Hiring O/O vs Company Driver and a few other questions...

First, the only way you can have complete control of the truck is to put an employee in it, not an owner operator, as that would make it his truck not yours. As for pay, any car hauler worth anything is going to want $80,000 or more per year, depending on how often you get them home, the type of work you do such as new cars out of the port vs. used stuff from an auction or dealer. Most smaller companies pay their drivers a percentage of the run, usually 20-30%, on the books with workers comp covered by the company. Cents per mile is not often used to pay car haul drivers, to give you an example, if I broke out my driver pay in cpm they would make about .90 to $1.00 per mile, they get 25% of the load but do not do many miles, my trucks average less than 80,000 miles a year, some weeks we do less than 1,000 a week but move 40-60 units.

As for chassis manufacturers, it is really an individual preference, I do like Volvo's but wouldn't rule out a Western Star, Pete, or Freightliner if the options, specs, and price was right. Your best resale value is usually on a Pete, but WS and Volvo do hold their value as well. As for the trailer, Cottrell makes the best stinger on the market in my opinion, the model depends again on what you are hauling. New cars from the port or railhead will require a strap trailer such as the CX09, whereas used units in/out of an auction have less restrictions on how you load them, for those units I would choose a 7509 as a easy load starter trailer. If you are doing mixed loads of POV's cross country than a high rail model with fully independent decks would give you more versatility, but they are harder to learn how to operate. A good car haul equipment dealer would be able to help you choose the best truck/trailer combination based on your accounts and experience level of your driver.

People Net is not really worth it as a one truck company, if you were leased to a carrier such as United Road they would have use for the system, but you can use a more simpler tracking device for the truck if you are worried about it, Rand McNally makes a tracking and electronic log device that integrates with their navigation systems and provides state line crossing reports for IFTA, log auditing, etc. I don't think this is required, if you can't trust your driver in the car haul industry you will have lots of problems, this isn't an industry where you can put just anybody behind the wheel, and the way car haul works your driver really needs the flexibility to do as they see fit, not as some desk jockey watching a box thinks they should operate.

Hope this helps, good luck with your new venture.

 

As Brian above stated I wouldn't work for a company hauling cars if they paid per mile.
I make 30% and im home everynight i think i used my CLC card 3 times last year?

Ive drove almost every model car carrier out there and i like the new volvo its alot lighter and lower then the pete.
The more you can fit the more you both will make.
Also i use to drive sleepers but after driving a daycab going on 5 years now i would never get back into a sleeper.
The extra money you make with a daycab will more then makes up for the motel at night "IF" you stay on the road.

Not to mention with a sleeper fighting to find a parking spot at truck stops,waking up in the middle of the night to piss,having to wait for showers etc

far as headrack and trailer personally i think Cottrell is the best out there easy to load and works better then anything ive drove. I prefer the nexgen quick loader myself ive drove a highrail for years and can fit almost anything on it you can with the highrail and if someone doesnt know a highrail they will be all day loading and tearing up units.

And why not check into the varous phone Apps coming out now thats what we use and i hated it at first but i like it now saves time getting and sending loads etc.

 

All Drivers are Different some have Peter Envy lol and need those big large cars. I prefer making cash thats why i like the daycab it will make more money

Far as loading times that also depends on the driver i can load 9 units in 30-45m depending on whats going on.
On some loads a high rail would make it easier to stack but if they know what they are doing they can get Most all loads on the Quick Loader.
And yes id suggest getting a strap truck far as i know all new cars require those now

 

I just sold a 2014 Volvo with Cottrell 3 car headrack and cx11 highrail. No doubt cottrell is the best new car haulers available. The volvo d13 was pretty reliable over the 130k miles I owned it, however I would really hesitate to buy another one. In my opinion Volvo service sucks. They cater to the big fleets not owner operators. You can expect a minimum 3 to 4 days wait to get them to look at anything. Then you wait for them to get parts as they stock nothing. Warranty coverage was a joke. They found a way to exclude darn near everything, saying they sold it as an unfinished vehicle. I paid to replace dpf (cracked ) turbo downpipe (flange broken) $2200 . Under 1 year and under 100k. I hear good things about Peterbilt as far as own op
service. I know that my truck empty was well over 44k, while a similar Pete is less.