Since its humble beginning in 1985, operating a few trucks on a small farm in Akron, Ohio, JRayl Transport has grown to become one of the largest asset-based logistics companies in Ohio.
Today, JRayl operates more than 400 trucks across its locations in Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and Texas. The company provides both regional and long-haul services, including truckload, dedicated, flatbed, LTL, and more. For years, JRayl operated a healthy mix of leased and company-owned trucks comprised of multiple makes and powertrains, which presented challenges with service intervals, maintenance costs, and other operational issues. To simplify its operation, JRayl looked to build a uniform fleet of the same truck make and model and decided to add Kenworth T680s.
“In 2020, an opportunity came up to purchase 40 used Kenworth T680s with the Paccar powertrain,” said Ryan Richards, JRayl CEO. “With used trucks, there’s no way to know how well the previous owner maintained them or if you’ll encounter unexpected issues, but we knew Kenworth built quality trucks and had heard good things about the Paccar engine. Tim (Rayl) would say that you wouldn’t consider a truck broken in until it reached almost a million miles. Since we hadn’t ventured down the Kenworth or Paccar path, we wanted to see how the Kenworths performed and if they would be a viable option for us moving forward.”
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According to Richards, engine reliability, serviceability, fuel efficiency, and driver satisfaction were the primary factors JRayl considered when it decided to add the used T680s. “And since then, we haven’t looked back,” Richards said. “The trucks have performed how we hoped they would. The uptime, serviceability, and performance of the Paccar engine, coupled with a smooth transition into automated transmissions from manuals, helped validate our decision to build consistency in the fleet of trucks we operate. Since our initial purchase, we’ve added about 80 more T680s, and we plan to buy more.”
The additional T680s were bought new and were configured primarily with 76-inch sleepers and specified with Paccar MX-13 engines rated at 455 hp and Paccar TX-12 automated transmissions for long-haul operations. The company also added a few day cabs for regional drivers with the same powertrain specs.
For JRayl, the decision to add Kenworths has paid off. “The overall experience with the Kenworth product is everything we were looking for,” Richards concluded. “The creature comforts, the fuel mileage, and the driver experience is something we hadn’t experienced until this point in our company’s history.”
