The Complete Buyer’s Guide to Trucks

What class of truck, what licence it needs, which body suits the work, and what to check before money moves. The decisions in the order you actually have to make them.

A truck is the only asset most small businesses buy that is at once a tax deduction, a licence requirement, a compliance obligation and the thing that decides whether a job is profitable. Specifying it wrong is expensive in a way that specifying a ute wrong is not.

This runs through the decisions in the order they arrive: what shape of truck, what licence, what body, new or used, which brand family, and what to demand before you pay.

Start with the work, not the truck

Almost every regretted truck purchase begins the same way: someone buys the truck they liked, then fits the work to it. Write down three things instead. The heaviest load you carry in a normal week, the tightest site you have to get into, and the longest run you do in a day. Those facts eliminate most of the market before you open a listing.

The three shapes of truck

Light rigid, under 4.5 tonnes GVM

These exist because of a licence boundary. A car licence covers a vehicle up to 4.5 tonnes gross vehicle mass, so manufacturers build a whole segment at 4,495 kg GVM to sit just under it. Isuzu, Hino, Fuso and Iveco all compete here, alongside the larger Transit and Sprinter cab chassis.

The catch is payload. GVM is the maximum the truck may weigh loaded, including itself. Subtract tare weight — truck plus body, fuel, water and toolboxes — and what remains is your legal payload. On a 4,495 kg truck with a steel tray and a tail lift, that can be under 1,500 kg. A pallet of tiles will use most of it.

Medium and heavy rigid, 8 tonnes and up

Above 8 tonnes GVM you are in the volume of the Australian market: tippers, tray trucks, pantechs, crane trucks and agitators. Payload runs from roughly three tonnes on a small two-axle rigid to well over ten on a three-axle. These do local and regional work, come back to the same depot most nights, and are what most businesses actually need.

Prime movers

A prime mover carries no load itself. It pulls one, and the governing number is GCM — gross combination mass, the maximum weight of the truck and everything behind it. A single-drive prime mover on a light tautliner is a different machine to a twin-steer six-wheeler rated for a B-double at 68 tonnes, badge notwithstanding.

Buying a prime mover means buying a trailer too, or lining up work that supplies one. That second purchase is routinely left out of the budget.

What licence each one needs

Licence classes are set nationally and administered by each state.

Each class covers everything below it. There is a tenure requirement between steps — generally a year on a car licence before LR, MR or HR, a year on MR or HR before HC, and a year on HR or HC before MC. Periods and exemptions vary, so confirm with your state licensing authority rather than with the seller.

Matching the body to the work

The body costs real money and it is the part that either fits your work or fights it every day.

A truck with the wrong body is not a bargain at any price. A truck with the right body and 200,000 more kilometres usually is.

What is actually listed

The bottom of that table is where first-time buyers get hurt. A cheap truck is cheap for a reason, and the reason is usually deferred maintenance that transfers to you on delivery.

New, used or demo

New buys a factory warranty, a service history from zero, current emissions compliance and a finance application lenders treat kindly. It also buys the steepest part of the depreciation curve.

Used is where most of the value sits, particularly at three to six years old on a well-known model. The first owner has absorbed the depreciation and early faults have surfaced.

Demo units are the quiet option: still under some form of warranty, serviced by the dealer selling it, priced as used. Ask why it came back.

Japanese, European, American

These three groups are not just badges. They are different ownership propositions.

Japanese — Isuzu, Hino, Fuso, UD — dominate light and medium rigid work here. Parts are everywhere, dealer coverage reaches regional towns, most mechanics have worked on them, and resale is predictable because the buyer pool is large. The low-risk choice for a first truck and for anything that has to be back on the road tomorrow.

European — Volvo, Scania, MAN, Mercedes-Benz, DAF — is where you go for driveline strength, cab comfort and fuel economy on long runs. Parts cost more, dealer networks concentrate in capital cities and freight corridors, and some repairs need factory diagnostics. On high-kilometre linehaul the fuel saving can pay for that. On a truck doing 300 kilometres a week it will not.

