Owner Operator, no experiance.

I'm just getting into tri axle dump trucks and I'm sure ilI'be going through the same ####.

 

Because a mere 45-55k salary doesn't provide anymore unless the household has 2 incomes....

Yes,I agree to stay a company driver ONLY if its a Union carrier,Foodservice truckline or any other driving position with 70k salaries and full paid benefit packages.....

A lot of these guys go this direction because they are stressed that xyz trucking company has no "future" for them to live comfortably on those wages

 

If you are going to own the truck, yes you will. The shops are crap today, if you can even get in to one in a timely fashion. I called 5 shops, I was told two or three weeks out before they could get me in, two of the shops said they did not have a mechanic qualified to install an air compressor on an ISX. After installing mine, I am glad I did it, even if the weather has been in the 20's and 30's. I painted the parts, they would not have, and replaced a bunch of other little things they would not have even told me about. This is not the good old days, when parts were cheap, in most cases universal and any NAPA store would have the odds and ends. Not so anymore, every part is "special" and very expensive.

 

Its your life or should i say its your money and you can do what you want with it, however the folks in here that actually care will give you some really good advice my first would be learn these 4 words Risk Assessment Due Diligence you can apply these factors to any business it will save you a whole lot of stress later on. Risk assessment basically is the same as due diligence its just a fancy word accountants will use. So find a good accountant unless your already pretty cluey when it comes to working out cost factors, an account will look at your turn over in other words any money your currently making be that from your partners income any rental properties you may own, stock dividends etc etc he will also look at your potential income and say yes i think your project will work or no its a huge risk. Of course you can still choose to ignore his advice just as you can ignore ours then if you go under we'll all say "we told you so". the other thing you'll want to look at is what cash reserves you currently have and will this cover you until your first pay check, factors you must cover are break downs such as engine, gear box, tyres, any towing fees, to name a few you must have the cash or credit to cover those issues if the need arises. Then you have all your start up costs rego, insurance any how hope you make it in this very competitive industry

 

I have to agree with many here but won't put it as harshly as some. I have 31 years behind the wheel (im 53) and have been a driver,owner operator,and in Management in trucking in those years . I've also owned a couple of other businesses. In all those years I've seen very few owner operators be successful long term.There is a lot of luck involved even if you are experienced and a good mechanic and business person The major repairs and down timewill kill you and suck the soul right out of you.I seen a former employer sink over $60k in out of warranty repairs and engines on a 2012 KW w900 with a 550 isx Cummins, in about 2 1/2 years that I drove from new.,that's not including normal maintenance and wear items, tires ,brakes etc.A truck bought New for $145k. Between DPF/DEF emmisions non sense and engines blowing he got out of it
Time spent at shops and dealers ,down for weeks at a time ,it truly was a nitemare and he was a wealthy guy with other businesses. The main customer we hauled for talked me into working for them and bought a clean 2007 Western Star heavy hauler with a c15 CAT no DPF /DEF non sense . Heavy spec tri axle tractor 18spd ,46 rears etc
They paid $41k for the truck and I checked it out for a couple of days and had the dealer fix what I could while I was there. Truck ran great , 560k miles nice and tight.
Since then they had to put almost another $30k in the truck ,transmission ,jake brake ,lifters,driveline issues,wet line etc. in the last 3 months It's never ending,and they are wealthy too (good Thing) . This truck would have put me under and it checked out pretty good. Granted we haul 107,000 lbs 500 miles everyday,tough work on a truck .
There's a reason companies hire owner operators ,they skim the profit and you take all the expenses and risk on the chin. If owning a truck was so profitable they would all be company trucks . People think they have no boss when they own a truck. You still have a boss to answer to whether they like to admit it or not and the customer is always your boss.
That being said I do know a few successful owner operators,some who gross $2k a day some days ,and usually atleast $1200 to $1400 a day and are home everyday ,or every other day. I know this work and do it now for someone else. I could buy a truck and trailer and do it ,and sometimes think about it ,but then reality sets in,and I rather let someone else deal with all the non sense and make my $1500 a week and be home for dinner. I have my own businesses,I liquidate equipment,buy real estate and just bought a diner on the highway that used to be a little truck stop and that will be my future after trucking.
If you have the itch to truck ,drive for someone else
To see if you like it day in and day out and keep track of the expenses of that truck (including what the payments ,insurance,fees ,plates would be for that truck and trailer ) and get paid to learn the business before you invest your hard earned money .
I have a friend who was a carpenter. He used to frame houses. Things went bad in 2008 with the economy and he bought a truck and worked his ### off . He was up to 5 trucks in a couple of years and was miserable and barely
Making it with all the expenses and break downs and driver drama.He went bust and lost it all back to the bank. He started doing road service with his pick up truck (he's a very hard worker and a good mechanic) 5 years go. Today he has a big truck shop, 4 full time mechanics ,wreckers,service trucks etc and makes money hand over fist. Very successful. He has a gold mine in trucking. Fixing all the trucks of people who think they are going to be successful owner operators.

