Good investment or bad investment

If you can buy the truck and trailer cheap enough, then resell it quickly good investment. Now if your buying truck and trailer to go haul cheap loads with no Infrastructure, bad investment!

 

I've been leased on to a carrier for 9 years hauling grain and fertilizer.
Every time there is a general market down turn, many trucks head into this business destroying any profit that I was planning on making.
Grain for large processors is generally under contract for 2 to 3 years so I'm protected from the influx of surplus trucks in that market.
Fertilizer is usually on the spot market. It use to be our gravy loads. Made lots of money in the past. The last time the oil patch had a down turn, many of their trucks hauled fertilizer, driving down rates. I went two years without hauling a single load. Just the last two years it started to get back to normal and now it's all dried up again. We even laid off a dispatcher.
Then when things pick up all the extra trucks abandon this market. The line ups and wait time can be aggravating, but the money use to help.

 

As an investment strictly speaking there's much better ways to make money.

 

I heard there was never any money in a hopper bottom. It's why they always load the wagon , 50-60g's in the box is not uncommon, and seem proud of that fact, for some reason. You'll never see a hopper going over a state scale, unless they get dragged in.

 

I wouldn’t recommend it but that’s just me. My own Dad owns a grain elevator and farms. I don’t haul his grain. He has plenty of cheaper trucks lining up waiting.

 

I looked at the spot rates a few years ago, and didn't look like it would be worth buying a retailer for

 

I see a general collaspe in ag. If farmers are plowing crops under, forget the new planting year.

It would be horrible.

Investment? HA right. 2 million into a small fortune of 20,000 dollars.

 

its like anything else in this industry, you will hear a lot of people say there isn't money in many things which is usually true but you may happen to be in a niche area where it doesn't apply to you specifically, crunch all the numbers after factoring in all costs like diesel, maintenance etc and see if its worth it. For tractors alone I sweep 20cpm for maintenance, I know nothing about that hopper bottom but if it breaks down whos the closes shop that can fix, cost of getting to and from etc, maybe like 30cpm to start? then adjust accordingly if you see your maintenance account going negative consistently month after month

 

I think there was a really in depth thread on here a guy started a number of years back that did just this. He detailed it very well. Dont recall how it ended but if you or someone can find it I'm sure it would offer some insight