Auto hauling rates and facts for the dreamers

That pic on @Ziggy319 's FB page this morning of all the bedbug bites gave me the heebie geebies!

 

Me too. Lol

 

I have had hundreds of hours of sleep against the drivers window, one hour at a time when running nights. One team run I had we waited 5 hours for the loads. The driver who was in the bunk stayed in the bunk until we left. Therefore when I drove in I rolled my bed gear out and laid it across the seats and lowered both seats the same height as the cooler in between the seats. Slept like a "thief" while earning $32 an hour for 5 hours every week. I nearly felt guilty.
This is my worst case scenario in my rig in the unlikely event I can't find a room. Go to Walmart, buy a large cooler, sheets, pillow and blanket and relive the good old days. Just I won't be making $32 an hour while sleeping.

 

Many, many years ago Baker Driveaway, Baltimore, Dundalk Marine Terminal. Whoever was first at the gate in the morning picked first off the board. One night I was running behind another driver all the way to Baltimore. Just before we got to the gate I passed him on the sidewalk. We spent the evening talking about who was really first. It was a snake in the grass thing to do but I did pick ahead of him, straight load to Detroit, he went to Pittsburg.
I mention this because I worked out this sleep setup when I had to sleep at the gate. I made a hammock out of a HD sheet with boards bolted to each end of the sheet, then hung it between the doors with the boards on the outside of the doors. Good concept but the cab was too narrow to make it work very well.
Back in the days when I was young and hungry and every trip was an adventure.

 

If you ever see a hammock swinging behind my cab, you will know what I am doing. Lol

 

One reason I wont buy a truck without a sleeper, even if it's a shoebox!

 

Now if you guys had really been thinking

 

I will strongly disagree with that. I made an excellent living for 14 years running car haul, and it is about how much you keep at the end of the year, not how many cars you can haul per trip. We each have our own model, what @Ziggy319 does works well for him, what @Banker does works well for him, and what I did was a perfect fit for me. All three of use have been very successful in car haul and yet we run three very different types of companies with very different types of equipment.

Actually, Ziggy and I ran the same type of work, even for the same customers at one point, yet we both chose different ways to do it. In the end we both have about the same operating reserve (profit margin), and both would be considered successful by most any transportation company measure. Heck, one of the most successful people I know, Stan @KANSAS TRANSIT , has a wildly different car haul operation and he most likely makes more net per year than Ziggy and I combined. And, his rigs only haul at max 4 units, sometimes his loads are only three unit loads.

So djbattle, please don't come on here preaching that your way is the only way to make it in car haul, there is a different arse for every seat! I will give you some insight to one question you asked, in my operation I had 3 high-mount 6/7 car trailers, 2-2 car rollbacks, and 1-4 car carrier and did as you are asking about with a central hub system. I managed a fixed territory serving three primary auction house customers in a geographic "triangle" where I could use the 2 car carriers to snag the local units and stage them at one of the two big auctions on each end of a major route, this way the trailers didn't waste time or take chances of damaging cars trying to pickup in tight spots, meet repo yard deadlines, or waste trips on units that ended up being inop when they were said to be driveable. The 4 car carrier did almost exclusively inbound auction work from repo yards mixed with a very little bit of salvage. This model worked well for us for 14 years, and is still working for my former partner who bought me out this February. Will this model work for everyone, heck no, but for me it did and it allowed my drivers to be home every night and still make a darn good living. Occasionally I chose to stay out overnight, but it was a personal choice that did save the company money (it was cheaper to grab a motel room rather than deadhead 65 miles home to go back the same direction the next day). I never asked my drivers to do that though, as I valued their home time more than my profit, and with that attitude I had almost zero turnover. Just some free advice from someone who has been there and done that, take it for what you paid for it.

Now my brother on the other hand has a completely different approach to his car haul business. He is a one truck independent with a 6 car high-mount, only has three direct customers and only works about 15 days a month doing all local work, home nightly. Occasionally he will take some of my overflow work, but mostly he just does outbound deliveries from auctions to a few major car dealers, and his net profit percentage was greater than mine. His actual take home last year was less, but that is only because he has a lower gross revenue. Bottom line, he is making a comfortable living and has a lot less stress than I did owning a fleet.