What am I missing?

Truck insurance for first year closer to $15K.

Plates and permits $1800 nothing to do with IFTA.

Truck purchase/ maintenance will vary.

Get a good truck, may cost you less than $10K in repairs and maintenance first year.

 

Plates are $1500+
IFTA- This is how I do it, best way to handle this is to purchase fuel in states with higher fuel tax. You can google it and find a list. Reason being, for example Pennsylvania his the highest fuel tax in the US it is .7490. If you ran a lot of miles in Pennsylvania and didn't buy fuel there, you would end up owing a lot of money atthe end of the quarter. If you do it the way I do it you end up getting money back and not owing anything.

Insurance will be around $15k for new authority. But I am assuming that because you have your trailer cost at zero you are going to lease on to someone. Then $9I is more reasonable

 

If you like to drive fast, or idle a lot, you're fuel usage could cost you $15K year more than someone that drives 62ish and has an APU.

Without knowing what truck you have, your driving habits, it's pretty impossible to put a number on that.

 

You can buy a good truck with low miles, and save you money for when you actually need an overhaul

 

This.

Spend time finding a good truck. Put it on a dyno BEFORE you buy it. Get the oil tested and get an ECM dump.

Stay away from freightliners with Mercedes engines and Internationals with that fkd up engine.

The early DEF years are hit or miss.

I got lucky with a 2012 that had the entire DEF system replaced under warranty. Two months after buying it, I had to change the radiator. Bought a radiator direct from an after market manufacturer and paid a local mechanic to put it in.

Had a solid year making money then had to replace injector cups and injectors.

That was a year ago. Aside from brakes, it's been tires and oil and batteries, and the occasional odd thing.

Just concentrate on finding good lanes to run after you get a truck that doesn't suck too bad.

Make some money then get your fancy chromed out glider.

 

Spend the extra money for GOOD tires. And if you can spare the weight I would recommend carrying a spare and the tools to change it yourself, this will save you a bundle in roadside service calls. If you cant spare the weight for a spare I would still carry the tools... A drive tire can be used as a steer in a pinch to get you to a tire shop to have one fixed or replaced.

 

That's why you ALWAYS purchase a warranty. And yes Maxxforce's suck. I have a pre emission truck. No offense but I would never own an emissions engine again. But I dont run California, nor do I want to. Dyno will tell you quite a bit, most likely that will be out of your pocket. Oil analysis is good as well, but then your waiting for the results. They are a good test to find out about bearing wear. I don't do oil analysis on my truck. I change my oil every 12k and I do the rods and mains ever 500k. Lastly I am glad you have had good luck besides the issues you mentioned

 

Look at the rates per mile they are pretty low and we are just coming off the best trucking rates in like 50 years. We had the perfect storm in trucking. The ELD forced all drivers to run legally and lot of driver even quite over that. Then the economy took off crazy so we had huge demand for truck and crazy rates.

If you drive 120,000 miles a year at $1.35 per mile that's $162,000. It it cost you$106,000 a year to break even. You might clear $55,000. Then you have to pay the taxes on that money.