mileage and price questions

What are your operations costs? Truck payment,insurance,tags,repairs,taxes,wages etc etc?????

 

$5,000/yr in repairs has the potential to be low. Doesn't take much to go over that.

 

Your driving experience (tractor trailer experience ONLY) will determine your insurance costs. Your plates will be priced depending on which states you are going to run in. You can save money on plates by not listing ALL of them, however you will have to buy trip permits each time you need to go into a state that isn't on your cab card. I figure my fuel at $4/g and 5.5 mpg average. This comes out to .73 per mile. I also bump it up to .80 per mile because I haul reefer.

For tires:
2x steer tires = $1200
8x drive tires = $4000
8x trailer tires = $3200
I expect drive and trailer tires to last a minimum of 250,000 miles. Steer tires, 125,000 miles.

The cost, therefore for steers is $1200/125,000 = 0.0096 per mile.
The cost for drive and trailer tires = $7200/250,000 = 0.0288
I add these and round up to the next cpm = 0.04 per mile

Oil changes:
I do a grease job at 6,000 miles and oil change at 12,000 miles.
If it costs me $350 per 12,000 miles to have both done it will cost 0.0296 (0.03)


You have fixed and variable costs. This is how I calculate mine.
Variable is any cost directly related to actually driving the truck down the road.
I use fuel, tires, oil/grease, and maintenance/repairs.
Fuel 0.80
Tires 0.04
Oil/grease 0.03
Repairs 0.15

This means I have to make 1.02 per mile to cover THOSE operating costs.

Fixed costs:
Tractor payment
Trailer payment
Insurance
Plates
Cell Phone
Accounting
Truck wash
Load board fees

Figure out what your monthly payment for each is. There may be more costs but I am doing this off the top of my head. Add it up. This is the number you must make each month, on top of your 1.02 per mile, TO KEEP THE DOORS OPEN. I plan to have enough made after my 1.02 a mile within the first 10-14 days of the month, and the second half of the month will be my paycheck. When my truck and trailer payments eventually disappear, this will become extra cash in my pocket and I will be able to work less.

Now you have to calculate how you are to pay a driver (yourself?). If you are hiring someone to drive it, add your .42 to the direct operating costs to run the truck. If not, you can add the amount you would like to earn to the fixed costs. Just remember you have to pay all those costs before you can pay yourself.

Then there is return on investment. You do want to be able to pay a driver, pay for the fixed costs, everything, and still have a profit leftover in the company, right? This is not to be confused with the money sitting in an account, building up, because you WILL need that money someday to cover a repair.

If you can figure out what lanes you want to run, and the rates that those lanes pay, you will be far ahead of the game. You can now compare what lanes pay to what you need to run your truck.

I hope all of this made sense. This is the way I think of it. Hope some more people chime in.

 

If you are planing on starting up with just $28K (buying truck, trailer, tags, insurance, authority, fuel, computer, printer reserve for maintance, tires blow out,) just throw it in the fireplace and you will save yourself a lot of head aches. And with no experence insurance will be a little ok a lot more than $4-$6k more like $8-$12k a year. You would be better off starting out as a company driver and get some experence. Unless you have a large cash flow getting into this business with no experence will break you quick. One breakdown in the middle of the night what would you do.

 

Also, some brokers wont deal with u until u have at least a year with ur authority. U need to have a "Hook-up" before u even think of it. U will lose it all without the loads. Brokers and other drivers can really be ruthless out there. In ur area, the rates can drive u down to 1.00- 1.50 p/m, or starve. Just my 2 cents. Good Luck. Be safe out there.

 

you will never know unless you give it a try