American — Kenworth, Mack, Freightliner, Western Star — is built for heavy combination work: road trains, B-doubles, mass and gradient. Kenworth in particular holds resale better than almost anything on the Australian market, partly because the trucks are specified to order and partly because they stay repairable almost indefinitely. They are not the answer for suburban distribution.

Kilometres, hours and what they hide

Kilometres tell you about driveline wear. Engine hours tell you about engine and ancillary wear. On a linehaul prime mover the two track each other. On a concrete agitator, a crane truck or a council tipper they diverge badly, because those trucks log hours at idle or on PTO without covering ground.

Divide kilometres by hours for an average speed. Under about 30 km/h points to urban stop-start or heavy PTO use, and the engine has done far more work than the odometer implies. Over 60 km/h points to highway running, the easiest life a truck gets.

The documents to demand

• Full service history with invoices, not a stamped book. Invoices show what was actually replaced.
• Compliance plate and build date, and the ADR the truck was certified to. It matters for site access and for resale.
• GVM and GCM ratings in writing, plus any GVM upgrade certification.
• Body and equipment certifications — crane logbook and last inspection, tail lift service record, tipper hoist and tailgate certification.
• A PPSR search you run yourself, by VIN, before you pay. About $2, and the only way to know the truck does not carry someone else’s security interest that you would inherit.
• Odometer and hour meter readings recorded on the invoice, so a later dispute has a reference point.

A seller who has these produces them within the hour. A seller who does not is telling you something.

Registration, inspection and compliance

Heavy vehicle registration charges are set nationally but collected by the states, so the annual figure is broadly comparable across borders while the surrounding costs are not. CTP arrangements, administration fees and stamp duty on transfer all differ by state, and duty on a heavy vehicle is calculated differently again in several of them. Get the on-road figure quoted in writing for the state of registration before you sign anything.

Inspection requirements differ too. NSW runs an annual heavy vehicle inspection and a blue slip for anything unregistered or coming from interstate. Victoria requires a roadworthy certificate on transfer, Queensland a certificate of inspection. None of it is onerous, but a truck that cannot pass is a truck you cannot register.

Chain of responsibility law puts the obligation for a safe, roadworthy, correctly loaded vehicle across everyone in the transport chain, not just the driver. The NHVR also administers accreditation modules for mass, maintenance and fatigue management. A truck with no maintenance records makes both harder to satisfy.

GST and how prices are advertised

Heavier trucks are usually advertised excluding GST, because the buyer is assumed to be registered and will claim the credit back. Light commercials more often include it. Nobody labels which convention is in use, and on a $180,000 prime mover the difference is $18,000. Ask in writing before you negotiate, not after.

Most commercial finance funds the ex-GST amount, so you carry the GST yourself until the credit returns in your next activity statement. A real cash-flow event in the first quarter.

What actually drives resale

Four things. Brand depth in the Australian market, because a thin buyer pool means a long sale. Documented service history, because it is the only evidence a buyer has. Specification that suits common work rather than one unusual job — a standard tray sells faster than a purpose-built body nobody else needs. And the condition of what a buyer sees without tools: cab, paint, tyres, glass, seat.

Kilometres matter less than people expect once history is documented. A 600,000 km truck with every invoice sells more easily than a 350,000 km truck with none.

Finance, briefly and honestly

Trucks are usually funded by chattel mortgage, where you own the asset from settlement and the lender registers an interest over it, or by hire purchase, where the lender holds title until the final payment. Operating leases and rent-to-own structures exist and are treated differently again for tax. Which one suits a particular business depends on its tax position, cash flow and holding period, and that is a conversation for your accountant and a broker.

What a broker will ask you for is consistent: time in business, ABN and GST status, what the truck will be used for, your industry experience, the deposit or trade available, and recent financials or bank statements. Our finance calculator will give you an indicative repayment shape while you are still shortlisting.

Get a limit approved before you go looking. Buyers with approval negotiate better, and buyers without it lose the good trucks to buyers who have it.