’m going to have some Husker fans that would have been ticked at me had I not mentioned that. yeah, that really the the onus is on you then, yeah.

Dave Mowitz: my, and I’m in the brassica too original. I’m going to, I’m going to catch grief. I know I used to drive through David city on the way to college from, from my hometown of Hampton up to Wayne. So I should have known this anyway. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Great trailer.

Andy Campbell: well, but yes, the, the average price is, you know, it did peak a little bit in 21 and 22, more than what it has. And so it’s dropped back down, but yeah, in general, they are fairly consistent year in and year out. It’s really the age of the trailer. Once your size is defined, which again, we’re talking about double axle, triple axle. Once that’s kind of defined, then it just, you have a depreciation rate, year over year. That’s fairly consistent.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: But yeah, you can look back and see a peak of prices in 21. It held into 22, just a little bit into 23. And we’re actually lower for a one-year-old trailer now in 24, a manufactured year of 24 than we saw last year. So prices are coming down now, more in line with what they probably should be.

Dave Mowitz: Right. So take a one-year-old trailer. Is there an average price there that Hopper Bottoms have been bringing as opposed to something that’s five years old?

Andy Campbell: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yes. So if you, let’s say we take a 20, trailer $45,000 for that. If we go back five years, for a 22 or sorry, this would be a 2020 manufactured your trailer about $42,000. That’s what we’re seeing. Once you get the depreciation curve starts to get fairly steep after you get to five years old. So if you’re looking for a deal on a trailer, what I would say,

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Andy Campbell: is there’s obviously people that like to buy new, it fits our operation, it fits our preference. They, it appears at least looking at the data that those prices stay consistent for about four to five years. And then they really start to drop in that depreciation. Uh, and so it’s, once you get to like a six year old trailer that now you’re dropping somewhere around four to 5 % a year, maybe even a 6%. So I would, if you’re looking for a deal, I would look further out than a six year old trailer, roughly.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, and if you worked it, and this has been my advice when people have asked me, I say you can buy an older trailer, but first of all, you need to know the previous owner and how many miles have been put on that trailer. That’s very important. Secondly, go and inspect it. Do a thorough inspection of the trailer. I mean, start with the tires because you can wrap up. If you had to replace tires, you’re going four to $6,000. Bam, right off that you need to add that.

The frame can, you can have, well, important inspection pointers. The frame, you get a flash shot, you look at the side rails, cross members for excessive rust, dense cracking, twisting. You check the slider rails, if they’re welded to the cross members, check for cracks, irregular formation, fresh welds. You look at the hoppers to see if they’re dented to damage cracks in the hopper sides and frames.

and then run those doors to see how worn they are. Tires, we’ve talked about it. You know, use the old penny test with Lincoln’s head, you know, and in some states, if you have less than sixteenth of an inch of a tread, they’re actually prohibited in some states. So you might get caught if you’re crossing over the line delivering in another state. Roll tarp, and that’s the one that’s, well, always overlooked. Guys, just won’t crawl up there and look, but it could be torn. Even the mechanism not work. So.

Andy Campbell: Yes.

Dave Mowitz: And that could be anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 in a replacement of just the tarp alone. And brakes inspect the drums and liners for unusual wear and tear. And then wire throughout. Wire electrical connections can start corroding. But that is a crucial thing to look for on a truck. But if you do that, you can buy a 10-year-old, not I said truck before,

But if you do that, you can buy a 10 year old trailer because it was run by a farmer that wasn’t necessarily putting that many miles on it. And it doesn’t have an odometer. They should put odometers on trailers, but they don’t, right?

Andy Campbell: Right. And I mean, you probably have some gravel travel on there. So a little bit harder, maybe on the tires and maybe the wire harnesses with the dust. But, but yeah, probably was not run too far from home.

Dave Mowitz: And, and did it ever get banged, banged up going in and out of a field or did guys always just dump on the road? So there’s all these things that an inspection can review, but that’s where I think you start seeing the sweet deals at auction or even in retail sales for trailers. And if you’re willing to put some time in, not only inspecting, maybe doing some repairs, you can get a pretty good trailer for a decent price.

