How Much Does a Food Truck Cost? (2026)

How much does a food truck cost? Illustratively, anywhere from the low tens of thousands for a used concession trailer to well past $130,000 for a new custom build with a full kitchen, and every number in that range can be true depending on what you buy. A food truck is really two purchases stacked into one, a commercial vehicle that has to run reliably and a commercial kitchen that has to pass a health inspection, so the price swings enormously between a hand-me-down rig with a working kitchen and a purpose-built one designed to your menu. The truck everybody pictures is real, but the option you choose, new custom versus used truck versus concession trailer versus a lease, decides most of what you will pay.

This cost breakdown prices the truck itself, option by option and line by line: the spectrum from a used trailer to a new custom build and why the range is so wide, what actually drives the price, the new-versus-used decision, the concession-trailer and leasing paths, and the big cost buckets that make up any build, meaning the vehicle, the kitchen build-out, the cooking equipment, the wrap, the permits, the point-of-sale, and the opening inventory. It focuses on the cost to buy and outfit the rig, so it sits alongside our case study on the cost to start a food truck, which prices the whole business launch including the working-capital runway, and our walkthrough on how to start a food truck. Run your own numbers as you read with the equipment ROI calculator.

How much does a food truck cost

The short answer is that there is no single number, only a range set by the option you buy, and the honest first move is to say which rig you are pricing. At the low end sits a used concession trailer, a towable kitchen with no engine of its own, which removes the most expensive mechanical parts from the purchase. A step up is a basic used truck bought mostly for its running condition, then a used truck already built out for the kind of food you want to serve, so the expensive kitchen is inherited rather than installed. Above those sit a retrofit, where you buy a sound bare truck and build the kitchen to your menu, and finally a new custom build, a purpose-designed rig with a new kitchen and no operating history behind it.

Each rung up the ladder multiplies the price, and the multiplier is not gentle. Moving from a used trailer to a new custom build is not a bigger version of the same purchase, it is a different balance sheet, with a longer build time and a much larger loan. The single most useful thing you can do before pricing a line item is decide which option you are actually buying, because it sets the scale of everything that follows. The rest of this cost breakdown works through those options and then through the cost buckets that make up any of them.

The price spectrum: trailer, used truck, new custom build

Put the common options on one axis and the point makes itself: the price to acquire a food truck spans a range so wide that quoting an average is close to useless. A used concession trailer and a new custom build are not two prices for the same thing, they are different products serving the same food, one stripped of an engine and one carrying a new vehicle and a new kitchen at once. Between them sit the used trucks, where the biggest variable is how much working kitchen comes with the rig, and the retrofit, where you pay for a sound shell and then build the kitchen from scratch.

The reason the spectrum matters is that it reframes the question. Instead of asking what a food truck costs, ask what the cheapest reliable option is that fits your menu and your plan, because a trailer that cannot serve your food is not a bargain and a custom build you cannot fund is not a plan. The condition of a used rig, the completeness of its kitchen, and the ambition of a custom build move the price more than any other factor, which is why two buyers serving similar food can pay figures that sit an order of magnitude apart. Decide where on this spectrum your plan actually lives before you fall for a specific truck.

Illustrative food truck prices by option

The chart below sketches illustrative prices to acquire the rig itself across the common options, meaning the truck or trailer and whatever kitchen comes with it, before the finishing lines like the wrap, the permits, and the opening inventory. These are planning shapes, not quotes, and a specific purchase can land well outside them depending on the truck’s condition and how much kitchen it carries. The point is the proportion between the options, not the exact figures.

The takeaway is the shape, not the exact numbers. The wrap, the permits, and the POS cost roughly the same whichever option you start with, yet the price to acquire the rig varies several-fold, which tells you the vehicle and its kitchen are where the money concentrates. Run your own option, build-out, and finishing budget through the companion beside this cost breakdown, and the range collapses into a single number for the rig you are actually buying.

What actually drives a food truck’s price

Underneath the option you choose, a handful of factors set the price, and knowing them lets you read a listing or a build quote with clear eyes. The first is the vehicle itself: the age, mileage, engine, and transmission of a used truck, or the chassis and build cost of a new one. A truck is a commercial vehicle before it is a kitchen, and a sound drivetrain is worth paying for because a breakdown takes the whole business off the road. The second is the kitchen inside it: how much cooking equipment, refrigeration, ventilation, and power the rig carries, and whether that equipment is new, used, or absent and waiting to be installed.

