" >
Now they are making the 579, but the Peterbilt 379 was produced between 1987 and 2007. A twenty year run. It’s known to some as a comfortable semi truck for long hauls.
It had/has a Unibilt sleeper cabin. Sixty-three inches of space is in there for standing room. The frame is steel. 250-inch wheelbase. The tires: 22.5 LPs mounted on aluminum wheels. You can get them with extended front ends or a variety of interiors. You can get cloth or leather apolstery. One point about the interior design. Peterbil 279s have a dashboard that was designed to curve toward the driver. This is to bring the controls all closer to the drivers hands. The steel frame of the truck combined with a wider wheelbase than some others makes it a relatively strong, stable vehicle.
The engine: the newest model, the 2007, had a Caterpillar C-15. It had 475 horses of deisel power. It’s a 6-cyl, 4-stroke with a compression ratio of 18:1. The 475 Cat engine uses 10 gallons of oil and comes in at a weight of just under 3,000 pounds. 2,890. The engine has a battery backup, electronic self-diagnostics, cold weather start, real-time clock, and re-programmable operational parameters.
A CAT will go 1,000,000 plus miles EASILY taken care of, according to some owners. CATs are more expensive to fix but PARTS for the CATS are FAR more available then the others.
You can put 12,000 pounds on the front axel and 38,000 on the rear. The rear end ratio is 3.36. Transmission: a 13-speed. Tank? 100-gallons. It also has tandem axels and a Pete Flex Air suspension system. This truck was the flagship for Peterbilt for its 20 years of production.
You can get these trucks used quite cheap, and they’re still popular — maybe the most popular truck ever, and which continues to resell well because of that popularity.
One warning to those thinking about getting into a Peterbilt, from an owner: If you buy a tractor cheap, you should have around 8,000 to 10,000 dollars on hand. This is for repairs. You might have to overhaul the engine or tranny/clutch. You might have to do both at the same time. “I SEE lots of drivers buy cheap trucks and 6 months later its getting overhauled (inframed) then wondering how the heck there gonna pay for the work,” stated the trucker online.
The top image is a 379 Peterbilt built by Rod and Kevin (Pickett Custom Trucks) – with a 600 horsepower Caterpillar and 18 speed transmission.
