Owning but not driving

Well, the frac sand hauler has had his truck in the shop for almost 2 weeks. I think he's getting it out today. Had to replace the clutch and I think a few other smaller things.

As far as the dooley, they arent making as much as the should be because they are both learning the business. Right now the driver is only able to run 3 loads a day and they need to get him doing at least 4 to make $1000. I know very little about these guys. I dont know if they will make it or not. Sounds like the owner is a bit of an idiot to me. As far as the payments, etc I have no clue. They havent told me and Im not going to ask because its none of my business.

Im not saying that you guys are wrong. Im just giving 2 examples of guys that I know that are doing pretty good that got into trucking with no experience and I know that one of them isnt devoting a lot of time to it.

 

As long as you have really good paying contracts you're going to make some money. No direct freight? Forget it. Loadboards will help you lose weight from eating top ramen and scraping to pay the light bill. You gotta be a real hustler to be in the black using strictly load boards, unless you've got some good connections with brokers.

 

I think that you should be commended for saving a nice nest egg. There is much to learn and consider. As others have noted, trucking is not a 9-5 job. Most of us run very irregular schedules. Some are a little more fortunate in having more predictable hours. One thing about trucks that is predictable is that they will break down. And they rarely break down at a reasonable hour. When something happens you can expect to receive a call. It may be at 1:00 in the morning when you get the call. When the driver calls he will expect you to fix whatever is wrong. It may only be a blown tire. It could be a clogged fuel filter, turbo or blown engine. That means that you will need to find a repair shop or truck stop that has road service. Once repairs are made you will get another call to pay the vendor. By then, it may be 4:00 or so. With the delay, your driver could be late for his delivery. That will mean that you will need to contact the consignee, shipper or broker to let them know what has happened and to reschedule your delivery time. Unless you have a fuel card you will need to find a way to pay for fuel. You will probably need to fuel once a day or perhaps every other day. Without a fuel card you will need to either give the driver enough cash to pay for all fuel and expenses until he gets back home (NOT RECOMMENDED) or use a Comcheck or other types of payment. He will need to call so that you can register the check. It is best to set something up with one of the fuel card companies. And you should make sure to monitor the purchases very carefully. You will find that it takes much more time to find decent paying loads and keep your truck moving than you will know. It will become easier once you make a few contacts and learn more about what you are doing. Once you get your truck loaded you will need to start looking for freight on the other end. You could get lucky and find something right away. That is usually not the case, especially starting out. Neither you or your wife have experience with trucking. Dispatching can be very time consuming. Most drivers want to get home on a fairly regular basis. It can be a real challenge to get them back when they want.

I remember a driver that I had a few years ago. He had to get back home for a court date. He unloaded in Arkansas and lived in Georgia. There were loads, but nothing that would get him close to home. I deadheaded him home from Arkansas. That cost me several hundred dollars in fuel. I had made him a promise to get him home on a certain date so that he could appear in court. It wasn't a matter of wanting, but needing to be in court. Sometimes you need to bite the bullet when you own the truck and have drivers. I try not to do a lot of deadheading. When rates are lower and freight is slow, you will need to do more deadheading just to find decent paying freight. It can take several days to find something worth hauling. Most drivers don't like to sit, even for a good paying load. It is up to the owner to convince them that it is in their best interest to sit, if necessary. A good dispatcher gets to know their drivers and learns how they like to run.

You will need to work your schedule around your truck. Days can start early and end late. You work as long as you can or until you find a good load. Your driver or broker could call at any time. It will be up to you to deal with whatever is needed. Just because you only have one truck doesn't necessarily mean that you won't need to spend a lot of time on your business. It is easier to make money with several trucks than just one. It is great that you plan on paying cash for your equipment. That will take a big burden off your shoulders. There will be times when you won't have a driver in your truck. Insurance, truck payments and other regular expenses go on whether the truck is moving or not. By paying cash, you take some of that concern off your shoulders.

If you plan to pursue this, you need to look at the pros and cons very carefully.

 

chuck, what you see is them generating revenue, whats left after expenses tells the tale. many generate revenue and have nothing left.

check em again at 6 months and at 12 months, look for signs as no one is going to tell you they are losing there behind

 

There are so many ways to loose money with this plan. Running a small business is not a 9-5 operation if you want to be successful. But good luck.

