Driveaway

Hear is a drive-away company. Bennett DriveAway | Overview

Ask your insurance company what you need for coverage. May be a pickup truck would be enough to get active policy.

 

You’d probably only be able to move used trucks from auctions, etc. As far as I know the companies delivering new trucks are union. When I bought this new truck I couldn’t go to Denton and pick it up but for $1000 the dealer would fly a person down and drive it back so you didn’t have to wait on Active to deck the trucks and bring it. And now they’re not allowed to do that anymore. Has to be delivered by Active.

 

I have done driveaway as a before I semi-retired and it is extremely expensive to get the correct coverages, especially without an already exisiting asset based trucking company to add the driveaway service to. There are only a few insurance carriers that will underwrite driveaway due to the risk of the unknown.

To do it properly you need a policy that covers the normal public liability ($1 million) required by all motor carriers with a "any auto" endorsement also known as a non-scheduled auto or fleet policy. This base policy is very hard to get as most insurance companies only write declared or scheduled auto policies to cover a specific list of vehicles.

Then you need cargo insurance in the amount of the retail, not wholesale, value of the most expensive truck you plan to transport. The cargo insurance is what covers the trucks you are driving since they are the "cargo" even though you are driving them. This cargo policy must be for transporting, not hauling, as there is a big difference.

Lastly, if you want to do brand new trucks you will also need diminshed value and constructive total loss to cover the retail price of the trucks for when you damage them, and damage will happen. Once the damage exceeds a certian amount, or on components like the roof any amount, the truck is not able to be sold new so the dealer wants to be paid the reduced value. Traditional cargo insurance for vehicle transport does not cover the diminished value nor does it cover things that result in the vehicle being "totalled" and crushed when there is only a little damage but it is on a part the manufacturer conciders critical, leading to a constructive total loss.

When I did this I had an active auto transport company and added driveaway for trucks and my cost was $10,000 per transporter tag I had. This was in addition to the premium we were already paying for our insurance. I sold my company 7 years ago and went into consulting full time.

I was going to keep just one set of transporter tags to keep myself busy but, even with 15 years expierence and a good loss run, the wanted $30,000 for just one tag, and that was 7 years ago. I can't imagine what it costs now. To me, it just wasn't worth the cost.

Now, there are guys that will say I'm full of it and the driveaway coverage isn't that expensive or you don't really need all that stuff I said. They would be known as wrong!

True, there is less expensive coverage that repossession companies get, but it only covers 50 mile radius and doesn't cover all the other stuff a dealer or manufacturer is going to require, nor does it meet the FMCSA requirements to maintain a valid operating authority.

Just an idea of the rates, unless you have a special lead that is highly unusual, I work with a tow truck and car hauler dealer part time and we pay on average $2.50 per mile to hire a driveaway company and they are providing the transporter tags, insurance, fuel, travel to/from and take full responsibility for $400-800k rigs for that rate. We pay less than that for new chassis out of Denton, heck a 3 way deck set only pays a little bit more than a single unit. We can't do it in house for less than that, and only move them ourselves when time is critical or the customer is a special customer because our cost is nearly double the contractor rates.

Good luck and best wished for success if you do decide to try this. If you have never done driveaway before Insuggest signing on with Bennett Truck Transport, Iron Tiger, J&J, Group One or one of the other big names so you will learn about the special permitting requirements, transporter tag restrictions and how to do the job.

 

Active and their sister companies are mostly Teamsters and have a pretty good lock on Paccar, although for overflow work non-union companies can get spot work.

Mack and Volvo use mainly Iron Tiger, which is International Machinests Union, although Iron Tiger subs a lot of the work out to their non-union sister company Truck Movers, at least for the driveaway, although the yard work and decking is mostly union at Mack and Volvo. International uses a mix, mostly Iron Tiger (union) and Bennett which is non-union.

I did it for years, both as the owner of a carrier and now in semi-retirement working directly for a truck dealer. It is a difficult business that doesn't pay worth a crap anymore, just like anything else.

As for Peterbilt, we go to Denton two or three times a year for an expedited order, where we pickup our own chassis but I know there is a fee involved to bypass Active, and even then, they have to move it to a delivery center outside the actual plant's lot.

While I support everyone's right to work, I find it ridiculous that the dealer or final customer that owns the truck doesn't have the "right" to drive it off the factory lot. I can see the factory floor, but the parking lot, really?

 

Active about bought a telephone pole out in front of the Loves in Denton a couple years ago. The decked trucks come off the truck the driver was driving. One went right up into that southeast corner of the intersection and almost over the curb into the Loves gas fill up area. Driver stood there looking like he didn't know what happened. Somehow, nobody was hurt and no other vehicles got hit. He was headed south on the service road when it happened at I-35E and Barthold.

 

Man this thread just answered every question I ever had about driveaway! And some I wouldn't even have known to ask!

 

Fire apparatus is a very specialized subsegment of driveaway, just like transit buses because they require special attention when driving. Depending on their intended use many have speed restrictions or distance before taking a break to allow things to cool down. Not many companies want to fool with them so they probably pay better than regular trucks. Add in aerial platform or tiller units and the skill set is in very high demand. I had an Uncle that did driveaway for Kovatech, he was a retired professional firefighter and loved what he did. When they sold out he lost his job, worked direct for the manufacturer, and is now fully retired.

As for my dealership experience, when we move a brand new stinger-steer car hauler it is a little more expensive than even a three-way deck set because of the extra care required, same with the rotator tow trucks. With the rotator tow trucks having a retail price near or even north of $800-$1M, we don't want just any driver in it. This is why we have four part-timers like myself and one full time driver, just to handle the complicated moves.

Please do update on your insurance meeting. I am curious how the market has changed from when I sold my company 7 years ago. Working for the dealership part-time I have no idea what it costs them for their insurance, and I'm sure it is not comparable to being a for-hire driveaway carrier since we own the trucks we are moving, we likely assume some of the risk internally.