Looking at a car hauler job

"my drivers were making literally $1 per mile , flat bed or step deck driver does almost same with less work involved and headache" his words not mine. Short-changing ones self is actually a thing! The man will pay you what you let him pay you.

 

He has 4 trucks and I am sure he's paying someone to drive one if not all four.

 

There's a lot to be gained from hauling cars especially for someone who haven't done it before. Forget about the pay which is a touchy subject and here is the reason.

The man might pay 25 or 28 or 30 percent which is the norm in this game but the devil is in the details. Even if the percentage is TRUE, how hard are they working you? The question is X percent of what? And how much work are you willing to do for that much pay. A whole lot of percentage of nothing is actually nothing no matter how little or big you work. You might never get to see the contracts, you will base everything off of what he says. New or used cars, povs. They all have their challenges. New cars are better for a learner even though the damage potential is higher, its usually one pick and one or two drops. Believe me, some loads will take you up to 6hours to load especially if highraile and you wouldn't want to drop in 9 different places after that kind of struggle loading. You will never know until you get your feet wet, So you have to make that decision based on how the man comes across, is he straight shooter and shot gunning it to you straight off the pipe or is he blowing smoke up your ###. Figure that out on your own.

For someone looking to learn the trade, getting someone to train you is the hard part. With that said, if you are determined to do this, the pay should be last in your mind cos you can make a year's worth of pay damage on your first day out here. The man won't try to take out his deductibles from your pay on something like that, essentially having you work for no pay for weeks just to pay his deductible and risk you quiting. There's usually a grace period when you come out of training and believe me, you will need it. You will 4uck up a lot....both big and small damages and the man won't have any choice but to fire you or work with you. its the nature of the beast. I say, leave all that money this and money that talk in the back burner, the man is taking a risk too, take it as apprenticeship and learn. Once you know what you are doing, and know what you are worth, you can always say dueces if you see fit.

Now, on the flip side. Car hauling is not only one of the most unique trucking jobs but one of the most unique jobs period. After you learn the trade, you have a bounce to your steps, there's that sense of pride every car hauler has. That sense of exceptionalism. You will put together a load sometimes and people will drive by wondering how you did it. Its like the marines, an open call to duty but not all can be of duty (don't quote me, I just made that up) Not everyone can do this. It whips you into shape too. I have had my young shot calling wayward folk on this thing and he was humbled right away. If you aren't doing new cars, every load might be different so you have to become a problem solver. Know where the bridges on the routes are and how high you can run, how to fit them to get that load there safely.

I have always told my wife not to get all excited with that life insurance payout in case of a roll over. I have a steel cage wraped me right round of me so if I don't get tossed out of the cab, cab won't crumple easily from rollover instances.

Stingers by nature have a very low center of gravity. They don't roll very easily. You don't fight that much wind on a windy day. Fully Loaded, truck feels well balanced tip to tip. No jack knives and it drives even ok in snow.

 

You made some good points. I think what I like the most about carhauling is that not every trucker can do this.Work schedule Flexibility is probably my second reason. If the mood strikes me I may park at noon or I may go load at 4am. Since my game is a 24/7/365 I work when I feel like it and park when I don’t. It would be impossible to find that much schedule flexibility in step decks. In fact as we speak my buddy at Landstar is waiting to be loaded since this time yesterday. While it is rare that he does this without detention pay, he is doing it on his current load because the agent has been very good to him in the past. The agent has several service failures with the particular shipper and doesn’t want to hit them up for detention pay. Hell would have to freeze over for me to be setting for 2 days waiting on a load without compensation so I better stay put.
Carhauling definitely is not the best job for everyone but right now at this point in my life it is the best job I know of for me. For the number of hours I work a week, I will not trade the pay with anyone.