 

"my grandpa drove forever but I knew it was never my calling".
hmmm, bells should be ringing at this point!

Is it possible to buy a nice used tractor for around 30K, a flat bed trailer for 10K, and get the permits, LLC, insurance, and still have a money left for fuel/repairs?

Emphatically...NO!

" I am not looking to jump into this tomorrow, and we save money every week so in a few months can probably have enough to have a nice safety net."

You'll need about a 50,000.00 line of credit...

"So my main question, is there enough profit in this business to have one rig that is driven not by an O/O to cover costs and make a little bit of money? "

No. Your driver has to care enough about YOUR equipment and YOUR business to help keep YOUR costs down. Example: he drives at 70 mph thru Oklahoma City on I-40. If you've never been there you won't know but he probably just cost you 2300.00 for a new set of kingpins on your front axle. What about red light cams? That's your vehicle and you're responsible. Have you ever priced an engine rebuild...mine was a tad, just a tad over 25,000.00. A used truck for around 30k? (engine failure imminent). A very good friend of mine tried to do what you are asking and his brother was the driver...he lost his @_ss. In fact, after four years he's still paying for it and his truck only cost him 20,000.00. Have you priced a tire??? 600.00 for a steering tire. Have you priced a flat tire out in the middle of nowhere? 800.00. Are you going to use recaps? See previous answer. Priced fuel yet for a vehicle that gets a whopping 6 mpg? Let's see, one day's ride is about 600 miles. divided by 6 mpg = about 100 gallons... times 4.17 PER gallon and that just cost 417.00...just for one day's ride. What about when your driver gets ticked off at you for whatever reason and decides he's going to run overweight? There's fines when he gets caught, there's legal action if someone dies...and believe me when I tell you they are going after the owner of the vehicle as well as their insurance company.

I hate to sound so pessimistic but if you don't know what you're doing in this business, you should become a driver first and learn this bizz for about 5 years or find a different business. This one will kill people.

 

tell ya what, lot of really good insight here but it will not get it across like hanging at truckstops and asking about 100+ drivers what is going on.....

• company driver - major operation - does not really realize what is invested
• indie / small-fleet runs a lot of hours for someone else, never sees the accounting
• low-margin / barely making it ... may use critical remarks frequently
• busted - not only at law but in the wallet also - keeps mouth shut

there's your 20-% .... you never hear about the 80-% that did not make it

some who have decades doing it and somehow a good contract & do not waste the revenue might actually be paying for the truck but what you describe .... may as well start reading Chaper-13 of the Bankruptcy code as bedtime reading ~ along with some Disney tapes and other fantasy material .....

you might make it but in the general it is like an M.B.A. told me: almost all start-ups fail, and that was an accomplished person telling me that - you will find dozens of drivers who are working for some other business operation, few of them do really well - some do but what you describe is done by some and they make it but read all the replies in detail and pay close attention to the critics

to work as an investor requires expertise in the area of activity ~ generally one does not just waltz on to some thing never done before and do well

{ edit added in response to rollin coal above: sorta smells of recruiter just a little,...... }

sounds legit, the place I hired a pup-trailer / single-axle tractor automatic to do driving test in was wanting to get back and sell RV's even though there was $800 cash income right there ...... happens

 

Riiight, sure they did....

How bout this... You go buy one and show us all how it's done.

 

whatever...

And did I ever say that I could do it? No I didn't...

Bye

 

Something that hasn't been mentioned here.

We know if you hire a bad driver this isn't going to work. But what if you hire a good one ? That driver is going to have knowledge of the trucking industry which you don't have. It makes for an awkward employer/employee relationship when the driver is an expert and the boss is a newb. I know because I've been in this situation before as the driver.

Look, a lot of the 'work' involved with owning a truck stays the same whether you have one truck or 10 trucks, okay ? In other words it is not 1/10th the work to own one truck as it is to own 10. It may only be 1/2 as much. I own one and am doing okay because I don't split it with anybody, however, if I was going to add trucks I would probably want at least 5 so I could justify hiring a person to do dispatching and book keeping or justify paying myself to do it. With just one truck your wife will be running herself ragged for slim to no profit.