Andy Campbell: Yeah. And one of the things that I was a little surprised to see, and I want to dive into it more, kind of with our, we have a AI component to a lot of our data that parses out even the finer points and within trailers, what’s on a scope is to look at automatic openers of the, know, your bottom gates, but then your roll tarps too, which, you know, when I, when my dad mentioned it for our trailer, I was like, I can roll a tarp. I do not need this. But when I see him try to roll the tarp, you know, he’s 73 and

Dave Mowitz: yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Campbell: for him it’s a godsend and it was such a monumental addition to the truck because now he can haul to the ethanol plant and he kind of enjoys it takes a few loads in but he’s not having to crank that thing on his shoulder and it it’s just increased his longevity of being able to do that so much more.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. And remote door operations, same thing. Don’t have to get out of the truck. Just pull over, hit the button, open the doors up. Yeah. It’d be worth it in some cases, not to have to always climb out. Or maybe you just take your, your, teenage boy with you and that’s his job. You know, of course, you know, that might get more expensive than just buying the automatic door, door openers in the tarp, the, on the other side, but there’s, that’s the other thing is that back when I first started covering.

Andy Campbell: Yes.

Dave Mowitz: hopper bottom or trailers. A hopper bottom was a hopper bottom was a hopper bottom. Again, there was conventional and the hot thing, this will date me, was egg hoppers. Everybody wanted an egg hoppers, they were new. That was about it, Andy, when it came to differences between trailers. If it was tempting and well-seen, you knew it was well-built, that was kind of the rule, but you could get a great well-built stout and stuff like that.

Wow, have they segmented out? You mentioned one thing was the remote doors. I’d looked spring versus pneumatic suspension conventional egg hoppers, powered, non-powered tarp, steel corners, ladders and catwalks. And then the big one now dual versus tri axle. They have really kind of optioned out trailers to a large degree. So that has an impact on price, doesn’t it?

Andy Campbell: does. Yes, certainly. And a lot of these newer options, the newest of the new, we tend not to see at auction, at least not to a point when I can part where I can parse out the data just because like I said, the first, you know, three, four or five years, people are not trading those things in like the, may trade in a tractor every couple of years. So it has to be out in the field for a little while for me to really see a resale value on that. But we are starting to see that again, because we talked about with the trucks, if you’re driving the truck, you’ve got your trailer and it’s your part of your brand.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm. Right.

Andy Campbell: and people want it to look nice. They want it to operate well. So if it’s worth it to them, you know, it’s easier to justify, you know, a five $10,000 upgrade.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, it would be. Well, the other thing that I had noticed too, that’s a differentiation and an increasing use, especially with Tempting Wilson, and that’s an increased use of aluminum. I talked about it before. And at first I was thinking, well, there’s a little weight savings on aluminum. It turns out it can be significant. The Wilson claims their super light trailer line. And this depends on the configuration.

But that super light trailer line can reduce trailer weights by as much as 7,500 pounds. Well, that’s 7,500 more pounds of corn you can put in that hopper. The big one, aluminum versus steel rims. That’s a weight difference of three to 400 pounds. Steel or aluminum kingpins, that can be as much as 250 to 300 pounds savings. Aluminum subframe, drop leg landing gear and hubs and drums.

They have just started using structural aluminum, which is a stronger type aluminum configuration with better engineering. That has really helped cut down the weight of these things. So guys are looking at that in addition to the triaxle so they can start hauling more. And the interest in that is particularly with what I called before. Remember, I talked about the fleets. Now we’re seeing farms have the older truck they use in the fall. And a lot of Midwest states will suspend the

transport rules for harvest. But they’re not certainly doing that when you’re taking grain to market. So they’re using the better trailers there. maybe you want to spend a little extra money to get more aluminum in your trailer or a better configuration that suits your needs. And that becomes your… Yeah.

