How do I Buy a truck?

Some fleets do maintenance and some pencil-whip maintenance. Many fleet trucks are leased and under warranty. They get rid of the trucks before the warranty ends so the 2nd buyer gets stuck with the expensive repairs.

 

Concur with the others, about being a high likelihood of financial disaster. Really bad idea if someone already had a large amount of debt. Things could get a lot worse(low freight rates, high diesel/maintenance costs, etc.) before they get better.

 

I would not consider owning until you had 2-3 years of solid driving experience at a place that is making owner-ops rich. 2-3 years of concentration on learning to own a truck is different than 1-2 years going down the road with your feet on the dash listening to podcasts and phone. You need to find someone already doing what you want to do and working for him, learning the ropes and judging his character, and then deciding. Even 5 years as a company driver where you only focus on driving is not preparation for owning, IMO. Lots of people bet their nest egg on owner-op and fail. Mostly they fail because they don't know the freight lane well, they have "unexpected repairs" and no income, and they try to live off load boards instead of direct customers. Being smart and hard working for an already running owner-op can bring about big opportunities. Working on your own from load boards isn't a good way to connect with those kind of owner-ops, IMO.

 

You?

Buy a truck?

NOOWWW?!?

 

I know one or two former company drivers that did well at Greatwide. I was never interested enough in owning to get the details about Greatwide. But the drivers I used to work with that went to Greatwide did well. I don't know how well.

 

Right lol...

 

Fleet vehicles are the worst. They flip em at 500k for a #### reason. They do the ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM to keep them legal. Dpf clean every 200k? Not a chance in hell. Oil at an approprate interval? Like hell they are going tonuse bargin bin oil and run 60k oil changes. OEM filters? Nope your lucky to get decent off brand ones. Overheads? Dont make me laugh. Lug the #### out of them with everything nutered well below what is healthy for the motor? Absolutely!

A used fleet truck likely has had many steering wheel holders who simply dont care. A company that does the minimum and a dealer who wants it gone. Fleet trucks are the biggest #### scam in the industry. Can they be good? Sure, but expect to dump a good 10-20K in right off the bat to bulletproof them.

 

I am too long out of the market to give a valid response. But buying a used truck is even more of a crap shoot than buying new.

Best I can do is tell you some of the filters I used in searching. Primary one was nothing over 300,000 miles. Logic behind that was enough potential factory engine and drive-line warranty to get the rest of the truck sorted out.

ECM printout and factory/dealer service records must be able to be reviewed to see what has messed up in the past..... (don't buy a problem child/lemon)


One of the groups of used trucks I would focus on were FACTORY lease returns. The factory will lease tractors to small companies and owner ops. They tended to be O/O spec as apposed to fleet (incompetent accountant) spec. They would be trucks that are leased for a year or two to support touring musicians, race car teams or similar. More likely to be run by a mature professional with proper maintenance. Main thing is figure out how you want YOUR truck spec.

The Paccar site that I used to searching at: https://www.paccarusedtrucks.com/s/search-inventory

 

My nephew made $98k last year and was home every weekend .

driving a new 18 speed W-900 that belongs to a small regional company that doesn’t use brokers or load boards , they have direct freight .


But you keep posting about this
So you’ve already made up your mind it seems like .

would you buy a nail salon ?

a pizza joint ?

Auto repair shop ?

Would you wait tables at a pizza joint for six months and then buy one across town ?

why not ?

you know as much about those businesses as you do about making a profit trucking .

 

I ran numbers for years. I knew it economically was a bad choice. But I found one that spoke to me. Made offer, now doing very limited local hauling. For my own business. But if not for timing. It would be a stupid purchase. Long as it keeps working well.