Every time I see a fully customized truck or condo its pulling a reefer or flatbed

Everyone's business is different and so is everyone's tastes. If you are very successful and want to spend your money on a real showy Truck and trailer more power to you. You earned it. I rather work less and keep more in my pocket. What if I had 5 regular trucks all earning me money? I would go ahead and buy something very nice for myself.

Everyone's financial situation is different.

 

Express-1 has a lot of 2015 and 2016 Volvos with the big house sleepers - 160" or something like that maybe 144", I dunno. They pull dry vans. Really nice late model equipment. It's time critical expedited freight. You would have to be a husband/wife team to get into jobs where they have trucks like that. People in those kind of trucks typically stay on the road for months on end. In expediting the wait times between reloads can be a day or more. Although with a tractor trailer it really shouldn't be at the right company. However with that big heavy tractor it will really limit what loads you can accept. Forget anything over 40,000 lbs and probably 35,000 lbs. Spare me the argument you don't like heavy loads, sometimes they do in fact pay awesome rates and I sure wouldn't want to be limited to light loads. It's a very limited segment and the companies paying for trucks like that aren't working for peanuts.

 

Dry van is the most competitive freight and rates largely reflect that. You're right there are a lot of junkers pulling vans. Every once in a while you'll see a really nice clean tractor pulling one.

 

Yeah reefer guys usually do a good job screwing up rates on dry freight.

 

I met a couple in one of those. Had dinner with them. They were running team. No house or kids. They traveled a lot with the money they made. Their plan was to buy land and a home and retire. Everyone's different out here.

 

There's a few spots in PA (717), WI and IL where I only see nice rigs load out of. They mostly do reefer LTL and some of their trailers are equipped with multi temp control and pallet jack. Gorgeous and costly equipment. I guess they have the decent paying freight that "never hit the boards."