Buying a Truck and Leasing it out ??

I don't believe there's room for part time here.
Mechanical issues on a used truck or payments on a brand new, insurance premiums are not directly proportional to the miles driven or time dedicated - they cost the full price. The revenue must be maximized with a max effort. You are either all the way in or otherwise - if you're bored and fond of driving, drive Winnebago. Like Jack Nicholson in "About Schmidt".

 

Is definetly doable,my insurance is 11k a year,everything i own is paid for,i havent worked more than 7 months in the past 4 years.

 

The key is to find freight lanes that will keep you rolling and earning steady revenue throughout the year.
Im in south central pa and all i do is new england and the midwest(oh,in,il,ky).i venture out every now and than when i get bored or get above average paying load.this allowed me to know what loads should be paying on average and negotiate accordingly.

 

Another option you might not have thought of, but might not be a bad thing to consider is running a hotshot car hauler. Depending on where in VA you are if you are close to Washington metro, MD ect hauling cars might be a very good option, especially for part-time.

You have the same insurance requirements as a semi, but equipment-wise it's way cheaper than a semi and costs overall are cheaper than a semi. If you want to do part-time it's all about keeping the costs of operation as cheap as possible. You can run a 3 car at the standard 100k/1 million on insurance but if you go to 4 cars or 5 you have to bump it to $150k but many insurance companies will only do $200k. Anyway, I was just up in Fredricksburg a few days ago and outbound rates in that area were pretty decent for cars.

 

Well everything is pretty much the same as if you went with a semi as far as the stuff you have to do to get your MC/DOT/Insurance ect.. The biggest difference is just the equipment used. Most guys run dually trucks. Personally, for cars I'd suggest a 450/4500 or 550/5500 of whatever make you like Dodges & Fords are most popular. A lot of guys also run single axle semis or even normal semis. Running a semi gives you the advantage of having a sleeper and heavy-duty truck but you can't really take them in as many places. With a 550 size truck, you can still slip into residential neighborhoods and into most dealerships without too many problems. For the most part, it's one main load board (central disbatch) but there are a few companies that run their own as well but central is where you'd start.

You can run a 2 car trailer and a few 3 car trailers and run what is called non cdl (under 26k) lbs and you don't have to deal with IFTA, drug tests ect.. but it's pretty hard to make that work with cars because it limits you a lot. Non CDL flatbed freight is doable but cars are always heavy so it's best to just go with a full cdl set up.

Anyway, there is a hotshot section on this forum as well as a car carrier forum. the car carrier section is mostly the big haulers though but it's still info on cars.

One key advantage of cars is well over half your loads will be COD on delivery. Meaning you get handed cash a lot.. (just saying) Also with freight, every broker wants you to fill out carrier packets and then you have to factor in their payments because they take 30 days to pay. With cars, a large percentage of the work is direct with dealers or small brokers so they just dispatch you the load right through the load board.

Meaning i call up about a car I say hey I can pick this car up today drop it tomorrow ect. They look up my company as long as they are ok with me they just send the car over to me via the loadboard, I deliver, and the dealer or whoever hands me a check or cash when I deliver.

There are many bigger brokers as well that do make you fill out carrier packets and will mail you a check or direct deposit but very, very few are 30 to pay like it always is with freight.

The biggest drawback on those is no one will factor cars so if you do those loads you just have to wait but even most of those companies do offer quick pay.

 

Lots of info on stuff you can do with a dually/gooseneck on ExpeditorsOnline forum too.

 

Maybe u can rent a reefer to c if u want to make the investment of buying one.something to look into.