Blog

Jun 07, 2025

Sizing Up Semis

The semitrailer has become the transportation workhorse of choice in farming. Tharran grew up on a grain and livestock farm in north central Kansas, where the family's main crops were wheat, grain

The semitrailer has become the transportation workhorse of choice in farming.

Tharran grew up on a grain and livestock farm in north central Kansas, where the family's main crops were wheat, grain sorghum and alfalfa for a small dairy herd. 2024 will mark Tharran's 50th year as a writer. He is a contributor to Successful Farming and Ageless Iron.

Dave Mowitz

Semitrucks are an important, if sometimes overlooked part of the farm operation. The challenge with buying one used, unlike farm iron, is that they are employed in a huge variety of transport jobs or may have a murky past. For these and many other reasons, it is most prudent to dig deep into a truck's past before buying — even if it is a late-model vehicle.

"Before bidding or buying, get the vehicle's VIN and find out what you're getting into," said Tim Meyer of the Steffes Group.

You are looking not only into the truck's use, care, and maintenance, but also into its specifications, particularly engine design. Meyer explains that trucks built during the transition years (roughly 2007 to 2010) of the truck industry adopting Tier 4 emission standards employed a mixture of pollution equipment.

If you prefer a pre-Tier 4 truck, be warned it will come with high miles (from at least 13 years of use) and "you will sometimes pay a premium for these vehicles," Meyer said.

The condition and past care of any used truck, even if it is a late-model vehicle whose numbers are currently glutting the market, should be investigated.

"A common mistake is not knowing everything there is to know about a sale vehicle," said Bill Nelson of US Auctioneers. "It starts with doing business with a reputable auction company or dealership that will tell you the bad and good about a truck."

Start your investigation into a truck by getting the name of the seller or previous owner. Call and ask how the semitruck was maintained, how it was employed (local transport vs. over-the-road hauling), and why it's being sold. Also ask for the maintenance logs and check to see if they were kept up to date. These logs reveal how well the truck was maintained and exposes any major repairs it has received.

Investigate whether the truck was involved in an accident and what damage occurred to the vehicle if it was in an accident, and whether it has a salvaged title assigned to it.

Go online and find that particular model's track record. Look for owners' comments regarding chronic problems, particularly regarding engines and transmissions.

Finally, perform a personal inspection of the truck or hire a mechanic to examine it. This should include driving the truck (if possible) and thoroughly inspecting its structure.

"Uninformed buyers usually ask about tires and brakes only," Nelson said. "These can be replaced for relatively low cost. But a damaged frame or questionable engine can be enormously costly to repair.

The gold standard in used semitrucks is farmer-owned not only for other agricultural buyers but also for purchasers from other markets.

"There is little doubt about that fact," Nelson said. "This is particularly true of trucks owned by Midwest farmers (a fact that is also well established with farm equipment, in general)."

How much more does farmer-owned add to a truck value?

"That is hard to say," said Luke Sullivan of Sullivan Auctioneers. "Age and condition are such overriding factors in auction prices. Being farmer-owned definitely brings with it buyers' peace of mind that the truck or trailer hasn't been out on the road all of its life racking up an excessive amount of miles, and it was more than likely operated by its owner."

Online price research of 152 comparable trucks did find a consistent 15% to 18.5% value boost to farmer-owned.

There are a lot of myths and misunderstanding surrounding retread tires because of recap problems from the distant past. Yet, a University of Michigan study led by Jon Woodrooffe and conducted for the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not find any differences in tire failure patterns between new and retread tires.

"There is a bad reputation surrounding retreads that has been present for a very long time," Woodrooffe said.

However, when his research team studied tire casings, they found there was essentially no failure differences between new and retreads.

"Where we found retread failure was through hitting a road hazard (32% of the cause of failure), poor maintenance (30% of the cause), or improper inflation pressures (14% of the cause)," Woodrooffe said. "The quality of these retreads has really risen to be equivalent to a new tire."

Regarding use life, Bandag (owned by Bridgestone) contends that retreads last as long as most new high-quality tires, but they usually sell for 30% to 50% less than new tires, depending on tire quality.

I was reading an online exchange regarding the most popular features on hopper-bottom trailers. It included a rather heated debate about the value of aluminum trailers. That argument boiled down to whether the extra price of trailers with aluminum composition and major components was worth the extra bushels they allowed farmers to legally haul. A search of trailer manufacturers turned up the following approximate weight savings of aluminum components.

Wilson Trailer claims its Superlite trailer line which uses aluminum extensively, depending on a particular trailer's configuration, reduces that trailer lines' weights by as much as 7,500 pounds. With corn weighing 56 pounds per bushel, this means you can legally haul an additional 134 bushels in Superlite trailers.

The opportunity to legally haul several hundred more bushels of grain (depending on your state's weight limits) has farmers taking a hard look at triple-axle hopper bottom trailers. Often referred to as tridem-axle trailers, such haulers are taller (66- to 78-inch sidewalls are common), wider (96- or 102-inch widths are industry standards), and longer (often stretching out to 48- to 52-foot lengths).

Often offering the capacity to legally carry 42,000-pound and heavier loads, their bushel capacities, on Wilson tri-axle trailers, for example, range from 1,272 to 1,278 bushels or 1,413 to 1,420 bushels with grain heaped to a 10-inch peak.