Somebody's New Truck Awaits....

Wow one extreme to another.

 

That's one of the best lines I've ever heard.

 

The company I'm leasing on with provides insurance on the truck and trailer as long as they got dot. A co. said they haul the trailer over for $2300, that makes my great deal on the trailer only an average deal. I figured it would be $780 for fuel from IA to MI to MT. Plus a $300 plane ticket from MT to IA. So that's $1080 then I got food and misc expenses for a rough est of $1500. But that's a long way to go without getting hammered by the DOT somewhere... Man I'm confused. I might just go and play stupid er uh, act naturally.

 

From FMCSR part 395.1;

"(j) Travel time. (1) When a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle driver at the direction of the motor carrier is traveling, but not driving or assuming any other responsibility to the carrier, such time must be counted as on-duty time unless the driver is afforded at least 10 consecutive hours off duty when arriving at destination, in which case he/she must be considered off duty for the entire period."

So you all should be fine, getting there Tuesday night and not doing any business until Wednesday. You're not a motor carrier anyway, just two folks with an unusual taste in personal vehicles, right?

I won't give this as advice, but I'll tell you what I did. I bought my truck in Effingham, IL. I paid with cashier's check in my name, not any business name, so the title was signed over to me in my name. I had already set up liability insurance and had a card specific to this truck, but I'm sure you could get that faxed to you. I wasn't planning on putting the truck to work for about a month, so as far as I was concerned, this was a personal vehicle. I called the scalehouse in London, KY, to get their opinion, and they said all this sounded reasonable to them, and said I didn't have to cross the scale, but they also said it wouldn't be a bad idea to pull in just to keep from repeating the same conversation on the side of the road. As it happened, all the scales were closed, and I didn't have any trouble. So that's my experience, fwiw. I didn't even have a log book with me. Obviously, Gears' experience is on the other end of the spectrum. If you're buying in a business name, I doubt this would work anyway.

Terrible lurker that I am, I'm excited to see what you guys get too, and good luck once you get rolling.

 

TG you should get a drive tag for the tractor from the dealer. as for the trailer. look up a company called oneway trailers. I see them offering $200.00 to pick up a trailer and deliver. the only thing is the company that picks it up will be able to load it to where you are. I haven't read the whole thread so you may have come up with this already.Good Luck.Walt

 

The fuel permits are piddly (I mean, they add up, but they won't break you)
You need insurance before you go, but that's not a big deal, give VIN to insurance agent, give him money, good to go.

The problem is you're buying a unseen tractor that has issues (they all have issues, you just don't know what yet). You won't know til you drive it around a bit. If you get pulled by DOT in the middle fo nowhere, you don't know where to take it to fix it. AT least if you're "home" you're near your repair shops (that you trust and won't rob you blind). Or it breaks middle of nowhere, then you're out thousands.

I bought a tractor (actually a dump truck) In Kansas. Got a temp tag for Kansas, called Colorado and asked what to do (they said stop in and get a fuel permit, which doesn't make a lot of sense since it's going to be registered only in Colo, but what do I know).

Got insurance, built a little paper in plastic thing with name of company and DOT #. (should have just put "in transit, not for hire" in retrospect).

It took me 3 days and $1800 to go the 600 miles home
Broke down in the first 50 miles, bad cam sensor (how could anyone know?).
Got going next morning, lost an air fitting at the first fuel stop (sitting on side of freeway, with two state troopers not 200 yards away doing a speed trap). (stuff happens)
The shop fixed that, then found a bad yoke on the driveshaft (again,I'm not a mechanic, how would I know?). Spent all day at that shop (they were cheap, I let them fix a couple things, cheaper than at home rates even).

When I got it home, off it went to my local shop for a bunch of stuff.

BUT, my wife was at home running the google and finding these shops, I would have been in trouble just out on the road.

Next time, I'd pay the delivery charge, let it break on their dime and say something like "DOT inspection at my shop" upon delivery. (since of COUUUURSE it was DOT inspected before it went down the road by the seller, yeah right). I pay the inspection fee, they pay for all repairs. Not unreasonable. If everything is fixed, they have nothing to lose, if they worry, then it's junk and they didn't really do the inspection, they just did a pencil whip DOT.

 

Josh C.- Thanks so much for the actual part. It helps a lot to know exactly what we're dealing with.

Scud Runner- We were looking at the same things as price goes. We thought about what's more important to us, time or money? Right now we're not in a hurry because of all of the bureaucracy. To fly it would cost us $180 a piece. We can rent a car with unlimited miles for $150 for 2 days, even factoring another $100 in gas it still works out to be cheaper. Not sure if it would still be cheaper for you because there's only one plane ticket to buy in your case.

Walt- Thanks for the info but I think (hope) we found a way to avoid the hassle with the trailer right now.

Lonecowboy- It's not so much the price of the fuel permits that aggravate me as it is the lack of unity in protocol between states. It's one extreme to other. As for the truck, hopefully, we won't have your problems. We plan on looking it over really well, getting it inspected and putting it on a dyno before signing on the dotted line.

 

I would disconnect the 5th and put "Not for Hire" on both sides.

 

I'm going to take back roads all the way, lol.

 

Yeah, well, that was my plan too.

Let them break it on the way back home to you.