looking to buy a Peterbilt

poweronly910 · Aug 19, 2014

just here to lend some friendly advice as stated in other post that I have made my father and his five brothers are are all owner operators and have been driving more years than I can countI myself have been driving for the last 14 to 15 years company and I am now just starting to get into the owner. Operator part of things and I am nervous even with people holding my hand telling me my every move I should make mentor or somebody you dont want to lose it all

russtrucker · Aug 20, 2014

Big company means less money for o/o.

roaddoggsteve · Aug 31, 2014

cabwrecker said: ↑

Lemee ask you something. If I told you I was planning to buy a dilapidated house, next month, and repair the whole thing to turn a 30% profit even though I'm not a builder/contractor, but I'm going to be one next month! Would you tell me that was a good idea?

If I told you that I was going to buy an auto shop next week, and start offering service even though I don't have experience working on cars, but I'll be a mechanic courtesy of a tech school next month, would you tell me that was a good idea?

The answer is no to both, as is the answer everyone here will give you.

This job is not just getting into a big truck and playing with monkeys on your bunk time. This job is sweat. This job is blood. This job is tears. And every combination in between.
Don't mean to dissuade or discourage you, but it's a little offensive that people get this idea that they can just go owner-op with zero experience.

Even on a local haul with a dump truck, it's snaky ground. If anything, you're worse off for running dump locally. You think you're gonna get a fare rate? The companies hiring in contractors will have guys lined up to undercut you before you even place a bid. This business isn't about what you know, or how you know to run your equipment. It's all about who you know. It's all about the inroads you make.

You need deep background with the people looking for dump work, it's a tricky business and it's dodgy for both parties. It's a minefield for guys without experience in this industry in general, even more when you don't have dump experience. And twice as offensive when you assume that I got to the point in my life just by googling "dump truck work, Cleveland, OH" and the following google query was "Dump truck, GVW 150,000."

Edit-if you really wanna become a dump driver you need to cut your teeth on the company side. I apologize for jumping your ####, but this job ain't something you can just breeze into. There's subtle nuances to everything, that includes incidents all the way from rolling into work sites to dumping your cut products. There's so many ways to screw up, and some of these screw ups can easily put you out of business quicker than you could say next week. Get your cdl, apply for local jobs. My feeling is once you see the insurance costs per month, alone? You will reconsider.
Click to expand...

#### good advice right here

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