Looking to become an owner operator....Need detailed advice as far as truck goes...

Bunch of open ends on your questions.

Which is the better buy? The Freightliner Classic. Look for low miles on it, and one of the last trucks you could get a Detroit, CAT, or Cummins in. Take your pick. CAT is big power, but a lot more expensive to work on versus a Detroit or Cummins. Detroit's are tough motors, part of why they became popular for fleet trucks, hard for a rookie to screw up.

Operating costs are going to have a lot of factors. Where's your primary region of operation (i.e. lots of hills and mountains, or fairly flat running?), are you going to own your own trailer or be a power-only lease operator? What sort of insurance are you going with (what's your insured value of the truck, your liability [typically $1M], what's your cargo limit?)? If you're leasing, is there a trailer rental fee?

Say you're doing flatbed, probably going to want at least $100,000 cargo value limit, maybe a little higher. No idea what the age of the truck you're buying is, but, let's go with an insurance value of $35,000 on the truck. Then the $1,000,000 liability. Unless you run a higher deductible, I'm going to hazard a guess most of your quotes are going to be at least in the high teens or low 20s as far as insurance goes. On a per-mile basis, assuming 10,000-miles per month (always be conservative on your numbers), figure that out as $0.17/ mile in insurance costs.

I don't know if you have enough cash to buy a truck outright. If you do, good for you, if not, need to factor in your truck payment. That's the per-month payment divided by projected miles you'll run in a month.

Kick in $0.20/ mile in maintenance costs (including tires). That'll cover the cost of your tires, and if you're watching our pennies, eventually, if needed, a catastrophic repair like an overhaul, rebuilding or putting in a new transmission, new rears, etc.

If you're running up around 70mph I'd hazard a guess of averaging at best 5.5mpg. Being conservative and using $4.00/ gallon as a baseline on fuel prices, you're looking at $0.74 per mile in fuel costs.

Add in another $0.05 per mile in miscellaneous little expenses (accountant for taxes, plating/ registering, IFTA, all of the little paperwork that is going to go into getting things up and off the ground and keeping it going).

So, we've got $0.17+$0.20+$0.74+$0.05= $1.14 per mile at minimum just to operate the truck. That's not assuming any sort of trailer rental fee or other little stuff like that. That's also not factoring paying yourself, or if you have to make a truck payment. If you've got a $35,000 note out on the truck over 60 months at 7.5% you're looking at another $0.07 per mile in truck payments. If you have a trailer rental fee you maybe adding up to another $0.10 mile. Best find out who's footing the bill on maintenance and repair of the trailer, too. So, now we're looking at upwards of $1.31/ mile to operate the truck if you've got payments and rental fees.

That's all just speculation though. There's all sorts of factors to work into what it will cost to operate a truck that we'd need to know to come much closer than a ballpark.

From a strictly practical point of view, something like a Freightliner Columbia, International 9400, Kenworth T600/ T660 is a better choice to squeeze a little more fuel mileage. That being said, reasonable fuel mileage can be had from square nose trucks.

The biggest thing that effects your fuel mileage is how you drive the truck. It's important to pay attention to the gearing your truck has. Geared too slow and you're running high RPMs and pissing away fuel keeping it turning faster. Geared too fast and you're lugging all the time. The more you back out of the throttle, the better your fuel mileage gets. The difference between 5.5mpg and 6mpg at $4.00/ fuel is over $8,000 a year saved in fuel.

That being said, you also have to like the truck you're running, too. Trucking is no easy business, and if you hate the truck you're in, you're won't have the motivation to keep up on it like you will if you like the truck.

Lots of things to consider and balance in what you choose. Broaden your horizons a bit on the trucks, it'll give you more choices on spec'ing, too.

 

I belive in gearing as low as possible, granted you have a motor with a decent horsepower rating. There is a guy on here with a Columbia with something like 2.83 rear end and he loves it. It enhances fuel economy and save engine wear since the motor isn't screaming at 1800 rpm to propel you down the road at 68mph.

 

Colorado green just gave some good info. But omitted one thing in his calculations. If you are leased to a carrier you won't be paying the big insurance. Only a few small carriers expect the truck owner to pay that. tho you will have to pay for bobtail and physical damage, but that shouldn't run over 200 a month max unless you have a brand new truck. Also many states require occupational accident insurance(it's basically workers comp for the self employed). That can be anywhere from 50 bucks to over 200 depending on what state you live in. Add up all those numbers he posted and explain to me how anyone makes a living with these large power mile pay carriers? Any of them that say they do don't understand basic math

 

If you gear like that you better have a direct drive tranny.

 

Just buy pre-emission trucks.

2004 Kenworth T600, CAT C-15 MBN 500 HP, 10 sp eaton manual, Eaton 3.71 ratio. Only get 5.2 mpg cause mountain and pto use.

 

Yes I agree Volvo has best handling handsdown.
Freightliner is Mercedes truck it is best hands down overall cheaper parts easier to find service shops.just beat way to choose the truck is follow big fleets choice. They mean business and buying truck is business. You will be happy you did.

 

And also buy a dry van and try to compete with the big fleet?

 

think about insurances and registrations. How much big fleets pay for the trailers.