Is there still money to be made in car hauling?

Please only reply if you are owner operator doing car hauling. Almost bought one really nice 9 car car hauler, but decided to wait.

 

Well I'm not an owner operator any more. I now set up auto transport specific software, so I still see a lot of what goes on in the auto transport field.

You specific question doesn't have an easy answer. If you are asking, can you buy a 9-car hauler and make money running loads off of Central Dispatch? The answer is, an experienced driver in a reliable truck can still turn a profit doing that, but not like a few years ago.

I have a few customers that use owner operators that seem to do much better than those using central, still nothing like 10 years ago, but making a good living.

 

Agree with TF, IF you already are in the business or at least have a truck, you can do alright.

But IMO, if you are starting from scratch I would think that you would want at least one broker or company that you can count on for at least a portion of your hauls.

BTW, we now only run 3/4 haulers, in my situation and location I see too many 9 car haulers running partially full.

The differance between purchase price, fuel mileage, maintanace, time spent loading/unloading, just works out better for us.

In my case, it is much easier to find drivers for 3/4 rigs than for 7/8/9/10 car haulers, again, it's just what works for me, maybe not for everyone.

These are pics of a couple of our trucks, we run six identical units.


Stan

 

I have been away from the car hauling end of the business for several years, but I had 10 car rigs. I do have a very good friend who pulls a 3 car trailer with a dually. He is getting good rates using Central Dispatch. He runs regionally. I always preferred bigger trailers for the hauling capacity. It depends on how you want to run. If you want to do regional or short runs, then a 3 or 4 car trailer would probably be easier to load and run. If you want to do long haul then anything from a 7 to 10 car rig would work best. ou might even do well with shorter runs using a 7 car. I had mostly direct dealers that I dealt with when I hauled cars. Do you plan on running under your own authority or will you lease to another carrier?

 

Have you ever hauled cars? If not, expect a learning curve. A small scratch can cost a lot of money. I would suggest that you get a job with a car hauler to learn the business before going out any buying your own truck. It takes time just to learn how to stage a 9 or 10 car rig. It isn't much of a factor when you have a 3 or 4 car trailer.

 

The OP sure did not last long before being banned.

 

Everything that has been said here already I would agree with. I ran cars for a couple years and what I learned is the further your willing to run, the better off you'll be. If your going to try the local thing, be prepaired for LOW rates. Regional can be profitable if you learn the lanes and stick to them, and OTR will make profit if your willing to run where the money is/goes. Right now you can still get $1,000 a car to go west, but good luck getting anything more then 700/800 per unit back east.

If I ever have the chance, for me personaly the perfect setup would be a single axle tractor, maybe a KW T-300 and a 3/4 car Sun Country, either the plane open deck w/ flippers or the one with the hydro setup on the front. That would be my personal choice however I still see plenty of guys running normal trucks and wedge's, how they do it with that kinda fuel mpg, i'll never know!

Also, the lanes can dry up in hrs vs days or weeks like normal freight! Couple summers ago I was running MD/VA to Tx and back. I would load 3/4 cars for Tx for about 2k-2.5k and back was about the same. Made a killing at 7.8mpgs!!! But then Tx back east dried up at the drop of a dime!!!! North to south and South to north are good lanes. East to West and back and steady lanes, just the prices can take a turn on you in a moments notice!!! DEF LOTS TO LEARN if you haven't done it or have only ran local!!!

 

LOL, thats what I get for paying attention!! Maybe someone else will find this auto thread informative!

 

How do you get banned on your second post????

 

I spoke to a business owner last year, who was a retired car hauler. He had his own car hauler truck (POS 1980's ford truck, no sleeper), I saw it at his business just sitting there. He claimed he used to make $300k a year using a website to get loads and went back and forth from FL to Cali.

That's a ridiculous amount of money, 100k i can believe.