If you had $70K to start on your own would you buy outright or finance?

Haha I think you are right

 

OP if you want to drive a truck and be an O/O, do it. Some of these guys on here always make trucking sound doom and gloom just do it as a job and thats all. IMO its somewhat of a lifestyle because the work is so different you have to live all the time and love doing it otherwise it won't work. If you love doing it it will be great even when times are crappy, just like anything. IMO buy a truck have it paid off but make sure you got some money in the bank to make that first insurance payment and have enough set back for some repairs. If the truck is paid off and the motor lets loose you can always borrow 20K on it and rebuild the motor and still only be in debt 20K. Buy the biggest hood you can with a non emissions motor and dont let these hood hating aero truck drivers that cant run over 62mph and clog up the big roads change your mind. For an O/O a hood is nice, tilt it open and you can reach everything to work on stuff since some company won't be paying for all your repairs. They look better and toss some chrome and have some pride in your ride. Good luck and hammer down.

 

Personally I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Volvo except for maybe the auto car style ones, that’s on top of refusing to give them money for lobbying to destroy the glider market. They own Mack now to but I have enough miles in old true Mack’s That I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.

On a side note One of the guys I do work for has a few early 00 Volvo’s he runs of his own occasionally. He is ready to dump them because he cannot find parts for them, my 97 kw is easy to get parts for and my uncle can still call and get parts for his 76 pretty easy, as with his 89 378 Pete, no point in owning a truck you can’t get parts for as a DD

 

If you can find the work (and get paid for it) that’s really all you need, running a single truck is not the end of the world, I care about having enough money to pay my bills and put a little away for emergencies and maintain. If you buy one truck to make a lot of money your going to be miserable because your simply not going to do it, I used the term turning dollars for a reason in my last post because that is all you are really doing, you have to be a little ####ed up in the head and enjoy doing it and having pride in it.

it took me 2 years to rebuild my w900 while I stayed a company slave, I know my costs, but I don’t worry about pinching every last penny out of everything because it’s all a tax write off anyways (and I hate paying taxes) especially with a paid off truck. I’m also a fan of working less and enjoying my life vs spending all week in the truck, Monday to Friday with one night home works, Saturday mornings are for for repairs/grease etc and paper work on the truck, anything big I can’t do or can’t do in a timely manner I have a local shop do when it needs a pm and I take a few days off, I have zero interest In running 700 miles a day 6 days a week anymore, as much as I love trucking there is more to life

 

Don't worry, the know-it-alls will be along soon enough to trash and shout down anyone whose path doesn't comport with their own.

It is the Interwebs after all...

 

It’s just such a diverse industry. There is never a ‘be all end all’ answer.

Great discussion though.

 

I'm in a 760 now and I love it!!! It runs so smooth. Is the 860 bigger on the inside?

 

My experience: the payment, insurance, fuel, and maintenance on the 2017 I own now is roughly the same as insurance, fuel, and maintenance on the 03 FLD I had and the 95 W900. Keep in mind though, I had those trucks back when fuel was higher so that skews the operating cost compared to now.

If you can get an old truck and completely go through it before you try and work it you will probably enjoy it better. Take it from me, it’s not much fun trying to restore as you go while working full time.

The OP sounds mechanically inclined so an older truck wouldn’t be as bad for him because he’s not taking it to the shop and paying $130 an hour for every little thing that comes up.

 

Well, I live in Oregon and run the I-5 corridor North into WA and South into California, so there's that.

 

I can talk about the motivation factor.

I bought a nice 97 truck 2 years ago because I fell upon it being it was a clean one owner that the price was right .

I quit my quishy milk hauling job a year ago that I had for 16 months and made 50 thousand a year at with out even working hard and coulda made 70 if I turned some miles.

I gotta couple 100 thousand cash ,a semi , 2 nice cars , Too many boats and no home , no dependents or bills.

I sat on the fence running my Yapper on this site after having the oil field in the Gulf crash and killing my tug captain job I was working towards

After 2 years of yapping i finally went and got my cdl and finally got my first driving job

Enjoyed it immensely , just didn’t like living in Michigan again.

But once again I am sitting on the fence back down here in Florida being a Beach Bum. I’m really good at it- been training for years.

The freight market was over supplied and we were heading into the slow period over the winter so not missing anything I justified. Than this Covid Scam hit.

The reason I am sitting on the fence again is I find it hard to justify spending more of my money to bring my old truck up to Snuff to get it road worthy and is easily 12-15 thousand with me doing all the work.

And that is just the stuff that I see that could go wrong because it has a million miles on it .

Also I have the knowledge, the tools and most importantly a shop of my own to work on it in.

And I still think about what a monumental project and endless hours it will take to just get the truck on the road.

All I have been thinking about is there has to be a better return on your investment money than getting into trucking .

The only reason I wanted to truck is so I could take a lot of time off kinda like a lot of guys on here do that own old paid off rigs .

Not looking to get rich.


With money so cheap to borrow right now the wisest thing I can think of doing for myself is to go back to being a company driver for a while and bank more money .

Than borrow more money because banks like to lend money to people with good jobs not brand new trucking businesses.

And even though I feel most real estate is terribly over priced I will start buying some residential in good areas for rentals . Rent prices are ridiculous and mortgage payments not so much with low interest and sizable downs .

I have dealt with residential and commercial real estate leasing and know the pitfalls of that dream also .

But First we need to get this country turned around and cranking again before I sink one dime into anything right now.


If you are dead set on going trucking I urge you to go work for someone for a year first .

See how you adjust to living in a 5-8 box all day and night.

See how your wife deals with you being gone endlessly.

Yea a year of your life you can never get back but $70 thousand will be pretty hard to get back also.

But if you absolutely insist on going out on your own I would buy a brand new truck with as little money down as you could and be prepared to work a Bunch to pay for it.