The third driver is the menu the rig is built for, because a griddle-and-fryer concept needs a fraction of the equipment and power that a full multi-station kitchen demands, and every appliance adds cost, weight, and electrical load. The fourth is condition and completeness: a turnkey rig that passes inspection today commands a premium over a project truck that needs work, and that premium is often worth it for a first-time buyer who cannot absorb a long build. The last is simply new versus used, the single largest lever of all, which the next two sections take in turn. Read any food truck price as the sum of these drivers rather than a single sticker, and a confusing range starts to make sense.

New custom build: the top of the range

A new custom build anchors the top of the price range because it carries the full cost of a new vehicle plus a new kitchen designed to your exact menu. You specify the chassis, the layout, the equipment, the ventilation, and the power, and a builder assembles a rig with no operating history and no wear, which is both the appeal and the reason it is expensive. Illustratively a new custom build runs into six figures and can climb well past $130,000 once the equipment and finishes are added, and the build itself takes time, often months, during which the money is committed but the truck earns nothing.

The case for a new build is real for some buyers. A proven concept expanding to a second or third rig, an operator with a menu that demands a specific layout, or a business that will run the truck hard for many years can all justify the premium, because a purpose-built kitchen works better and lasts longer than a compromise. The case against it for a first launch is equally real: it is the most expensive way to test a concept that may still change, it ties up cash a young business needs, and it removes the option to walk away cheaply if the plan does not work. The honest framing is that a new build is a commitment to a settled concept, not a way to discover one.

Buying a used food truck

For most first-time buyers, a used truck is the far cheaper and lower-risk way in, and the used market is wide, from bare project trucks to fully built rigs a previous operator has moved on from. The appeal is obvious: a rig a few years old can deliver most of the working life of a new one at a fraction of the price, and a used truck that already has a working kitchen lets you skip the expensive build-out entirely. The same cost-per-working-year logic our case study on used versus new equipment applies to machines applies to the truck itself, and for a first launch, preserving cash usually beats owning the newest rig.

The catch with used is mechanical, and it is a real one. A truck is a vehicle first, and an engine, transmission, or generator failure does not just cost money to fix, it takes you off the road and kills revenue while it is down. That is why the inspection matters more than the sticker: a pre-purchase check of the drivetrain, the generator, the propane system, and the kitchen equipment by someone who knows trucks is cheap insurance against a rig that looks fine and is not. The other risk is a kitchen built for someone else’s menu, which may need modification to serve yours. Buy the used truck that has been maintained and fits your food, not the cheapest one on the listing, and treat a clean inspection as the price of entry.

New versus used: the core tradeoff

Once you know roughly what you want to serve, the sharpest lever on the price is whether you buy new or used, and the tradeoff is the same one that runs through every equipment purchase: cost and risk against certainty and fit. A used rig costs far less and preserves cash, but it carries the previous owner’s wear and a kitchen you may not have chosen. A new build costs the most and ties up capital, but it arrives clean, laid out to your menu, and backed by whatever warranty the builder offers. Neither is universally right, and the correct answer depends on how settled your concept is and how hard you will run the truck.

For a first launch, the balance usually tips toward used, because a first truck is exactly the moment to preserve cash and prove the concept before committing to the top of the range. A used rig lets you test the menu, the locations, and the business itself for a fraction of the outlay, and if the concept evolves, you have not locked six figures into a kitchen built for the old plan. For a proven operator expanding a settled concept, the balance can tip the other way, because the certainty and the fit of a new build pay off across many years of hard use. The discipline is to name which situation you are in honestly, rather than buying new for the shine or used for the sticker alone.

Concession trailers: the lower-cost path

A concession trailer is the option that most changes the price, because it removes the engine, transmission, and drivetrain from the purchase entirely. Instead of a self-propelled truck, you tow a kitchen behind a vehicle you may already own, which strips out the most expensive and failure-prone mechanical parts and drops the entry price toward the bottom of the range. Illustratively a used concession trailer can start in the low tens of thousands, well under a comparable truck, and even a new trailer often costs less than a used truck because there is no vehicle drivetrain to pay for or maintain.

