how much do owner ops make an average week

Speaking of that the OP needs to buy a white Volvo to have a chance.

 

Engine at Stewart and Stevenson denver
Clutch on the road freightliner Amarillo, electrical problem search freightliner Tucson , ECM Stewart and Stevenson corpuscristy, another electrical guy from SC that claims to be a Forman at freightliner plant where it was built in the past I fly him over to work on it

 

Wow,.. I thought CAT was expensive.

$17,860 for inframe,.. re-used the turbos and included new head. Head was $3800.

ECM,.. been through 2 of those. $2100 for ECM,.. plus $1500 for labor (Programming etc).

Rewired entire engine with new engine and injector harness plus new OEM side harness,.. $2400

Rest has been regular maintenance not worth mentioning here.

I have a rear main oil leak now. Small leak,.. waiting for my clutch to need replacement before I take it in. 1 million miles on clutch and still wont give up the goose. I'm probably going to regret not doing this sooner as I Will probably be on a mountain in the middle of no where when it finally goes. LOL

One thing I would like to suggest. Try to find a network of shops or mechanics that are not part of a big chain or use incompetent rookie laptop junkies. Once I steered away from Freightliner and the likes,.. I have found much more affordable and reliable service.

Hurst

 

Critical error here. You build a relationship with one shop and all work goes there. This results in less downtime,lower costs and better solutions. If you keep bouncing from shop to shop you will blow money and solve nothing because none of these shops give a #### about you.

 

Oh and stick with independent shops in rural areas. If you pay more than 90 a hour for labor your getting ####ed. I only pay 75

 

I'd say $1.50 is low...you want to average out $1.80 minimum but basing your profits on your miles doesn't tell you much. For example, $2.00/mile I consider is a good rate, after 1000miles. I won't take a load that is 200 miles and pays $400. That is just a waste of time.

 

I can't find a shop around these parts that bills honest hours at $75-$80 an hour. They all pad the hours and so end up costing the same as an honest $130 an hour shop. Even an honest shop over $100 an hour is hard to find. But I do use one. A CAT house been using them occasionally for several years now. Worth every penny. Don't feel screwed at all. Never have to take the truck back but if I did confident they will stand behind it. Cut rate shops typically wouldn't in my experience. Maybe I just never found the right one but I was tired of trying and it even motivated me to do majority of what needs doing anyway.

 

I feel the same way. Been using a local shade tree guy for minor things and local CAT has been good to me. Also have a place in Chicagoland that if I could only ever use one shop,.. they would be it.

Louisiana CAT and the multitude of Freightliner shops that always freak out when they see a Columbia with a CAT under the hood have never treated me right. Trying to find good shops is probably one of the biggest hurdles to over come when buying a truck.

Hurst

 

I dont know.We had an OOP getting $672 a day for roundtrip run from KC Mo to Lincoln Ne and Omaha Ne and back about 550 miles.Thought he was "livin Large" at first.Bought a Humvee etc.Route was M T T and Friday.So you say $2688 a week pretty good huh...Then you take off the $700 a month insurance,the $2100 month for the shiny Peterbuilt and $5 a gallon for diesel at this time! 6.5 mpg so about 85 gallons a day.So $425 fuel per day,+ 70 truck + 23 for insurance.Were up to over $500 per day! Granted he got a small surcharge for fuel not much.He also only earned 4 days a week.So $2688-2100 or so for expenses.60 hrs a week clearing $588.Granted if fuel was $2.50 a gallon he would gross 1200 or so,but still,I grossed close to that as a company driver! Just saying.YMMV

 

I'm running into this issue with my local Freightliner dealer. Seems like any time I take it there for some repair, they take it apart and find another bad part that needs to be replaced before they can put it back together.

In the past year, I went in for a new steering box and then they claimed my steering shaft was bent and wouldn't put it back together without a new one. I saw that thing after, I guess it was a very gradual bend but they claimed they can't re-install it like that. So an $800 job turned into $2000+ somehow. And then they forgot a cotter pin on the steering and didn't align the wheel.

Another time I came in for an airbag leak. I would usually do something easy like that at home but I was tired and had a long week ahead of me. New airbag and labor was supposed to be around $400. A few hours later, they're saying my u-bolts are loose on that axle and I need new ones. $900 more. I was pissed but didn't really have a choice. A few hours later, they're saying the center pin that goes through the leaf springs is bad and they need to install a new one. Another hour later, they're saying it's stuck and I need a whole new leaf spring. So an already overpriced $400 airbag replacement turned into another $2000+ job.

I know they might've been coincidences but I was a mechanic for about a decade and know when someone's trying to BS me. On top of those two incidences, they were always trying to push more work when I bought it in for an oil change and always ridiculous labor quotes. I never liked them from the very first service by they were a few miles from me and it was just convenient. After the whole airbag incident I invested into some heavy duty tools and started doing more work myself. Haven't used a shop for anything except oil changes in the past 6 months now. I wish I could find a decent one but I'm just tired of the whole "we found this was bad and can't put it back together without a new one" game.