Last Post For The Night

Wherever you end up hauling sand, start networking to find good mechanics. I was very fortunate to have a handful of mechanics available when I bought my truck. They extended me credit, praise to Jeebus.

I also had another way to earn money when my truck was in the shop, the company I am leased to also has a drive away program. So at least I could earn "driver pay" during shop time.

Without those two things I would have been #### out of luck. My '06 T2000 has cost more than a pretty penny in it's first two years. Months of shop time. Tens of thousands of dollars.

Without mechanics willing to extend credit, without having an opportunity to earn money as a "drive away" driver, I would have gone under.

 

I paid $8k cash for a road ready 2000 FLD120 with 1.4M miles on it. I replaced the stuck fan clutch before I put it on the road. I could have run it as is, but it just bothered me that the fan ran all the time. So, less than $9k to get started.

 

Probably the cheapest to own trucks out there aren't they?

 

I've been driving since before CDL was required. But the experience really came from my dad. He was the greatest mechanic.

He would always tell me that you have to start with something good, or you have to make it into something good.

He stressed making whatever truck or piece of equipment that you would buy dependable. And he also would stress regular maintenance and looking for problems before they become a problem.

He taught me to respect trucks and machinery, and never abuse them. He would tell me to never be afraid to put money back into my equipment when it's time because the equipment will pay you back with dependability, and that will make you money.

I really miss him.

 

Same here, I don't get like that very often but that got me a bit, had to read it a couple of times for it to sink in. Going to go have a conversation with my old man tomorrow I think. He's been in and out of the hospital and something about that made me pause for a moment.

 

Wow...you've been driving a long time (no CDL required?)

Are you OTR?

 

Well I started before there was a CDL. I've done a bunch of different things since I started.

My family was always involved in Contracting so I've worked on heavy equipment run heavy equipment moved equipment ran dump trucks, worked on a Paving crew and a bunch of other stuff

I ran over the road for a while on the West Coast, and that was interesting for a few years.

I worked for a leasing company for a while which was great because I got to work for a whole bunch of different companies and watch what they did and how they did it and I drove just about every kind of truck in existence.

So I've been around and I've done a lot in this type of business anyway including food service and LTL.

After all those trucks that I drove my favorite was the fld120. So I bought one and I have a brand new engine for it and I'm working it over now to get it ready for the road. For something like that you can't be afraid to spend the money or to put the time into it.

So to the original question by the op, my answer is that you have to have money because you're going to pay either way. Even though I do my own repairs, it's amazing the amount of money that gets spent putting something together in order to make it dependable. There is no getting away cheap. If you're in this business you're going to spend money one way or another. And it almost always will be more than what you thought it would be.

But my dad was exactly right. If you put the time and the money into it, it will pay you back with dependability. Aside from getting paid enough money for your work, dependability is the number one thing because without it you make nothing.

In fact, without it you will go broke.

So whatever you buy make sure you have plenty of money for repairs and most importantly make sure that whatever it needs you do it or you have someone do it before you roll down the road.

And try to learn how to do as many of your own repairs as you can. That really helps.