The tradeoff is mobility and convenience. A trailer has to be towed and parked, which means a tow vehicle, a hitch rated for the load, and more effort to set up and break down at each location, and some events and permits treat trailers differently from trucks. A trailer also cannot reposition quickly during a service, so it suits fixed or semi-fixed spots better than a truck that chases events across a city. For a buyer whose plan lives at a regular location, a market, a lot, or a brewery, a trailer can be the smartest way to spend the least on the rig and put more of the budget into the kitchen and the runway. Weigh the lower price against the towing logistics and the fit to how you actually intend to operate.

Leasing or renting a food truck

Buying is not the only way onto the road. Some operators lease or rent a food truck, paying a monthly or seasonal fee instead of a large upfront purchase, which trades ownership for a much smaller entry cost and the option to walk away. Leasing suits a specific set of situations: testing a concept for a season before committing, covering a short-term event or catering contract, or bridging the gap while a purchased or custom-built rig is being prepared. Illustratively, a lease turns a five- or six-figure purchase into a recurring payment, which preserves cash but builds no equity and usually costs more per operating month than owning a rig you keep.

The logic mirrors the buy-versus-lease decision that runs through all commercial equipment: leasing wins when utilization is uncertain or short, and owning wins when you will run the asset hard for years. For a food truck, the honest read is that leasing is a way to test or bridge, not usually the cheapest way to run a settled business, because a rig you lease season after season eventually costs more than one you would have bought. If the concept is proven and you intend to operate for years, buying almost always wins on total cost; if you are still learning whether the business works, a lease can be worth its premium for the option to stop. Match the choice to how certain your plan is.

The truck or vehicle itself

Whatever option you choose, the vehicle is the largest single line for nearly every build, and it is the line that varies most between two buyers serving the same menu. On a used rig you inherit both the vehicle and whatever kitchen it carries, for better and worse, so the condition of the engine and the state of the equipment matter as much as the asking price. On a new build you pay for a new chassis and specify the rest. On a trailer you skip the drivetrain but still pay for a sound, roadworthy towable box. In every case the vehicle is the foundation the kitchen bolts into, and a weak foundation is expensive to discover later.

The practical discipline is to price the vehicle and its kitchen as one number, because a cheap truck with a kitchen you have to rip out and rebuild is not the bargain the sticker suggests, and an expensive truck with a kitchen that fits your menu perfectly may be the better value. Read the vehicle line as two questions at once: will it run reliably for the years you intend to operate, and does the kitchen it carries fit the food you plan to serve? A yes to both is worth paying for; a no to either turns a low price into a hidden cost. The vehicle is where the money concentrates, so it deserves the most scrutiny before any smaller line.

The kitchen build-out

Inside the truck sits a dense stack of commercial kitchen equipment, and on a bare or retrofit build, the cost of installing it is a major line in its own right. The build-out turns a bare box into a working kitchen: the cooking line, refrigeration, prep counters, sinks, and shelving all have to fit into a space measured in a few dozen square feet, which makes it a tight and expensive puzzle. The lines first-timers most often miss are the ones the fire code cares about: the ventilation hood, the automatic fire-suppression system, and the electrical or gas power to run everything. Any truck with a cooking line that produces grease-laden vapor generally needs a commercial hood and a suppression system, and both are code-required, inspected, and rarely cheap.

Power is the other quiet line. A food truck runs its kitchen off a generator, a battery system, propane, or some combination, and sizing that power to the equipment is both a cost and an engineering problem, because a griddle, a fryer, refrigeration, and lighting draw more than a small generator can carry. Illustratively, the equipment and build-out is a mid four-figure to high five-figure line depending on the menu and whether you buy new or used, and a tight menu is the strongest lever on it, because fewer dishes mean fewer appliances, less power, and a simpler build. If you buy a used rig with a working kitchen, you inherit this line; if you buy a bare shell, you pay it in full. Price the hood, the suppression, and the power first, because they are the lines that most often turn a build-out estimate into a bigger final bill.

Cooking equipment and refrigeration

Whether it comes built into a used rig or added to a bare one, the cooking equipment and refrigeration are the heart of the kitchen and a significant share of the cost. The cooking line, meaning the griddle, range, fryer, oven, or the specific equipment your menu demands, is the obvious part, but refrigeration and freezing are just as important and just as space-constrained, because a truck has to hold a day’s cold inventory in a fraction of a restaurant’s footprint. Every appliance is a decision that repeats the two questions that run through all equipment buying: new or used, and buy or finance.

