Questions about starting out with a used tractor

Another old truck guy here. 2001 9200. $13,000 truck purchase price. Spent $13k in truck repairs and upgrades last year. Just wrote a check for a Cummins crate engine last week. I have done 99% of the labor myself. I looked at ALL the options in the beginning and agian before I purchased this engine. New, used, glider, rebuild or quit. Obviously I chose to keep driving my old truck. The down side is I'll have more in this truck than it is worth. Not having huge payments...... priceless!

Now, I bought an 06 flatbed I probly should have bought something diffrent. (New or something less expensive in better shape)

Even though I spent new truck money last year and maybe agian this year I will have new crate engine, transmission, clutch, driveshaft, tires, brakes, AC system and 5th wheel. It allows me to make better buissness choices because I'm not up to my ears in payments.

I would have been over $225000.00 in truck and trailer if I had gone new out of the gate. I'll still be well under $80k and make just as much gross as someone with $4k worth of payments a month. Once I'm ahead of the repairs I get to keep the difference every month is the plan. The down side is if I sold it all tomarow it might be worth $40 for the truck and trailer. New would be worth maybe $150k for truck and trailer after a year or so?

PS if I could not wrench on my own stuff I would not even consider older equipment or this industry in general for that matter.

 

Personally I feel if you can't do most if not all repairs you should stay away from truck ownership. And remember new trucks break all the time. New doesn't mean dependable.

 

I wish I knew how to work on trucks. What a money saver that would be. A friend of mine owned a small trash company (3 or 4 trucks). He said the reason he made a good living versus just getting by was because he could fix anything that went wrong with his equipment. Now I see what he meant.

 

Good techs are as rare as good drivers anymore. A bad tech will put you out of biz

 

What are u hauling

 

Flatbed. I'm not picky, I haul whatever is paying the most. Started getting into more oversize loads recently, the money is even better there.