Oilfield Owner Operator - Canadian in the USA

@RockinChair
Thank u for your insightful expertise and wisdom advices. I think my best chance is to keep on trucking dry van for another year to complete the two yrs minimum requirement for most decent tanker and chemical companies.

On a side note,
I wanted to ask for your opinion on this opportunity just brought upon me. So I am driving for a good family friend of mine at the moment as an 1099 driver and he brought up a good ( in my opinion) offer to buy his truck. The truck is a 2019 Peterbilt 579 with 542k miles, with a cummin engine and APU for 50k included with a 2007 trailer. I can pay him $1000( $250 per week) a month with no interest up to 60 months term. I have been driving this truck for a month now and have not seen any issues with it. The advantages I have is my friend is a good mechanic, used to own a shop and can get parts at a discounted rate and also help or show me how to fix things if when need to be repair. I think it is not a bad deal even though I might not be ready to be an O/O or imagined it at this early stage of my 13 months experienced. BTW, he just fixed the turbo recently which is one of the common breakdown of this engine. Part costed $1500 and replaced by him with 0 labor cost.

Plans, budgeting and Strategies:

Heck if I am going to drive hard and hustle on these ruthless and unforgiving roads, mind as well work for myself while I build additional experiences along the way. If I am bad luck and have tons of major breakdowns, I will give back the truck to my friend or sell it and give the proceeds to him. I know and understand the risks involved in as an O/O but feels like this opportunity came to me as a pleasantly surprised gift with a good financing offer. My friend has done a good job on the PM on this truck. I will continue to do his ways like changing oil and filter every 30k miles, do pre and post inspections, book loads no less than $2 per mile, no more than 35k lbs weight load and stay out on the road for 3 weeks at a time. I intend to run Midwest, South and East loads to maximize my income. I also planned on putting 500 per month for future repair and don’t pay myself anything since I have bills at home to take care such as daycare for my 1.5 yr old son and mortgage ( 1k per month with taxes/ins).

Fixed weekly expenses:
IRP $31.25
2290 Tax $11.45
Insurance $375
ELD $12.50
DAT $30

Not including fuel, food and small miscellaneous things.

Risks and Concerns:
unpredictable fuel prices.
Unpredictable breakdowns.
Unstable rate pricing.

Questions and Conclusions:

I know you have a wealth of knowledges in the trucking industry and would love to get your two cents in my situation. Would u do it if you were me? What habits or behaviors would u recommend to maintain and sustain as O/O. Any other advices would be much appreciated.

B/R,
T

 

@lual
Please kindly chime in if you have the time sir. Thanks a bunch.

 

Unless you have 6 months' worth of operating expenses in the bank and also have previous experience managing a successful business, I cannot in good conscience recommend you become an owner operator. That goes double since you're still pretty new to the business, and especially since you have a son and presumably a wife who are counting on you to bring home a steady income and health insurance (unless your wife has coverage through her job).

At this point I think your best bet is to become a W-2 employee with an oilfield company, or you can choose to keep hauling freight for a little while longer if you'd like while you research oilfield carriers to jump to after you hit 2 years.

 

@RockinChair
You are too wise and I am grateful for your prompt response sir. I don’t have 6 months of liquid assets in the bank but have 100k HELOC from our house at our disposal. My wife does have a job and our son has health, dental and vision insurance. Life is full of risks and I am a risk taker. My friend that is selling the truck to me became an O/O after 6 months in the industry. He got lucky and came in the gold rush yrs right before COVID hit in 2019. Obviously I don’t think I can see the Covid rate and brokers are always lowballing rates.
My wife will be in charge of our financing and she is the best CFO in our family. I think with a good budgeting habit and disciplined in your finances by living frugally can help maintain and sustain a stable income. That’s in personal life as well as professional.
Yes I have had offers from other mega carriers and midsize ones too but u and I know best that I have to work my tails off driving 3k miles per week ( if they have miles) and not guaranteed anything and no PTO or holidays pay too.

I did worked for Swift for 11 months and that was a good learning experience but also gone thru dreadful times with them. I made less than 35k during that time and was out a month at a time. I don’t want to go thru hell with another trucking company. I figured if I do my own thing, I’m still getting the experience, freedom and more $$ for sure. Yes, there are much more responsibilities as an O/O but again as long as I don’t have too many breakdowns and a solid budgeting system, I think we can manage it for a while. Like I said, I can give back the truck to him if things don’t work out like a lease walk away. FYI, my friend and I had that verbal agreement. Everything we do is based on verbal because we have full trust in each others. I dont know if it will work out sir, but if u don’t try u will never know. My plan B is to go back to become a company driver if this O/O doesn’t work out for me. BTW, I will be using his authority to book loads at no cost to me. I know the statistics are against me but I am a warrior in life and will fight everything I can to survive in this harsh environment with the support of my family.
I still have time to think about it. I think we will have a good discussion when I get home this weekend.

Thank u so much again for your precious time and attention to my questions. Experience in this industry is so valuable.
B/R,
T

 

I will back up RockinChair's above suggestions -- going out as an O/O right now is a HUGE MISTAKE!!!

Why?

• You don't have nearly enough experience within the industry to go out on your own
• Conditions & expenses within the industry make it extremely difficult for sole proprietors to make money -- even for many drivers who have O/O experience

Just because you had a bad experience with Swift -- does not mean you will have a bad experience with other carriers as a company driver.

Suggestion: Before doing oil field work -- get AT LEAST 2 years experience elsewhere, first (more than that would be better).

Carriers that will likely hire you...& give you a much better company driver experience:

• Marten Transport
• Halvor Lines

-- L

 

You're either blindly ignorant, or dumb. Everything you typed here is just plain stupid.

Holy hell.

Think about this like a horror movie. You sit down to watch, you know the bad man is hiding in the closet, but the movie star is fixing to open the closet door, and you're saying to them "don't do it"

This is playing out like you're the movie star. Everyone watching can see how this movie ends.

 

Much appreciated for all of your opinions and suggestions @RockinChair and @lual.

 

Why would you borrow against your house to do something that has a failure rate considerably higher than other businesses?

Trust and verbal agreements only work when everything is going perfectly. Why on earth would you be willing to make payments on a piece of equipment as well as cover all maintenance cost when it doesn’t have your name on the title? If you can’t afford to get traditional financing for this little endeavor then you can’t afford and aren’t ready to be an owner operator.

 

I do appreciated all of your valuable advices.

 

@Chinatown
Please see all past post.
Thanks!