School me on sweeper trucks.

[gallihergreen]

I'm looking to start offering parking lot and road sweeping for commercial and HOA properties. With that said I'm not looking to throw tons of cash at a truck, and need to know what things commonly go wrong with these type trucks. I've been looking at the truck I've linked to('07 GMC w4500 w/Schware S347 sweeper unit) for about a month now. It's got roughly 225k on the odometer, and it's a 5.2 Isuzu I-4 diesel. It appears to be a little rough exterior wise, but it's by far the cheapest truck of it's kind that I have come across. So, would you take a risk on it? Keep in mind the truck is in NJ and I am in NC, so I haven't seen it in person. Let me know your thoughts on it.
Posted via Mobile Device

[gallihergreen]

Whoops! Forgot the link.

http://m.truckpaper.com/ListingDetai...categoryId=269
Posted via Mobile Device

[GreenI.A.]

If your trying to get into it with a small budget, that might be the way to go until you build enough work for it. Nothing worse than dropping money on a piece of equipment and then years later still not having enough work to justify it.

We picked up a slide in unit for one of our trucks with the idea that we would use it to build a route, then once demand justified it, we would buy a new dedicated sweeper truck such as the one you posted (but new/newer). We never built up another work to do so. Now the slide in unit gets used maybe 12 times a year. When Other small sweeping contractors we know have a piece of equipment go down or fall behind schedule and sub us to help out.