The Lower Towamensing Township supervisors are looking in a different direction for their next truck.

Several months ago, the supervisors approved purchasing two Mack single-axle trucks, but then nothing. Brent Green, the chairman of the supervisors, said the order doesn’t seem to have gone through.

“I’ve not been able to confirm that with the salesman,” he said.

Green said he was able to find a Freightliner 114SD Plus chassis recently that would be available to them. The cost is $122,768, which doesn’t exceed the amount the supervisors had approved for the Mack, he said.

“It is available and they have a body in stock,” Green said. “And we would have it sometime in the winter. Where right now, I don’t think we have a build slot with Mack. I don’t think anything was sent.”

Supervisor Mike Takerer asked if an order was sent to the Mack factory, and Green said he doesn’t think so but he would reach out to the vendor to make sure. The quote for the Mack trucks was $138,400.58.

“It is a savings,” Green said about buying the Freightliner. “It is only one, not two.”

A resident asked the supervisors if the trucks are comparable to each other. Green said not completely because Mack use a lot of stainless steel instead of aluminum and plastic.

“It’s as close as it can get,” he said.

The spec has it as a Cummings L9 350 horsepower engine with an automatic transmission. The Freightliner is an axle-back exhaust system, single-frame truck, and is the same truck length as the Mack, Green said.

“I’ll confirm that that was not received, but as of November of last year, it was not,” he said.

Takerer said, “I understand the availability of trucks is horrible.”

Green replied, “We’re fortunate that all of the smaller trucks have been updated.”

The township will need a pickup truck in the future, but the one they have is still running.

“This is the next step for replacing the plow trucks that are critical. We need them in the winter,” Green said.