Bottom line, is this accurate?

$2,000 a MONTH for tires?????

Figure $1,500 a month for maintenance....Fixed truck cost is a little high...but not by much...

Lone Mountain is a third party lease co., not a Motor Carrier...so you would get your freight from whomever you lease onto...don't understand all the FSC talk since that would depend on who you lease on to (unless you get your own numbers.....

 

Do you have to pay about $700 a month truck insurance? If... you can tough it out,you maystart turning a profit once its paid for. Jmo

 

If you're talking about $2600 a month, you're talking about a brand new truck? Budget $0.05 per mile first year add two cents per mile per year going forward. Also find out if they charge more for running more than 10,000 miles a month, as someone mentioned. Leased onto a carrier fixed cost insurance should be around $800 bucks a month or so so that $1200 might be a little high too. And you should be able to do better than $1.16 as well. I'm at $1.45 ytd.

 

With rates like it is now it's hard out here for independents guys, these broker out here running a muck right now. You can be successful just gotta budget and run your business accordly.

 

I've owned 8 trucks that I have run over the last 28 years having driven 16 years with my driving split up by time in the military. 5 class 8 tractors (one of which was converted to a straight truck), 1 medium duty, 3 1 ton duallies and one 3/4 ton. Maintenance, repairs and tires have always averaged out to be around $10,000 a year on all of them (about $.08 to $.10 a mile) NOTE: all of these trucks were pre emmission and the 3/4 ton is a gasser

Comp and collision insurance on a commercial vehicle runs about $3.50 to $4.00 per $1000 value of the truck a month ( $75,000 / $1000 * $3.50 = $262.50 per month )

Learn to control your right foot, slow down and keep the left door shut. These trucks are capable of 7-8+ mpg at $80k gross. That is several thousand $ a year in YOUR bank account.

The last truck I was driving for a friend of mine I was averaging 7.8 - 7.96 on quarterly IFTA..... A 19 year old Freightliner FLD flat top with no aero skirts with an M11 Cummins pulling a 53' open 7 car trailer.

Bigger payment and piece of mind on new with warranty or higher maintenance $ repairs on a used truck with a smaller payment or a really old paid off truck that eats thousand dollar bills in repairs like candy.... pick your poison it is pretty much a wash in the end.

Trucking is a penny business and every penny counts. You need to run your company as a business and not like a hobby. Keep track of your costs and your miles and know what everything is costing you per mile so when something isn't right you'll know exactly where you are bleeding money.

Me personally, I'm getting ready to get a truck again, having passed the half century mark in birthdays, arthritis, wanting to enjoy my home time and not be turning wrenches on the truck in my shop and all this new high dollar emissions crapola, I want a new truck every 2-3 years so I can just drop the truck off at a dealer, say fix it, go home and not worry about it. I don't care about a balloon payment or getting the title to a worn out truck, someone else can own that headache.