Is there still money to be made in car hauling?

Depending on the equipment its not unlikely in some situations. If you had a 9 car you could do well!!

9 x 800 (per unit) = $7200 x 3 weeks a month = $21,600 x 11 months a year = $237,600.

That is figuring 3 full loads a month considering the time it takes ya to load/drive/drop and with time off and holidays n such, I also just calculate my income on 10 or 11 months vs 12. That way you can low ball it and room for improvement !!

 

Well, I can't speak for anyone else but this will give you a "rough" breakdown of my company. Each one of my trucks is probably about 280,000 per year GROSS income. HOWEVER keep in mind, my trucks average about 140,000 miles per year per truck. Also they are not broken down old 80's trucks.

I'm sure the stinger guys are probably "grossing" more, but my expenses are a lot lower. After everything is said and done and all payroll,payments,taxes,office expenses,maitenance,permits,repairs,and everything else is done,yes I do make a buck, but it is not as much as it used to be.

 

O.K. Gotcha Sam, just wanted to know so I would be sure I wasn't steppin on any toe's in the future.

Thanks Stan

 

Not everyone who pulls cars will gross over $300,000/year, but some do. Before I got hurt I had just signed a contract that would have paid the truck about $7,000/week. Depending on how much time I wanted to take off I would have grossed between $250,000-350,000. When I was hauling cars the average of those whom I knew would average between $175,000-250,000/yr. Fuel was less than $1/gallon.


Keep in mind that hauling cars is a lot of work when you haul 10 cars. Most flat bed freight can be secured with 10-12 chains or straps. A 10 car rig will require 40 chains to secure the load. You will need 4 chains for each vehicle. On top of that the driver will be crawling up and down on the truck or trailer for each of his cars. That is the equivalent of going up a flight of stairs or a 1 story building with every car, at least on the top. When you pull one of these rigs you earn your money. You are out in all types of weather. I have loaded when it was -40 in Minnesota and 105+ in Houston. Not fun.

The money is there, or was, but you will earn it. Pulling 3/4 cars can pay well and you can load much faster than with a 9/10 car trailer. Equipment is also much less. I knew car haulers who had 10 car rigs that had equipment payments from $3,500-5,000/month. You can get into a 3/4 set up for much less.

 

I have a friend who's an O/O hauling cars in the east coast. He's based in Pa., from what I've seen most of his work is Fla., Ga. and north. He's never told me what he makes, but it's apparently comfortable enough he just bought a $75K boat.

 

I love those days when the trailer is iced over, cars don't start, fingers numb from holding onto ratchets or winch bar. The latter at 105 is the equivalent of understanding what it feels like being on a grill. Lay your arm on the wrong piece of steel in the summer & you will be branded for a bit.

There was a write up not long ago in a global magazine stating that they are having issues coming up with enough cash to attract new drivers to this field as it DOES NOT PAY ENOUGH for what you have to do. Everything is more expensive to operate being a car hauler & neither the mfg's nor dealers want to pay what is needed. To be fair, who wants to pay more for shipping when they can delay it, which they are & will until the volume of cars exceeds that of the transports.

I wasn't in this field when it was good years ago as I have heard about. This past two years have not been as good as even 07/08.

 

I am sorry to hear that things have gotten significantly worse since I was in the business. I really missed it for several years, but don't think that I would want to be in it any longer. There is nothing like sliding off the tops of a truck with ice on the ramps. It is like skiing backwards off a ski ramp. I unloaded a truck in North Carolina in a pouring rain once. Had it not been for the lip on the ramp I would have easily slid off the truck. The ramps were so slick it was like having ice on them.

If you want good car haulers you will need to pay them well. You can't just take someone off the street and put them in a 10 car rig. It is one thing to pull a dually with a wedge trailer and 3 or 4 cars, but when you have 10 cars on a truck you need to have someone who knows what they are doing. Just staging and learning how to maximize your weights takes time, not to mention crawling up and down from the headrack or trailer in all kinds of weather. Not many are willing to work that hard. Most won't even change out a market light. I can't imagine even fewer who would be willing to splice a blown hydraulic line. You don't call road service when you blow a hydraylic line while you are trying to load over the weekend in the middle of the night.

Manufacturer's used to pay good rates. I hate to hear they are getting like many other segments of this industry. They will pay an line worker $100,000/yr to screw on a couple of lugnuts but don't want to pay a decent rate to get the car to the dealer where the money is actually generated. It doesn't make any sense to me. While I was still in the business, there were some Haitians who were beginning to haul cars out of south Florida for next to nothing. I don't see how they could hardly pay fuel for the rates they were charging.

There has been a major shift in the major carriers. Allied has cut back to the bone. I think that Jack Cooper has lost a lot of business with the closing of Chrysler in St. Louis. I figure that when the economy turns the corner that they may be forced to pay a higher rate if they want their cars moved.

 

My brother in law and I started hauling cars with a dually and a 3 car wedge, DOT was all over us at the weigh stations. Now we have a tractor and a orange blossom 7 car hauler and we get green lighted every time.
Better gas milage with the big rig, more cars with each trip and way more comfortable with the sleeper cab than trying to sleep in the passenger seat when not driving.

 

I met a driver several years ago who pulled a 7 car and he said that he did very well running coast to coast. There are a lot of people using Dodge dually's to pull 3/4 car wedge trailers, but it seems to me that it would be better to have a 2 axle tractor. I think it would hold up better than the dually. My friend who uses a Dodge dually prefers the dually. I spoke with a dot officer a few years ago who told me that they give these duallys with wedge trailers a little more scrutiny since they don't keep up their equipment as well as most class 8 trucks according to him.