This is where our equipment case studies apply directly, because a truck kitchen is a stack of those decisions. Our used-versus-new equipment case study is the frame for whether each piece should be bought new or used, and financing the kitchen can preserve the cash a young truck lives on, which our case study on how to finance restaurant equipment works through in full. The lever, again, is the menu: a focused concept needs fewer appliances, which lowers the equipment line, the power line, and the weight the truck has to carry. Price the kitchen to the food you will actually sell, not to a kitchen you overbought hoping to serve everything, because unused equipment on a truck is cost and weight with no return.

The wrap and signage

A food truck sells partly on how it looks, because the truck is the sign, the storefront, and the marketing all at once. The wrap, meaning the printed vinyl graphics that cover the exterior, turns a plain rig into a recognizable brand, and it is a line unique to mobile food that a fixed cafe does not carry in the same way. Illustratively, a full professional wrap is a four-figure line depending on the size of the truck and the complexity of the design, and it covers the design work, the printing, and the application. A customer at the curb decides in seconds whether the rig looks like food they want, and a clean, coherent wrap does real work in that moment.

Beyond the wrap sits the rest of the branding: the logo, the menu boards mounted at the service window, and the small touches that make the truck feel finished and trustworthy at a glance. The honest framing is that branding matters more for a truck than for many businesses, because the rig is doing the marketing every hour it is parked, so the wrap earns its place in the budget. It is still a place to be efficient rather than lavish, because a strong simple identity beats an expensive muddled one, and a wrap can always be upgraded once sales support it. Budget the wrap properly as marketing that pays its way, and keep the rest of the branding lean until the truck has proven its crowd.

Permits, licensing, and inspections

Before a truck can legally serve a single plate, it needs a stack of permits and licenses, and the process costs time as much as money. The common list includes a business license, a food handler or food manager certification, a mobile food vendor permit, a health department permit tied to an inspection, a fire safety permit for the cooking and suppression system, and parking or vending permits for the spots where you operate, plus a commissary agreement in many places. Fees vary widely by city and state, and illustratively they add up to a real four-figure line, though the bigger cost is often the delay, because a truck cannot earn while a permit or inspection is pending.

Requirements differ not just by state but by city and even by the specific event or location you want to serve, so confirm your local rules rather than assuming a number from anywhere else applies. A rig permitted in one jurisdiction may need a fresh permit to cross into the next, which is why mapping the full stack for the places you actually intend to operate belongs before the purchase, not after it. The practical move is to involve the local health and fire authorities early so the rig is set up to pass the first inspection rather than reworked to pass the second. Compliance is not a line to trim, because a failed inspection or a missing permit is far more expensive than doing it right once, and it is one of the lines this cost breakdown flags as strictly local: confirm the current rules where you will operate.

POS and the payment stack

The point-of-sale system is the cash register of a modern food truck, and it has shifted from a big hardware purchase toward a smaller upfront cost with an ongoing subscription and a card-processing rate. A typical setup is a tablet or terminal, a card reader that works on the move, a receipt printer, and sometimes a customer-facing display, plus the monthly software fee and the processing rate that follows every sale. Illustratively, the hardware is a modest startup line, while the real cost lives in the transaction fees, which are an operating cost that quietly taxes every plate you sell.

Around the core POS sits the rest of a food truck’s tech: a mobile hotspot or data plan so the card reader works wherever you park, a location or event tool so customers can find you, accounting software, and possibly online ordering. None of these is large on its own, but together they form a recurring monthly cost that belongs in the operating burn, not just the one-time purchase budget. Because a truck moves, reliable connectivity matters more than it does for a fixed cafe, since a card reader that drops offline at a busy event is lost sales. Buy the POS that keeps working on the move, keep the stack lean, and watch the processing rate, because a fraction of a percent on every sale adds up across a season.

Initial inventory and opening supplies

A truck cannot open with empty shelves, so the first order of food, packaging, disposables, and cleaning supplies is a startup line that follows the purchase. Illustratively, the opening inventory for a food truck is a modest four-figure line, and it recurs as an operating cost the moment you start serving, so it also feeds the cash you need to keep restocking before sales catch up. Perishable ingredients in particular have to be bought ahead of demand you cannot yet predict, which makes early inventory a place where cash goes out before it comes back.

