"I am interested in starting a trucking business."

Alot of guys think leasing a truck, Land Star, or business school is the way to get your foot into the world of O/O or small fleet.

Your best bet is to start off as a diesel mechanic. Learn all about fixing/diagnosing modern engines and trailers, get yourself a set of tools/scanners/etc, and know how and where to source parts on the cheap.

Save up money, build your credit, and right off the bat, you're ahead of 99% of O/O out there.

 

Agreed but i think it would be better off to skip disel school and use the money it would cost to go to that school and buy and old rig and fix it up . at the end of the day disel school only teaches u the theory behind engines and hos they work and how all the parts work together and the theory behind the parts most common to fail. Rather than actually diagnose an engine because they have real world experience in it.. Its why when u take ur truck to 4 different shops that none of these young idiots just throw parts at it and never fix the problem , when finally one guy thats been doing for 20 years, check 1 thing that nobody else checks and now the problem is fixed. While all the young mechanics are scrstching their head and looking st the old fart like he some genius or god mechanic, and the owner op is trying to figure out how he just got anally raped and how hes gonna foot the bill from all these mechanic #### ups.School will never replace real world experience . now not everybody has a place to park an old,rig while ur fixin it up but i think its worth the idea. U can buy an old rig and learn to fix it for roughly the sme amount of time and money it costs for school. Not to mention u will know that truck inside and out after ur done with it. Just my opinion

 

Six

What the HECK are you doing?

Trying to run me out of business?

My God you warning people like this means I won't have cheap new trucks to buy on the repo/failed carrier market.

Seriously I've been meaning to write something up like this but I don't have time to do a full thread, been busy buying again.

There are a few things I have to add.

First thing is the failure rate in this venture is over 85%, that means out of 10, only 1.5 people make it. AND after that the rate goes down because the number of people in it after two years is still on a decline and it ends up to be 1 in 3 seem to be making it after three years.

Second thing I can't stand is being called an entrepreneur. There are none in this industry, if you use the strict meaning of it, more or less nothing new that someone brings to the table. I see they are calling subway franchise holders now entrepreneurs, really? a franchise holder?

Third is this is a highly competitive business, MOST don't get that, they think that brokers and load boards are the only place to get loads while it makes some sense that they that some, not all, not most but some will make it on load boards and brokers, at the same time others makes it without doing much of anything but old salesmanship.

One thing that I laugh at is this idea that people need to wrench their own trucks some of the most successful in my book don't waste time, they seek out the talent to do it and take preventive maintenance to a level that makes my program look silly.

 

Six you didn’t mention the others wanting to start trucking. “I need a truck no money down, I have bad credit, I can make it work on paper I only need to run 4000 miles a week, I don’t want to work for a company I can learn on my own etc.” plus can I run power only, I can’t afford a trailer, the best ones ask for your contracts.

I do very little repairs myself, but I know my truck and mechanic.

 

I’ve done everything you said others want to do but 3k miles and good credit.

1 year in and finally seeing black but mountain of bills to pay off.

Can’t recommend it to anyone.
Oh and never asked anyone for their contracts other then what brokerage companies are good. But I did it.

 

I dont wanna run 4k miles in 2 weeks. Where do you bring yourself to get fixed when you break down?


Ive been trying to explain to my wife that our entire consumer economy DEPENDS on a steady supply of ignorant new carriers who dont know their costs in order to agree to subsidizing commodity shipments. If every carrier was making a profit i think we'd see hyperinflation pretty quickly.

 

Words of wisdom. Bought my first rollback when I was 17 to tow my mustang to the track. 1982 Chevy C70 with a two stroke Detroit, big ol piece of poo but worth it in the long run learning to fix EVERYTHING on a truck.

 

Don’t listen to me, I’m an idiot.

I hope new guys are reading this thread. I like others was the guy @TripleSix was describing.
So let me give the view after a year. Each of you has a unique skill set. Use that.
The most important first step is to get experience in a truck. Like Six said all weather, traffic, conditions, etc...
I’m a company driver. I still have no clue on being an O/O. I track all my expenses, and I track all the expenses I assume the company has (guess). Fuel, PM’s, tires, and breakdowns. I ask questions of the people doing the work. I excel spreadsheet all of it. I enter assumed business expenses....and...do you know what that taught me with my 30 years of being in business and running them? Yup. Still don’t know ####.
My year two of driving will most likely be with a company that pays more, or ideally working with a smaller company so I can keep learning the ropes.

I wrote a lot more but then realized I’m an idiot and was just repeating things other said.

The takeaway from my post is learn to drive a truck. Get that experience and then go to the next step.

 

Or just stick with being a mechanic. Pays way better than trucking.

 

I dont know about that.