With truck sales strong, and backlogs growing, fleets looking to get into new trucks right away can avoid the wait through a full-service lease with PacLease.

“The trucking industry had the strongest sales in over a decade for Class 8 and medium-duty vehicles in the U.S. and Canada,” said Michelle Harry, PacLease’s director of marketing. “Predictions are for another strong year. While that’s good news for the truck OEMs, it’s meant long lead times for those purchasing trucks. And, they’re getting longer. Some truck OEMs have reported that build slots are all taken for the remainder of the year.”

According to Harry, the long lead time has also impacted many offering trucks on a full-service lease as well, especially if a customer wants a custom spec’ed truck.

“Thanks to our affiliation with Kenworth and Peterbilt, we have build slots already in place for both Class 8 and medium-duty trucks. They’re held for customer orders, which means instead of hoping to get a new truck by the end of the year, our customers can get a new leased truck quickly – often under a few months from order to delivery. In addition, we can provide a late model rental truck, with attractive rates, to bridge the gap between order and delivery. This way our customers can start making deliveries with little or no downtime.”

The expedited orders also include those operating straight trucks with bodies. “We have agreements with our body manufacturing partners and have ordering processes in place that help alleviate bottlenecks,” Harry added.