The lever here is the menu, as it is nearly everywhere in a food truck budget. A tight, focused menu means fewer ingredients to stock, less spoilage on items that do not sell, and a smaller opening order, while a sprawling menu multiplies the inventory and the waste. Packaging and disposables, meaning the containers, wraps, napkins, and utensils every order goes out in, are easy to underestimate because they are cheap per unit and consumed constantly, so budget them as a steady recurring cost from the first day. Many trucks open deliberately narrow and expand the menu once they learn what their crowd actually buys, which protects both the inventory line and the equipment behind it. The opening order is small next to the truck, but it is the line that turns a bought rig into a working one.

Where the money in a food truck build goes

Zoom out from the individual lines and the shape of a food truck build comes into focus. The vehicle and its kitchen lead by a wide margin, the cooking equipment and refrigeration follow, and the finishing lines that everyone remembers, the wrap, the POS, the permits, and the opening inventory, together make up the smallest slice. The stacked bar below sketches an illustrative split for the cost to buy and outfit a rig, and the point of it is proportion, not precision: the lines a buyer tends to obsess over are inside the smallest block.

The lesson from the split is where your attention leaks. A buyer comparing wrap designs or POS brands is optimizing the edges while the vehicle and the kitchen, three-quarters of the cost, decide whether the rig runs reliably and cooks the menu. Get the truck and its kitchen right and the finishing lines fall into place inside a sound budget. Run your own split through the equipment ROI calculator to see how your numbers stack against this shape, and remember that this split is the build only: the ongoing costs and the working-capital runway sit on top of it.

Financing a food truck purchase

Food trucks are rarely bought with cash alone, and the question of how to pay for the rig is nearly as important as the price itself. The common sources are an equipment or vehicle loan secured by the truck, a small business loan, a lease, a line of credit, or personal savings, and most launches use a mix. Financing spreads a large upfront cost into monthly payments and keeps a chunk of cash in reserve, which matters because a young truck lives on that reserve through its slow early months, but it adds an interest premium and a payment that becomes part of the monthly burn.

The discipline that keeps financing from becoming a trap is the one our case study on equipment financing lays out in full: decide on the total cost of the money over its term, not the monthly payment in isolation, and match the term of any loan to the useful life of what it funds. Financing a truck over its useful life is sound, while stretching a short-term rig or a few months of supplies onto a long loan means paying interest on things long since consumed. Above all, do not borrow so aggressively that the debt payment turns a survivable slow patch into a fatal one. Weigh the financing premium against the survival value of the cash it preserves, and for many first-time buyers the answer is to finance the truck, protect the runway, and buy the next rig outright once the business stands on its own.

Ongoing costs of owning a food truck

The purchase price is only the entry ticket, and a food truck carries recurring costs a fixed restaurant never sees in the same form. It is a vehicle, so it burns fuel driving between the commissary, the serving spots, and the events, and it runs its kitchen off a generator and propane that have to be refilled. It is a food business, so it needs a commissary kitchen that health code often requires, insurance on both the vehicle and the operation, food and supplies, and POS processing fees on every sale. And it is a machine that wears, so it needs maintenance on both the truck and the equipment, the line most often skipped until it is a breakdown instead of a service.

Illustratively, these operating costs are a real monthly line that scales with how much you cook and how far you drive, and the commissary and the insurance in particular are fixed monthly bills that belong in your burn from day one, not just the purchase budget. The commissary is a recurring rent from a few hundred to well over a thousand dollars a month depending on your city, and insurance scales with the coverage and where you operate. Our case study on the cost to start a food truck prices the whole launch including the working-capital runway that carries these costs until sales catch up, and if you rely on shared kitchen space, our commercial kitchen rental case study prices that line specifically. Budget the ongoing costs alongside the purchase, because they decide whether the truck is affordable to run, not just to buy.

Is a food truck worth it

A food truck can be a lower-cost way into food service than a bricks-and-mortar restaurant, because the vehicle replaces a build-out and a long lease, but whether it is worth it depends entirely on the numbers behind the rig, not the romance of it. The purchase is the entry ticket; the return comes from finding reliable locations, turning enough good tickets per serving day, and keeping the ongoing costs below the revenue the truck produces. A rig that sits in a driveway because it never found its spots is a heavy asset that is hard to sell, so the honest test is whether you can fund the purchase and the ramp and still reach break-even with a cushion.

