Landstar Reefer

kinda hard doing drop and hooks with your own trailers. ...... but I think about the 7% quite a bit and this past year it has been worth it but I am in a good area for preloaded trailers some areas it may be the opposite ... more than half my loads are drop and hook on at least 1 end .. quite a few on both .... having my own trailer would eliminate me from those. ..... however there are many more loads available but the average rate is lower and I like doing the Preloaded loads ... but if you are doing only 20% preloaded trailers and the numbers would be a lot different .... % are funny because it doesn't matter what your % is its your share ....... landstar is making money and that's good as I used some of the money I was going to use on a trailer and bought landstar stock . the agents are also making money and I am making money . too many times people worry about what the other guy is making

 

@Buckeye 60 If the shipper/receiver and agent are hungry enough for a truck they will load pull it from the LS trailer and put it on a BCO trailer. Have one guy pushing me to just drop my trailer at one shipper (60 miles from home) the night before and they will load it.

In my area (West of I15 unless bribed) I saw the opposite in Preloaded v.s. Loaded. May have done one or 2 drop and hooks per month. got stuck with a Landstar-Xtra lease with spring-ride and couldn't get rid of that thing for close to 2 months. It is much easier for me to just avoid the long dock time loads (or make sure there is enough money on the load to pay for the equipment and driver to sit).

Got a $10k trailer so (when I actually do run) that trailer generates revenues in the $400 to $500 per week range. Kinda scary that my trailer can generate more revenue than some mega drivers take home.

 

Well there are between 35,000 and 50,000 loads on the board at any given time, not counting the best paying loads that never make it to the board, so if i can't find a great paying live load then i need to be a janitor because i sure as hell can't run my own business, and i probably should not be allowed to eat with sharp metal utensils.

Look the numbers are mind numbingly simple: the best LS business owners are grossing $25K+ monthly, and the average driver is grossing $20K per month. So 7% on $20K is $1400 per month that LS is charging you to rent their trailers, many of which are ####holes when you hook to them that may need something repaired. The smart business owner buys a brand new dry van for about $30K and gets it set up exactly how he wants it with accessories like internal lights so the ####head loaders don't beat the crap out of the interior at night, self inflating tires, air flow fins for the communist Californians, etrak horizontal and vertical, a belly box for straps, bars, and blankets if you want to chase show loads, etc. I don't do debt so the best way is to pay cash but even if you financed it you wouldn't pay more than $400 per month. That's an extra grand per month in your pocket. And you depreciate it every year on your taxes. Almost no maintenance/repairs as it is brand new. And you can flip it easily on LCAPP after 4 years for say $14K. That means you paid a net $16K for a brand new trailer which is $4K per year and you increased your net profit by $12K per year ($1K per month X 12 months). That's a 300% annual return on your trailer investment. Beat that in the stock market.

Those who do not see the business benefit of this are not trying. They are steering wheel holders and are most likely pretty #### good at it.

 

I don’t pay 7% of anything as I have my own trailers....

 

Cant say that I have had a "crappy" company trailer. But then Ive only been here 9 months.

I like the flexibility that drop and hooks gives me. I prefer to drive at night, and when I can zip into a shipper and grab and go at 1am thats a HUGE plus (to ME). I do a lot of drop and hooks on the weekend as well. Sit at home and grab something on sunday as I head out of town. Different strokes. I typically do 2-3 drop and hooks a week at 1 end or the other.

I make that same 20k a month, but I do it in 4 days a week...

And I can do that because I have access to drop and hooks...

And I dont have to hunt for parking spots at the end of the day because I am parked before noon typically.

So is that worth a grand or so a month? To ME, yes it is. If it isnt to you, then God bless you. You run your business the way you want to run your business. And I will run mine my way. Im happy with what I make. Wouldnt change it for the world.

 

I actually prefer to have as many bcos as possible with there own trailers , that's great that you are making bank with that extra 7% ..... boy I really feel stupid now paying landstar all that money . ... and doing all that dropping and hooking at 24-7 shippers and recievers instead of waiting for an appointment time where I can rest up with a 3 hr live load .....

 

Where are you buying a new dry van with e track lights and belly boxes for 30 grand?

 

Almost no appts on the freight I run just windows like 0800-1600. I run reefer and I never book cold storage or Walmart. And I always get detention after 2 hours or I don't run the load. That needs to be handled at the time of booking before the freight bill is received. The number of times I've been at a shipper/receiver three hours can be counted on one hand in 2018. Just ran my trailer revenue numbers for 2018 and it was over $30K. That's on 10% more revenue than you make because reefers keep 75%, not 72%. So I will wait a little to be live loaded/unloaded for that extra "bank."

 

I run a reefer so I don't need a belly box. A LS friend paid $2500 to have a new one attached to his brand new dry van. No thanks. He paid $30K cash for his (before the belly box) and it included internal lights with a recess cup toggle switch at the rear, Hendricksen self-inflating tires, Etrak, and the smart truck air flow fins for California. He plans on running that trailer for 10 years. It's a great investment.

 

Dave - would you mind shooting me a PM? All of my Landstar buddies run exclusively Midwest. I live in AZ like you and would like to get a left coast perspective. Thanks!