Landstar Questions

you can haul the CA freight some of us cannot

 

Do you know where the good areas are to look for freight going to southern california?

 

Accidental post

 

If you're going to do 5/2, I doubt you'll be going further than Denver or Seattle. The good news for you is that a majority of LS trucks are not Cali legal, so it would be hard not to do well right now and develop the relationships that make money. The load I'm on today is based on an email from an agent, no load board used.

 

Gottcha...
I just know my truck needs $1.06 to survive. Anything over that is profit.( Respectively)
I don't have a truck payment, and I'm still learning the ropes.
Just learned a lesson in making sure I compare and verify mileage and distance on these loads. Doing a 4 stopper that said to pay 1,165 miles, and at my 3rd stop I had 1124 already
with more then 200 miles to the last stop.

 

Your figures sound low on the breakeven. You may want to recheck those numbers. Even if you don't have a truck payment, you need to add in something for replacement costs of your equipment. Also, you need to include something for maintenance. At some point, you will need to replace your equipment and all trucks break down. There are always tires, brakes, etc., to replace. And don't forget to include pm's. I change my oil at around 15,000 miles. Some may change oil more often or wait longer, but it is still an expense. Another thing that most new owner operators forget to include is driver pay. You need to remember to pay yourself. You don't want to keep anything left over from your settlements as driver pay. Remember, if you cannot drive the truck yourself, you will need to hire another driver or sell the equipment.

 

You should allow at least 6 months to learn how to work within the Landstar system. The best lanes are often determined by the type of equipment pulled. If you live in California and want to get home on weekends, you might look at running mostly I-5. Rates and freight availability is usually better running north and south in that area of the country. I could keep a truck busy running back and forth between Portland or Seattle and down to the LA area. If you want to run coast to coast you won't have enough time to get back home each weekend unless you run team, and probably not even then. I have a friend who lives in Reno and usually gets home on weekends. He rarely runs east of Salt Lake City. He also doesn't usually run north of Portland. He runs all over California. One problem most of us have is the unpredictability of freight. You can check the freight with Landstar by going to their loadboard. If you are not yet leased on with them, they have a public board at www.landstarbroker.com. Rates are not usually posted, but you can call to find the rate on any load. If you simply want to check the amount of freight, put in the area you want to check and it will bring up all loads listed for that area. Some loads won't be posted on the public board, because they must go on Landstar trucks. The Landstar BCO (owner operator) loadboard usually has the load information listed, including thee rate. If you know someone who is currently leased to them, they can check that for you.

 

You will have no problem finding loads in and out of CA. And the OP is correct. Qualifications does not get in a hurry.

 

No, I'm doing nothing wrong. I pay myself everything over $1.06.
Simple math. I'm just investing in some routing software. I had streets and trips years ago, and I think I'm going buy it again. I opted to pay the company for the navigation system.
(Navigo or what ever). Screwed me twice this trip. It reroutes itself. Took me somewhere where I didn't belong. I was looking at a 10,000 pd bridge in a town out of route in bomkinland Nebraska. I need to get into the habit of rechecking these posted miles to. Not happy with all the extra miles I put on the truck. I went to Chicago from Pa across I-80.
To avoid the tolls, I shot down to 30 in Massillon OH across and up 49 in Valparaiso IN to I-80. We always went that way. I called the C/S about the milage difference. Bottom line is pay the toll, or pay the extra miles, or don't except the load. I will include that in my load analysis for now on.

 

Landstar doesn't pay by the mile so why would you call CS? The miles listed are the shortest miles and are to be used as a guide. If the shortest miles utilizes tolls, that's what's used. I would think that would be obvious. It doesn't pay to go around the OH TPK, especially on elogs. You'll waste more fuel and time than the toll. IN is debatable, but I just grit my teeth and pay it. It doesn't take much stop and go to burn up any toll savings.