I didn't make it, but I want other startups to learn from my mistakes.

Asked the wife today for 28.8k to buy a "project" and go out on my own, O/O ... and she laughed til I cried. I've been company for 20 plus years. Yeah, you successful O/O's make me jelly, but this is just what works for me.
I wish you the best, OP. Thanks for sharing your story. It means a lot.....and should to many others contemplating similar endeavors.
Best Wishes~
Tom

 

Thanks for posting your story. Better luck with your next attempt.
The equipment of choice seems to be the largest contributor to success or longer road to success.

 

#### that is sad....

 

My biggest fear is buying that first truck. Even due diligence cannot insure success with a purchase. The thing of it is, any make model year etc.... can fail. Good grief! To CARB, or not to CARB. This is the biggest question. It seems finding an older model with a recent overhaul could work out. Especially if it's had other pertinent work completed with documentation. Of course there will still be issues, but at least there is no DPF, Regen, BS to deal with.Probably better mileage too. That first truck and first year will make or break you. Capital is key.

 

Two years back to back recent ifta stickers tells alot if you dont get paperwork. And you might want to know a bit about trucks and have atleast a handful of tools. Be able to do as much of your own rnr you can.

 

Thanks for your insight and taking the time to educate a fella. I refuse to rush into this. I understand it is a process.

 

The hard part is finding a good company to work with, Im 3 1/2 years into it now and still trust none.

 

Thanks for the honest post. I'm sure there's a hundred temporary members here in the past that never admitted it didn't work out.

Regroup, aim , and fire again.

Good luck.

 

I am just curious, did you do any checking of the truck as I and others tell people to do, that is a Dyno, Blowby, CM dump, etc. ... ?

 

Sorry for your troubles, and thanks for posting your failure. Very few ever do that, as others have noted. I hope you get back on your feet and can make a more successful run at it some day.

Re: truck repairs, does it really matter what exact truck it was? It's pretty much all over the place that 2008 - 2013 models of anything are prone to emissions related failures. 2004 - 2007 are a little less bad, but still can rack up plenty of unscheduled shop visits.

If you paid attention to the OP, you'll see that the key fail was getting jammed up at a dealership for 3 months. That doesn't fly anywhere, with any truck. He doesn't offer details on why that happened. An educated guess would involve some sort of warranty claim that tied things up, and the OP did not have the funds (he also mentioned that) to bail out the truck and pursue the claim after-the-fact. Just about every truck dealership on the planet has a few unloved specimens collecting dust out in the back corner of the lot waiting for their warranty ship to come in.

I was fortunate enough to have done my learning the hard way on 2004 emissions spec trucks, and not the later more expensive ones. Also in my second year, to find and partner with a good independent shop. I also found out real quick that warranties and claims do not pay the bills. Many times, being right and staying in business can be at odds regarding who pays the bill, and when. It sucks to have to pay for something twice or more, but it sucks even more when you don't have the cash to do that.

When I look back at the past six years, there have been three milestones, on the expense side of the ledger, that made a substantial difference in having a profitable business:

1. Establishing two years in business with a clean loss run, that qualifies you to get more competitive quotes from top insurance companies.

2. Find a good, honest, preferably local repair service provider.

3. Get on a solid fuel discount program.

Unfortunately, for a start up, those three things are either not available or hard to come by. So having adequate reserve funds on hand (not loans, not credit cards, etc) tends to soften the hurt from not having those things right away. However, it's not a sustainable thing. You can grind through a year or two, but at some point you either get your costs more competitive with your peers, or constantly struggle.

You can have all kinds of knowledge, and maybe even some driving experience. It helps. But when you start your business, you really have no idea how much you don't know, until you get the bill.