I dont wanna be an Owner/Operator

You'd probably have better luck @ the Ask an Owner op area.

 

Thats why you have a full bank account when you go into business.

 

This is a big problem. How do you buy anything if you don't know how much your gonna earn? Sometimes it better to be a driver and at the end of the day you free and probably make more $$$

 

Its called severe duty; inspections and PM are performed more often. How often? Depends. Try finding others(successful) in your industry and and ask them about their maintenance.

 

Big companies have to pay for it too. How'd they start out ?

 

get a full time job to support your trucking habit.....sorry could not resist. Things always seem to go wrong in groups. I had a international that was always broken down and I always seemed to be two steps away from the poor house. Driving is your job. Your business is running the truck at a profit and budgeting for the unknown. You would not believe the amount of people in the business who could not tell you the average cost of anything. They only look at the cost of fuel and think that they can make money on that cheep load not taking in to account the ware and tare on there equipment. I may run numbers to death but I can tell you on average it takes .06 cents a mile for tires on my truck this is high I know but I run a lot of off road. Take a business course and learn how to run your business....You already know your job

 

We usually get stuck in one of the spare trucks. I was in one for almost 3 weeks when my truck went under the knife at Volvo.

If one of our trucks breaks down on the road and it will be more than a few days to get it fixed, the company will arrange for the driver(s) to get picked up by another truck that's headed back to the yard. That way the two drivers can team drive back.

 

An o/o should be able to handle most repairs on their own. Oil changes, grease jobs, fixing tail lights, airlines, brake jobs and basic visual inspections for possible problems should be well within the ability of most o/o's.

Just think about how much labour time goes into maintaining a truck & trailer (especially an older one) per month. I bet you'll see between 4 and 8 hours per month (Approx. 1-2 hours of maintenance a week or more). Based on a $100/hr shop rate which is quite low for my area that's a labour cost of between $400 and $800 a month or $5200 to $10,400 a year if you take your truck to the shop for all repairs.

IMO to be successful and profitable as an o/o you need to be able to maintain your own equipment and avoid paying a shop insane amounts of money to perform basic repairs and maintenance.