The way to answer it is to price the truck against a realistic sales plan rather than a hopeful one. Estimate the plates you can turn on a good serving day, the margin per plate, and the number of good days you can string together in a month, then set that against the monthly burn of commissary, insurance, fuel, and any loan payment. If the revenue clears the burn with room to spare within a runway you can fund, the truck can be well worth it; if it does not, no purchase price is low enough to fix a plan that cannot cover its costs. The equipment ROI calculator lets you run the revenue side against the purchase, so the decision rests on arithmetic instead of optimism.

Food truck options at a glance

Pulling the options together makes the tradeoffs easy to compare at a glance. The table below sets each path against an illustrative cost to acquire the rig and the buyer it tends to suit, so you can find where your plan sits before pricing the details. The figures are planning shapes, not quotes, and a real purchase is set by the condition of the specific rig and the market you buy in.

The table is a map, not a verdict. The right row is the one where the cost you can fund meets the reliability and the kitchen your menu actually needs, which for most first-time buyers is a sound built-out used truck or a trailer rather than the top or the bottom of the range. Read across the row you are drawn to, confirm the rig delivers what the column promises, and then price its lines with the rest of this cost breakdown.

A worked example: pricing two food trucks

Put the framework on two illustrative purchases that sit near opposite ends of the spectrum. First the used-truck path. A buyer finds a sound used truck with a working kitchen for an illustrative $55,000, spends $12,000 refreshing the equipment and adding small wares the previous menu did not need, and budgets $14,000 for the wrap, the POS, the permits, and the opening inventory. The all-in to buy and outfit the rig is about $81,000, the truck and its kitchen are the largest lines by far, and the finishing budget is a small slice on top, exactly the shape the split above predicts.

Now the new-build path. A custom rig with a new kitchen designed to the menu runs an illustrative $130,000, another $8,000 fills in equipment and small wares the build did not include, and the wrap, the POS, the permits, and the opening inventory add $17,000, for an all-in of about $155,000. The gap between the two examples is the whole point: same food, same finishing lines, roughly $74,000 apart, and the difference is almost entirely the vehicle and the kitchen inside it. Neither number includes the ongoing costs or the working-capital runway that carry the truck to break-even, which our cost-to-start-a-food-truck case study prices in full. Run your own option and outfit budget through the companion beside this cost breakdown, and the purchase stops being a guess.

The bottom line

How much does a food truck cost? Whatever the option demands, and the option is the answer to most of it. A used concession trailer can get you a kitchen for the low tens of thousands, a sound built-out used truck for the mid five figures, and a new custom build past $130,000, illustratively, and the gap between them is the vehicle and the kitchen bolted inside it, not the wrap or the POS. Decide which rig your plan actually lives on before you fall for a specific truck, because that choice sets the scale of every other number in the budget.

The buyers who spend well do three things in order. They pick the option honestly against their menu and their cash, inspect a used rig hard or accept the premium of a new build on purpose, and price the vehicle and its kitchen as one number. They keep the finishing lines, the wrap, the POS, the permits, and the inventory, in proportion, because those are the smallest slice. And they price the purchase against the ongoing costs and a realistic sales plan, because the rig is only the entry ticket to a business that has to cover its own burn. Weigh new against used with our used-versus-new equipment case study, decide how to pay for it with the buy-versus-lease and equipment financing case studies, cost the whole launch with our cost-to-start-a-food-truck case study, and run your own purchase and sales plan through the equipment ROI calculator so the price you pay is a decision, not a surprise.

Written for the person pricing a rig, not for anyone selling one: this cost breakdown is educational material, not financial, tax, legal, or business advice, and it endorses no specific truck, trailer, builder, vendor, or lender. Every dollar figure, price range, and percentage split here is an illustrative sketch meant to teach how the cost of a food truck adds up, and a real purchase is set by the condition of the specific rig, the menu you build for, the market you buy in, and the health and fire code you have to satisfy. Permit and licensing requirements, commissary rules, insurance minimums, and wrap and equipment costs vary widely by jurisdiction and by rig, so confirm the mobile-food rules and the current fees in every place you intend to operate, gather local quotes on the actual truck and equipment in front of you, and put an accountant, a mechanic, and your own honest numbers between you and any purchase or loan you sign.