Need Owner Op advice!

Hello everyone,

I am 39 years old and have been driving truck since I was 21. I have extensive experience in many different areas of trucking. I have always wanted to purchase my own truck yet have not yet due to Economic uncertainty or my personal life getting in the way.

I finally find myself comfortable with the idea of purchasing my own truck. Though admittedly, I am not in the best position to do so. Here is the rundown.

My credit score sucks due to a divorce. It is 600 at best. I have $13,000. I am currently employed with R.C. Moore trucking. I am doing very well and have a very good rapport with administration and management. If I can purchase a truck I will be hauling their trailers.

I have spoken with many owner operators who do the same and had a meeting with the safety director to crunch numbers. The numbers look beautiful and they are realistic as they were based on my January runs converted into what owner operator pay would’ve been.

lone Mountain truck leasing seems like the lowest risk method of obtaining a truck given my circumstances. Of course I would take the truck to an outside mechanic for an oil test, cpu download, etc... lone mountain, purchase history, maintenance history etc...

My concern is capital. Crunching the numbers as I see them I would only have around $4000 in the event that something went wrong. If nothing went wrong in the first 2 months I would be ok. I cringe saying that though. Any and all advice regarding my situation would be appreciated. This is not limited to potential lenders or outside of the box thinking.

This post is my last resort before I say screw it and save more money. It is not easy and I am extremely impatient however I will not set myself up for failure. Thank you for reading.

 

Thank you for your advice. I am trying to figure out a way to secure more capital, however it looks bleak. Probably just going to keep saving.

 

Lol I’m doing that now to save money. I’m new to owner operating but not to trucking. I pretty much anticipated getting told I was going to need far more money. Sucks though, contract on the table is 20,000 a month gross. Oh well, takes money to make money. I just need more of it.

 

I am very mechanically inclined. Pulled turbos on the side of the highway etc.... if something big goes I’m screwed though. I am thinking about talking to RC moore and see if they’ll take care of me if I break down until I have enough saved. If I get a Cummins they can plug into it and have their own shop. My rate would be $96 an hour. Maybe if I offered to pay them back in ten weeks should something occur.

 

I can definitely pm my own truck but when it comes to the big stuff it is better to have a shop do it in the event the repair fails.

 

On a side note I want a truck that is within 300k miles.