The journey begins - purchased a truck.

Thanks for putting in the time and effort to put this up Blair. Anyone contemplating this business should watch this - not to be scared away from it, but to be better prepared to succeed.

 

Haha loved that! That poor guy Chris... holy moly. It gave me flashbacks to the first couple years I had old stuff and had little hiring experience. The dollar amount in knowledge and experience he got is priceless though. Hopefully he will try again one day and it'll go much better.

 

I was scared away from becoming an owner operator for years…..most of them. It was my girl who in July finally gave me the push (and some money) to finally give it a try. I’ve only been actively hauling for two months. Best decision ever. Even with needing a new engine which will be installed in two weeks (yes I sort of planned for this with the purchase) I am LOVING it. I got chased away from one career in my early days from listening to others. That always left a void in me. I almost let this one go too.

 

Sometimes I think that being a successful owner requires the heart and soul to be engaged. I suspect he would have made a go of it had he not had other irons in the fire and was driving it himself.

 

I see he went through a very detailed summary of repair costs, along with the back story where relevant. The one huge thing that's entirely missing is: the opportunity cost that resulted.

Even with reasonably solid equipment, a good careful driver, and handling a lot of minor stuff yourself, an older truck is going to take two to three week-long (or more) tours through the shop for something major. Given the operation, let's say the potential profit is $300/day. Two weeks would work out to $4,200. Then add on any downtime pay for your driver, and any expenses such as a hotel for an OTR breakdown. To be fair, Chris mentioned the hotel expense.

The point being, any of these breakdowns have a hidden cost that can easily double the paper losses on the P&L.

Now, all that said, I'm surprised you didn't hook him up with a blue star o/o to put his truck in service without having to recruit and manage drivers and loads. I'm sure there's one that would work something out for his limited farm needs, and keep his truck profitable the rest of the year. That's not an ideal arrangement for the usual person who goes out to run independent. However, with his other ventures and priorities, it would be a perfect fit. Let someone who knows what they're doing handle the hard stuff, and still make at least the same money taking a smaller cut of a bigger number.

Or, maybe you did suggest that and he thought it was going to be easy and forged ahead with the independent plan anyway. Maybe now with a taste of doing it the hard way, that leasing discussion might be more productive.

 

I know alot of guys that were leased to International Transport and Landstar back in the day.
Spring and fall they farmed and the rest of the year they trucked.
Not even sure if companies still allow that anymore.

 

I am not hauling this, but how would you price it? Doesn't say over height, but at 12'2" wide, I'm sure it's over 8'6", even though it says flatbed is okay. But for argument's sake, let's say it's only over width.

Looks like you need one escort in Oklahoma, and in Texas you can get a single use permit to move a building for $15.

This is just for fun, so anyone can answer when they have time and feel like it. I'm just wondering what the grownups would do. Here's the load: