Hiring Drivers (2-10 Trucks), do you use a service?

Got a couple of those in the shop right now. Must have been road hazard. LOL
You mean that needs oil/grease? That would require me doing more than just walking around the trailer.

 

Pain multiplies.
Recruiting agent only cares about how many he sends to you, that's how they make money.

 

Most drivers want a nice newer truck. My company is getting 39 new trucks soon they said. I want one of them, the 2022 they put me in works, but hood is cracked from other drivers and it has 540,000 miles it just not as good as a new one.

They just replace the seals on input shaft and output shaft on first drive axle because other drivers beat on the truck probably. Truck was in company shop for 1.5 days. It still could use 8 new batteries for electric apu in my opinion.

Prime gets/ pays for extra warranty from factory on their trucks. They get the 600,000 miles parts and labor warranty on their trucks engine. So if they get bad engine or something goes wrong they will fix it under warranty. Freightliner is charging like $270 per hour for labor. You get $15,000 truck the repairs will probably be crazy expensive unless you doing them yourself or have your own shop. If the a/c stops working a driver wants that repaired.

My company every spring checks for leaks and tries to make sure no a/c problem because they are expensive to fix on the road plus the downtime.

I don’t see drivers wanting to drive a $15,000 truck. They want someone nice, unless you have something else to offer any other company does not have.

 

That's called the American dream, and I can't fault you for that. Do you have any experience driving or owning a truck or are you just wanting to get rich while someone else does all the work?

 

Good thinking right there. Better to have 10 that can all blow up at the same time.

I don't think any good banker will laugh at you. Maybe giggle, but no out loud laughing for sure.

 

You need to ask yourself what you have to offer in terms of pay and benefits and overall working conditions that would attract good, quality drivers. You have to be able to offer a better package than what someone currently has if you hope to hire them away.

The reality is because you’re new and planning to partner with a mega carrier for your work you don’t have much to offer. That’s just the reality of the situation. I’ve been driving full time since 2002 and I can promise there is nothing that a carrier new to the game could ever say to me to get me to work there.

You need good work that isn’t a mega carrier, good equipment, great pay, and great benefits if you want to hire experienced drivers that won’t destroy your trucks.

And with the market the way it is right now I’d say you’d be lucky to find a bank to loan on one truck at a reasonable interest rate with decent money down, I’d would guess 2-10 more would be out of the question. And if you have enough to put a down payment on 10 trucks I would suggest buying one truck for cash and seeing how it goes.

Also, I’ve had 2 company jobs in my life, and also worked at Pepsi before I started driving full time. Both companies started with one truck. And both owners kept driving and dispatching themselves until they had around 10 trucks. There’s not enough juice in the orange to buy a few trucks and kick back and relax and think you’re just going to count the money.

 

With your business plan just put an ad on Craigslist with the rest of them. Pay on a 1099 and offer no benefits.