A few questions on going Owner Operator

I would not delete the stuff but that is me. I would find something that is under 400K and 2018 or newer if it was me starting out again. I went through this on a 2014 and regretted it. Spent average 25K every year for 3 years. Truck had like a little over 500K on it.

 

You are correct, it is a bad time. But I have to ask, do you have work lined up? Do you know how to negotiate rates? Have you inquired about insurance?

 

1. The forum doesn’t want us talk about deleted trucks. At that Mileage a lot of of the emissions will have to be replaced, Unless it already has.
2. 6K for a trailer, you’re not getting much of a trailer. Add 20 K to that now we’re talking. Realistically is 6K, your trailer might be rough shape where it might get rejected when trying to pick up a load. Especially if you are transporting food grade. Even if you do get loaded now, you’re having the hardest time trying to get the tandems in the right hole because you’re having a hard time to slide. You did get it to slide and now you’re on the side of the road because you need new bearings. You got the bearings replaced, but you got put out of service because one of your slack adjusters ain’t doing the job. You got that replaced and you made it to the receiver. They rejected the load because of water got in and was found tripping on a pallet of sugar. The receiver told you to leave the property and you called the broker after waiting for two days a claim was put on your insurance. Your insurance is cut right and they don’t wanna pay now. The shipper is suing you directly. You’re still stuck with a load and haven’t been able to do anything with it and you don’t even have enough money to pay a retainer on a lawyer. Your lawyer settles with a shipper and they are buying back the load for 18,000 and you owe them another 10,000 for the damage load. As you’re taking the load to the original shipper, you get put out of service for your lights flickering intermittently. Oh no, you’ve been in business for three months and did one load. You come post on truckersreport on how the original shipper is a bad shipper and you’re looking for a place to do at lease purchase with.

 

Just to give you an idea how over your over your head you are in this business. My expense on chicken lights alone one year was over 6K. This is exactly what the Spot market is all about. Someone becoming a carrier with a couple of dollars and lasting six months to three years and going out of business.

if you started with newer equipment, good, cash reserves, Start authority on the upswing of a Spot market, did a little bit of your own maintenance, was a mean negotiator, Put yourself where the truck is needed, You would probably do OK until the market swings back down.

 

Random thoughts ...

I know you are looking to qualify your move, so I won't add much about the red flags I see.

It is utterly stupid to think that you need to do a delete, and get stuck on the road, who is going to work on your truck? I know a lot of shops that used to work on trucks that were deleted will not even consider touching one because of the state/feds coming down hard on them. Are you going to fly your brother-in-law out to your truck?

You do not understand what risks there are.

You need at least $50k in reserve just for operating expenses. You will need at least $30k for the truck. This means not using credit cards to start this, which maybe you should lease onto a company for a few years to get an idea of what's really going on. They usually can absorb the downward rates and the valley, while you won't.

spend $18k on a trailer, not $6k. a lot of places will not load junk.

 

If you delete a truck you know no dealer will probably never work on it. That means you won’t have access to the computer programs to scan the truck and do repairs unless someone else has the software. The dealer will probably even tell you they have get it back to factory standards and that would be crazy expensive.

The emissions system like the One Box on Freightliner go bad at about 600,000 miles. That’s about a $14,000 repair plus downtime.

 

There is another post on here today about people with a truck and they are losing money. There situation maybe different but they asking for help to turn they trucking business around to make a profit.

 

You have the tools in the truck to do an inframe on the side of the road in Wyoming? 5k might not even cover a tow off the middle of the highway….

I’ll never buy a used trailer again,

 

cash repairs go to the front of the line….

 

Just an idea. Check out glider trucks on TruckPaper. Even if you had to overhaul it fairly soon it wouldn’t bankrupt you.