New to Car Hauling

LOL
I know what you are saying.
Born and raised in upstate NY.
I sure put my time in in the #### up here.
But even though I am in ny now I am headed back your way in the morning by car.
My truck and trailer are down in Bradenton now and have been there since December 27.
I won't leave Florida again till the end of March when my birds want to fly north again.

 

HAULINCARS, As writer wannabe myself, a suggestion. If you can improve your prose, just a bit, take a few hints from Strunk & White, keep your style, you could make a good business writer.

 

I think we scared the OP off. He has not made a post in quite some time. For my part that was not my intention. I was simply trying to paint a realistic picture of the business and a few of the issues one might run into.

 

Yeah, you need to start telling people they will clear six figures, part time, with whatever dually and wedge they want.

 

Any experience with moving cars in the chicagoland area? Ive got a buddy who has a few car lots and needs his cars transported. Whats the going rate per mile on a used car? Or daily rate? I also was thinking about running for united road out of chicago heights when my buddy doesn't need me. I know it requires the big insurance and got a quote from 1 and done for like 1000 a month. Truck and trailer are paid for. 3car/dually. Got my A class n 4 years experience driving dump truck and trailer. Most 3 car guys in my area say they try to gross 1000 per day.(long days running under 150 miles per day and multiple loads) as for the op, a good option for him would be to get a box truck with air brakes and deliver for big box stores and be home every night. But what do i know. Im here asking questions too. Lol. Seems like you guys have most of the answers. Would 10k be enough to make it for 2 months? I understand the risks and the (what ifs). I have low overhead in my personal life. Just need to make it through the boot camp stage. Fyi, i have my dot, mc, drug test, blah blah. Just need insurance n irp.

 

so just to make sure i understand, haulincars, you yourself started car hauling as an oo with or without 2 years driving experience ? did you too start as a brand new cdl holder ?

 

4 years cdl holder.

 

Brand new CDL
Brand new company
No direct experience in trucking
Did not attend an official CDL driver school

What I did have is the following:
1) 30+ years experience pulling trailers from small utility to 48' mini float. Both open and enclosed. Hauling pretty much anything that had wheels, tracks or floats.
2) Many years driving very large vehicles including fire trucks.
3) Many years using a winch in any number of different applications.
4) My son-in-law and his father. "Dad" has been in the car hauling business for decades. He started in a dually/wedge and moved up to managing a medium size fleet. He is now semi-retired and lives 3 houses down from me. Son-in-law drives family owned stinger and has for many years.

#1, 2 and 3 were/are very beneficial and without doubt have greatly helped.
#4 is without question the ONLY reason I was able to survive the first 18 months. Even with that there were several times things were very much in doubt as far as my future in the business.

Things happen and they happen a lot. The less experience you have the faster things happen and W/o experience they can VERY quickly spiral out of control.

The more experience you have the better you get at anticipating what MIGHT happen and your ability to make adjustments, corrections and fixes gets better. This somewhat slows the occurrence of "things happening" but no matter what, (unless you park your rig) things will never completely stop happening.

I have 24/7/365 access to someone with decades of experience who is willing (and has) gotten up in the middle of the night, driven hundreds of miles, stayed with me for days doing whatever it took to get back to "normal". I also have access to son-in-law who has helped in no small way as well.

I am 100% confident that without their help I would have had no business what so ever diving into hauling cars head first. I am equally as certain I would not have been able to survive in this business to this point.

Had I been missing even 1 of the 4 things listed under "what I did have" I would have gone to driver school gotten a job hauling a box trailer for one of the big companies that hires new drivers and puts them with a trainer. Stuck with that for at least 18 months, then looked for a job with an established car hauling company to get experience loading, hauling and unloading that kind of freight. Then, after all that (and most likely with a lot of $ in the bank) looked at becoming an OO.

To be honest, that is almost exactly what I did do but "Dad" felt that with my background, my personal drive and work ethic and a LOT of his help I could successfully take the path that I did in fact take.

It has NOT been easy and I can not stress enough how crucial his help been.

I have seen people with far more financing backing them than me go out of business. I have seen people with considerable experience make some really poor decisions that ended up causing a lot of problems later.

In the time I have been doing this I have seen no less that 4 people start out that lost everything and are no longer around.

Can you do it? Sure.
Is it easy? Hell no.
Is it very likely you will fail? Sure is.

Would I recommend that anyone start off like I did? Well, only under 1 circumstance. You are single, have absolutely no one depending on you for support in any way, (food, housing, tuition) have nothing to loose, are willing/able to literally live in your truck if need be. AND you have at least some experience pulling trailers and properly securing cargo. AND you can pass the CDL exam (just FYI as an overachiever I went ahead and got my tanker and hazmat endorsements as well). AND you have the $ for a rig, $ for insurance downpayment, $ for fuel for 3-4 months, $ for insurance for 3-4 months and $$$ in reserve for unexpected repairs. (Unexpected repairs is a mis-statement. Repairs WILL be needed. EXPECT THEM!! - And the less you pay for your rig the more likely it is that you'll need even more repairs even sooner) AND you feel like a day off is nothing but a waste of time, sleeping is also a waste of time. AND in all your previous jobs you NEVER had to be told to do something because you had already completed it and the job after it and had already started on the third job in line. -- Then I would say to you that you MAYBE have a 60/40 chance of success of just blindly jumping into professional commercial trucking and hauling cars.

Hope that answers your question, and the next one that is sure to follow....

By the way, I'm no expert by any means. Take the above information or leave it. Your choice. It's probably worth exactly what you have paid me for it..

And lastly, I am in no way unhappy or regretting my decision to do as I have done in regard to this business. It is however FAR harder than it looks to an outsider and requires FAR more work and dedication than you would even begin to imagine.

Good luck.. Now I have to get back to "HaulingCars".!

 

what is a FAST pass?

 

... so you do happen to probably know, say a few guys that haul locally from rail yards to dealerships only, correct ? and that they make a pretty decent if not very good living ?