By Zach Jensen,
Winneshiek County will soon be the owner of four new Western Star 47X tandem axle trucks from Don’s Truck Sales of Fairbank.
Discussion of the purchase was held Monday morning during the Winneshiek County Board of Supervisors meeting. Don’s Truck Sales’ bid included trade-in values for four older Winneshiek County tandem-axle trucks at $10,000 each. With the four trades, Don’s Truck Sales’ bid totaled about $1.14 million.
In comparison, Truck Country, which has a location in Decorah, submitted a bid of about $1.19 million, including a total of $25,000 in trade value for the four county vehicles.
County Engineer Michael Kueny recommended the county accept the low bid from Don’s Trucking, noting the higher trade-in value and the trucks’ the Allison 4000 RDS automatic transmission, which includes a power take-off provision.
“What we get out of the Allison transmission is something we know, and we know we like,” Kueny told the supervisors. “All the operators like these Western Stars with the automatic transmissions. It’s just a conservative point of view to get something we know and like at a cheaper price, and we’ve done excellent past work with Don’s Truck, so that’s not an issue either.”
Bobby Friedrick of Truck Country described the Detroit DT12 trucks listed in his company’s bid as manual transmission vehicles that are electronically shifted, saying the transmission is still considered an automatic.
Full article in the October 17 Decorah Leader.
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