Planning to build a small fleet, which truck to start with?

What was your net profit % last year? If you are above 8% you are above average. We ran about 10% on the trucking side of things. I have several ventures that do better than that and I have no labor involved in them.

Trucking is not a bad way to go. It's a reasonable way to make a living, and some love the lifestyle. It has certainly enabled me to get into other businesses that allowed me to make more money, but it has never been the most profitable venture I've been involved in.

BTW.. to stay on topic, truck choice is going to be based on what you are planning to haul. If all I was doing was vans or reefers I'd look at Volvos. Since some of my stuff also involves flatbeds, step decks and possible off pavement work I went down the middle and bought a T880 recently. Plus, aero trucks in heavy snow country like ours take a beating.

 

Yeah that’s the least of an issue because of now dealers/factory shops are not dependable to get a truck back on the road.

Give you an idea, a truck can be down for weeks because of a “lack of parts” ——>>> brand specific parts.

it don’t matter who makes the truck, can’t stress this enough, if you want to get into this, then you have to look at the bigger picture not a small cut of it.

 

I don't want to burst your bubble, but your not leaving a choice. If you are new to the industry, you should not be considering starting out on your own. Please get your experience first. Think about it this way, you don't start out as the chief of police, you start out as a rookie officer. I would hate to hear your loose your hard earned money

 

You can learn a lot about the business end of trucking by becoming a member of OOIDA.
www.OOIDA.com

 

I don't want to steer you away from the industry. I am suggesting your get experience as a company driver first. The easiest way to get experience is to run the road. It can be done locally however. The failure rate for new owner operators is extremely high. In fact a common commercial loan rate for a truck loan for a new owner operator is 17% plus. Even if your credit score is 850. That should tell you something.

 

I’ve owned my own truck for 3 years. It’s not impossible to start from scratch like you’re doing, but it will be difficult and you will need to make a lot of decisions and have lots of paperwork that will be difficult to understand. Of course many people will be happy to help you with all of that for a fee and even knowing which, if any, of them to use is a tough decision.

Unless you have a mentor that you trust completely to help guide you I think you should try something else or start at the bottom and learn the ropes yourself. It definitely isn’t easy money. Even a normal driver doesn’t understand what all is involved with IFTA, factoring, brokers, insurance, DOT compliance, 2290 heavy road tax, and lots of other paperwork that you will have to do.

 

I didnt read everything here... But I will say this. IF you do build a fleet get all identical trucks!!! This will save you many many head aches. Once you have and fix a problem with one truck, you will then know exactly how to fix all the rest when they have the same problem. If each truck is uniquely different, then each time a problem comes up you are trouble shooting from zero again... That means wasted time and money.