Andy Campbell: Right. And when you’ve got that longer, right? Well, that longer haul, mean, if you’re, if you’re saving 7,500 pounds at 56 pounds of bushel, that’s 130 bushels more, right? That you’re able to get onto that truck. And I mean, that’s, that’s significant. Not eight, nine trips. Now you’ve got one extra trip in there. that that’s, that’s not nothing.

Dave Mowitz: bushels. Yeah. Big difference. Yeah.

Dave Mowitz: No, that’s not nothing, but you’re going to pay for that. mean, in the trailer you buy. So, you know, you can amortize that cost out over the amount that you haul in. It’s just a matter of that. I know that these super light trailers are becoming more more common in the marketplace. And I didn’t track that. It’d be interesting. I’m going to spend some time to look to see if we’re now getting more and more on the used market. It should be because they’ve been out there long enough now that they ought to be circling around and.

the numbers high enough to see what’s going on there and what kind of price they’re bringing. So it’ll be kind of fun to look at that. Other observations. I’m sorry.

Andy Campbell: So is that another, well, well, I was just saying, is that like your, soft way of giving me homework? I’m just like, Hmm, I wonder if this is a, if there’s some kind of data behind this, I’m just going to throw that out there and see if Andy bites on that.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Inquiring minds, I always want to know. It shows you the strange world that we live in, Andy, that we look at these little mites looking for trends that might come out, isn’t it? Yeah, kind of fun.

Andy Campbell: I don’t know you planted the planted the seed and now my afternoon shot.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. Well, I think we’re kind of at the tail end unless there’s other observations that you have.

Andy Campbell: I mean, this covered a ton of it. and so, you know, there’s obviously a ton going on with the farm economy right now. And then the uncertainty with the tariffs and we’re working with dealers, left and right just to better help them, help their farmers. But, you know, I’d say there’s a lot of question marks out there on, is it the right time to invest in machinery or not, you know, trailers or semis, probably more pertinently might be an opportunity this summer.

Dave Mowitz: Mm-hmm.

Andy Campbell: Just again, we got to see what happens to the supply chain and then values, just, you know, there’s, I think all farmers are being a little more prudent on what they might spend on. But if there’s an opportunity to get a good trailer for a tractor, sorry, a semi for a good price, it might be this summer.

Dave Mowitz: Yes.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah. And it could be, and we’re seeing a little bump now up in commodity prices, so that might help encourage guys to look and do that. We know the payoff with these trucks can be significant as you can go further and reach certain markets that’ll give you that bump in price or bump in income that you’re doing. You know, we’re going to finish this way, is that we talked about a road trip that we had to take to Florida.

I found the thing what we need. There’s a 2006 motor coach bus up for sale. The latest bid on it was $5,500. Now it had only 54,000 miles showing, but it had a head change and the actual mile was about a half million to 600,000. Now it is a transport. has 30 passenger forward-facing chairs and 15 passenger chairs in addition to that.

I say we just buy that thing. We strip out the chairs. We build our own rock star type of bus. And then Ryan, you and I just head off to Florida for about a week in that thing. And then we’ll just keep it. And then we get lost on the way back. We stop at Dollywood. Oh, that could be fun. And there’s some really great auctions in the, in the winter. We’ll have to wait till this winter to do that. Of course.

Andy Campbell: nothing that’s going to go wrong with this My wife’s gonna love it too. Yep.

Dave Mowitz: You’re coaching basketball, so that’s going to be tough for you to do.

Andy Campbell: Right, that’s what I was thinking. You’re right in the midst of basketball season, so maybe a little earlier than that.

Dave Mowitz: Yeah, yeah, maybe we will just tell Ryan we need to have a couple tractor pulls to go to and then we’ll do it then.

Andy Campbell: he will find some

Dave Mowitz: Well, Andy, we’ll see you next time. And in the meantime, have fun as you track the markets.

Andy Campbell: Absolutely.

Andy Campbell: I will. it’s going to be an exciting year and there’s no shortage of things to report on.