 

I have never been an OO. I actually was told by my father if I ever even spoke about buying a truck he said it would take a team of proctologists a week to get his boot out of my tail pipe. Dad was kidding of course but he did always advise against it unless you know this business forward and backward and have at least $25,000 put up for repairs and things like tires. To me when I hear someone start talking about buying a truck I start thinking of them as about to walk over a cliff. I would tackle them if it would prevent them from doing this. I have seen both sides of this. I have watched wives crying as I drove a tractor away after completing a repo. All the time cussing the guy for putting her into that mess. In fact I saw so much of this side of the business it started effecting my health and I moved back to OTR. I still have nightmares. I sometime think some witch put a spell on me that gave me epilepsy as a direct result of this. I am actually ashamed of having done repos and have never really got into this part of my history in here. That I am doing this tells you how much this concerns me. This is how I see it. Cuss me all you want. Call me names and tell me I don't know what I am talking about. However I am 100% convinced that IF YOU have to come into TTR and ask a question about becoming an OO YOU ARE NOT READY!

 

Or go work the wagon baling hay. I truck cause i tried real work and didn't like it.


Op. No company will lease you on with no experience. Getting your own authority is going to be the only way. Deprending on your location, with zero experience and a brand new mc you could bee looking at 30k for insurance. Best case scenario you squeak by breaking even after costs for a few years while you learn the ever changing freight lanes.

I went straight to owning a truck and running under my own numbers, so it can be done. But it wasn't easy. Took a long time before i finally figured out how to consistently make money. And that was over 20 years ago when it was a lot easier to make money in trucking. The "glory days" of the 1990s. easy to get good paying freight, 75 cent a gallon fuel. 150 bucks a month insurance(it might have been even cheaper). Parts were cheap, mechanics worked for 150 bucks a day (that barely buys you an hour today). 2500 dollars bought you a working truck. Heck my first two trucks were under 3k combined. And i just barely was able to hang in there long enough to actually learn how to make money in this industry. Today its going to be ten thousand times harder. I wouldn't advise it.

 

This should be required reading any time someone posts about their plans to put the five Grand they've saved up, every penny they have, into a down payment on an old junker of a truck and get to trucking.

 

I have no reason to doubt your report of your experience getting started. I just want to let @Cokyodi know that for every story like this there are hundreds if not thousands of failures. There is a horrible ugly underbelly to trucking. Most company drivers only get exposed to this when they deliver to grocery warehouses and see that they have to pay a lumper service. Oh yes you can self unload. Depending on how the load breakdown goes you might spend 6 or 7 hours doing it. Then find one of the company dock managers telling you to get on with it because he needs that door. Look at it this way. A business has a load they need moved 2000 miles. the principle players in this move are the company moving the load, the company getting the load and the poor schmuck moving it. Everybody else has their hands in the cookie jar and provide no real service other then connecting the load to a driver. The money paid by the shipper might be $3500 to move it. What % of this $3500 do you think the poor schmuck moving it gets? After the Logistics company and their cronies get finished getting their hands in the cookie jar there is barely enough for the driver to cover their costs and recoup some of their fixed costs. Crooks abound in this business and have for many years. So you want to get into a business you know nothing about full of crooks and a failure rate through the roof? Really? My god it is a free country. Just remember though that my old buddies in recovery businesses all over America are waiting to come and get your truck. Most of them are heartless mouth breathers that will laugh as they call you stupid and as they drive away quote something reported to have been said by PT Barnum. A fool and their money are soon parted!

 

Drive company for a year. Every day just crank the truck and go, with no regard to the condition of the equipment. After a year you can buy your own truck and know that is the way most trucks on the market were treated.