Car Hauling

Probably depends on where you live. All the guys here in Florida are driving their 3500 Dodge Rams with no bed they were gonna use to haul cars to their 9-5 job because there isn't any money in it. That's not to say there isn't money to be made elsewhere but I know that's a tough market. I have a f750 that I looked into hotshotting with and there wasn't a bunch of money on the table around me. I've heard guys can do good in the oil and gas fields so you may want to look there.

 

I'm in FL and unfortunately all the new guys that heard the same thing as you have already arrived and are fighting to take dirt cheap runs until they go out of business 3 months later. These guys are desperate for work so they take these cars without any concern long term.

It used to be that you could demand more for disabled cars, not getting your paperwork in time (for port runs) and other nuisances, but the market is so saturated with people working for garbage pay the brokers are putting these cars out there for pennies because someone will take them.

I'll sum it up to something that happened last week to us. We called in a dispatch and were told we would get the vehicle dispatched to us for the price THEY listed it for. Well, while on the phone with us someone else called willing to do it for $50 cheaper. So they let us believe we were getting the dispatch but didn't actually dispatch to us. And that's that. Undercut by someone who will find that these tactics are not tenable long term.

We are lucky and still have a couple companies that dispatch to us for around a dollar per mile for our route, but 30-50 cents is the rate until we can all band together and stop racing to the bottom.

 

I'm starting out in FL as well. Do not touch cheap freight period. Don't stick around FL too much, be willing to run where the money takes you. I won't load a car under 70 cents a mile for a haul under 1000 miles. Anything shorter is at least a $1 per. A good dispatcher is worth what they charge.

 

Y'all can probably start to see some of the problem here. I said there is obvious no money in hotshotting at least around here and both of you are starting out in Florida. That's two more trucks in a market saturated way beyond what it can handle. If y'all can make any money out of state that's great but other than that just get a CDL and drive a rig so you don't end up driving those nice dually Dodges to a 9-5 gig somewhere just to make ends meet. Like I said earlier, I have a f750 Cummins 6ac/10spd and a 32' race hauler that I use for my own personal cars because I won't even entertain putting the keys in it for $1/mile.

 

$1 per mile per car. I have a 4 car hauler. So $4 per mile loaded. It's all up to you having a good dispatcher.
I'm based in FL but not working there. Might not even do my weekends/restarts there as I have family up north. If I do load in south FL I take it no further than GA and then get a better load from there to anywhere. Yes FL sucks for this work, I didn't know that till it was too late.

 

If you are looking for loads you are in a bad spot from what I hear. Hotshotting is dead because everyone with a lil credit went out and bought a Dodge and a trailer so now everyone has to fight over the peanuts.