Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

Yup, getting close to paying off the truck too. Finally. A year later than planned.

 

Probably Schneider, but still not entirely sure.

 

I do not have the time to go on at length here, but I'll try to be brief and concise.

Buying a used truck from a Mega and running a solo truck OTR is a way to start being an o/o, but from what I have seen in the world and in the forums, running a used modern truck OTR with high miles is not a way you should continue for long term success.

Modern trucks are built to start falling apart shortly after the warranty ends. Buying a used truck from a Mega with 100k miles left on the factory warranty means you are buying a truck that has been poorly maintained with the least preventive maintenance that the Mega thought they could get away with, and is just waiting to fall apart. If you are lucky, you might not have major expenses before you can pay it off. I was not so lucky.

I grossed about 164k in 2019, haven't seen the full numbers for 2020 yet. Enough of that came to me that I was not hurting for money, but I certainly wasn't happy with it. On two occasions I had less than 10k liquidity, and was sweating a bit, but I never had any serious money issues.

There are several possible paths forward for someone in my position, and some of the guys and gals in the forums can talk to you about them too, if you poke around.

First, I could keep my truck and go local, perhaps regional, and build a relationship with a dependable shop that will charge rates better than dealership rates. If I had the land and/or buildings for it, I might even set up a small shop for myself to do work ranging from simple to moderately complex, but short of stuff like overhauls and chassis work. I am NOT going that route.

Second, I could stay OTR, and sell the current truck. I have the credit, the experience, and the time as an owner that should allow me to get a fair deal on a commercial vehicle loan. I can either buy a new truck, or a rebuilt old iron truck. I will likely stick to buying new, as I really do not care to drive old iron, no matter how iconic or nostalgic it seems.

Third, I could become an employee again. There are a lot of positives to this, but I've put in the time and effort to get myself into a position to move forward with more success, it would be a shame to back down now.

I plan on taking the second choice, but I am not going to instantly sell the truck and buy new. I'm going to build the bank back up significantly before starting a new loan. I will also make the shift to Schneider or Landstar with the old truck, before pulling the trigger on a new loan, just to make sure I fit with their business model.

One of the things that reality forced me to recognize in the last two years is that just like any other real-world business startup, driving as an o/o is a lot of work and pain with little return for at least a couple years. You can take risks and if none of those risks bite you in the ###, you can make it a bit easier. Letting the truck maintenance slide, etc, might save money in the short term, but it might also screw you in several different scenarios. Chasing pie-in-the-sky $4 per mile dry van loads to make a living might also work for you, but if you are too picky, or take too many high dollar loads into parts of the US with terrible outbound rates, it's no different from taking decently paid miles consistently.

To be clear, there is a place for a successful business model based around used mega trucks with lots and lots of miles on them. A small business fleet doing local or short-hop regional work with their own shop, or a friendly shop with good rates. If you can control costs, those used mega trucks can probably last ten years and be profitable, doing short load work.

TLDR

I have always planned to do this in stages. I was not expecting an engine rebuild ten months after I bought the truck though, or the month I sat during that rebuild fiasco not working at the end of 2019. That set me back quite a bit.

The next stage is going to work with a company that has a load board. Before I understood how trucks are designed to fall apart after 500k miles, I was going to hold onto this truck, but now I will be looking at buying new - after I switch over and run the new company with the old truck for a while.

I'm not pulling the trigger on who I am going to try to work for because I haven't paid off the truck yet.