Diane Greene shoes from a rig she loves: a 2006 Duramax Chevy diesel equipped to cope with an extra-heavy load and fit with a custom-made shoeing box. “I’m out driving 6 days a week, and I wanted something I could depend on,” she says. She got it — but not before learning a couple of lessons while making her rounds through a large rural area in Northern California.

Lesson No. 1 is the value of a reliable rig that fits her shoeing needs.

“My first rig, a 1988 Toyota pickup with 190,000 miles and a simple but spacious aluminum farrier box, was the perfect vehicle to use when I started my farrier business,” she says. “It looked professional, I had set up the box to best suit my needs and I had adequate space for the shoes and tools I needed to accommodate my light appointment schedule.”

As her farrier business grew, she came to hate having to restock the truck every other day because it couldn’t handle the weight of the shoes and tools she needed. Plus, the rig wore down as her client base expanded.

“Two years later, I had 235,000 miles on my tired little truck and had invested more than $6,500 in repairs, not to mention all the days of missed income while my rig was in the shop being repaired —…