O/O gross-net Jan-Feb 2023

Way more of this will depend on you rather than any trailer you pull

You will find two guys at ANY company such as Landstar, Bennett, Mercer etc doing the exact same thing
One will be going broke while the other is ordering a new truck

I’ve personally talked to guys at the same places I’ve been at over the years saying they won’t do this…. Or go there…. Or F that agent etc
Do you think he’s staying busy? Getting calls in the higher dollar freight etc?

Why would any agent work with such a person?
They keep those types on for the garbage runs and fill in when desperate
Anyone running and doing an above average job will run less miles and make more $ period

There are guys on here making $3-400,000 per year and others making less than company drivers
The reasons are the same every time

 

Be company driver at least until the market improves.
It's Terrible out here now

 

Imo, if you’re going for a used truck go Atleast 03 and down (if not 99), if that’s not for you just bite the bullet and go new. It barely adds any more cost to run (if any at all) and you get a warranty and full service life out of it if you take care of it

I run LTL reefer out of a smallish barn that moves about 100 loads a week and did right about 300k on 67,xxx miles, most were 4 day weeks, some 3, some were 6 if I covered for another truck and bounced somewhere random

 

So as an O/O who bought a used truck that has been the living embodyment of a nightmare let me put my $0.02 in here.

First as others have said go either new or old. New trucks typically come with few if any problems and a warranty if problems DO show up. Granted there ARE exceptions and lemon trucks but they are less common. New rigs tend to cost a lot more in actual maintaince and payment as there is a lot more on then that can wear out or bork ontop of downtime.... but the flip side is they sip fuel compared to old iron and rarely have many issues in warranty keeping downtime lower. So its an overall wash in terms of cost there. You also get a much higher percentage of your purchase price back when its time to flip it for a new unit.

Old iron on the other hand is a whole nother story. Dont let anyone fool ya, old iron is called OLD iron for a reason. Most of the pre emissions trucks are going to be pretty worn out and what you get is going to vary a lot. From a well maintained rig that someone is retireing out and selling that looks and operates like factory new. or a clunker held together by hopes bailing wire and bubble gum maintained by bubba and pedro down at the all you can steal 7/11 parking lot. However, where old iron has the advantage is repair cost and ease of repairs. For the cost of just 1 or 2 major emissions issues you can entirely rebuild old iron and have a problem...less truck. You can work on them yourself in 99% of cases with extensive youtube and other resources showing how if you dont know already. and as a rule when they do break there are many well understood and common ways to bypass issues and at least limp it to avoid a hook to a shop. They temd to be much cheaper to maintain and if you get old enough iron no ELD.

Then you have the used emissions trucks which are sketchy at the best of times but especially now with supply issues all your generally going to see are worn out or trouble units usually both at once. There are going to be a handful of good runners that pop up sure, But at this time for every good used emissions runner your going to find 120 old fleet trucks that were ill maintained for the last 100-200k miles by a mega treating them like disposable commoditys due to their fleet bulk deals. or never maintained becsuse some newbie bought one bit off more then they could chew and spent the entire 120-250K miles they had the truck holding on by their fingernails with 0 maintaince and shoddy driving skills before it got repoed. Another crowd favorite is because they were trade in stock due to massive issues and are going to be giant money pits to get right if you even can. Even if you go 3rd party its more or less the same right now due to supply issues where as before it was much more likely to get a good unit. Just poor odds all around.

Towards costs its going to vary. You could have 2 clones of the same driver that drive exactly alike with 2 exact carbon copy trucks that perform exactly the same and get wildly diffrent results. This is because traffic, breakdowns, cancled orders, late orders, weather, part shortages and a billion other things. However, a good rule of thumb is a low effort O/O with minimal bills and taking a more laid back approach will likely see in the 100-150K range gross. A hard runer balls to the wall home once every 6 months max the hours out driver can see as high as 300-400K maybe more. Most drivers however are human and fall in the middle of that range.

Lastly as others have said this exact moment is not a great time to get into the market. Rates are flat lineing for the type of cargo most new O/Os are going to get and equipment costs are extremely high. If your going to get in you need to wait for one of those to flip to have a vastly better chance of making it through. Not to say a shrewd and lucky businessmen cant make it as is but why tempt fate when you can wait for a better chance and be considerably more likely to pull it off.

 

Over 8 years O/O -

1 - Average 180k. Gross to net varies between 55% - 70% profit.
2 - Average 45,000 miles/year
3 - 5-7 months/year
4 - platform, various.
5 - Not understanding question.

 

You’ll have a hard time hitting good numbers on a regular basis on the boards