Landstar questions

$7K a month is easy. You can do that and still take two weeks off every month. There is a learning curve and you will spend six months wondering if you made the right choice, but in the end it's worth it. It is true what they say, the best freight never hits the board. You have to work the board to make a name for yourself and become familiar to agents but once you get through that it's worth it. Learn to react quickly to load alerts and learn to use the lane match to make contacts and find the hidden freight. And remember, everything is negotiable, especially the loads that are not direct customers. ALWAYS negotiate for a higher rate.

Can't go wrong with the Detroit. They are easy to work on. I have an International but have bought parts from Freightliner and KW dealers. The guts of these trucks are pretty universal, it's only the body that is brand specific. Get your own trailer. If you pull their trailer you're leaving money on the table. I don't know much about the van side other than I have heard stories about it being hard to find an empty.On the other hand maybe being tied to your own trailer would limit your options for loads with customers that don't live load.
If you just applied and haven't heard from them it's time to start hounding them. Qualificatoin dept. is like a bicycle...if you stop pedaling they will fall over.

As far as costs go you can plan on about $200 a week for insurance, permits, plates etc for a while, it will be much cheaper once you're done paying for the plates and permits. Plan on setting aside at least $0.20 mile for maintenance and repairs and hope you use less than that.

If you do come on board have some self respect and throw away the mailbox numbers that LS sends you for the truck. Spend a couple hundred on having the logo and numbers done properly.

 

Then if you haven't already found these, check 'em out. There are more if you do a little searching.

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr.../the-journey-begins-purchased-a-truck.268615/

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...ads/the-greenhorn-landstar-chronicles.257731/

 

I would say finding the freight that they don't post is hard find and harder to get the agents to give it to you. LS does have a thing on the load board area and you can tell the computer to show you the loads that were run. Basically you can see the loads agents move and when. The ideal would be the loads not being posted are in there someplace also. But it does not tell you the rates just the dates load moved from A to B.

I found the agents just don't care about LS driver for the most part. I had agent tell me they don't like posting loads on the load board because their phones will not stop ringing. That give you some idea how may drivers are looking for good paying loads. I had agents tell me to call them next time I'm in the are. I would call and they don't have any fright. The agents don't deal with BIG shipper. so it not like you can could on a load being available say Friday at 3pm even if you know about the load. The shippers are small and not shipping this week maybe next Friday, but If your still around next week give me a call.

 

Yes my company no longer goes out there but I loved that run so much. Even the road is flatter so I don't have to use arm power to slightly lean the steering wheel to the left for 11 hours. I can't break the speed limit if I tried out there.