Some numbers for new O/O

Rideandrepair · Oct 2, 2018

77fib77 said: ↑

I wonder how the trans, fifth plate, and bushings will hold up doing tanker.

What do bushings cost any way,?
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Not that expensive. Check out ATRO brand silicone bushings.

Rideandrepair · Oct 2, 2018

Correction -Polyurethane bushings.

77fib77 · Oct 3, 2018

Rideandrepair said: ↑

Not that expensive. Check out ATRO brand silicone bushings.
Click to expand...

Are they hard to put in/on?

Arcana · Oct 3, 2018

DUNE-T said: ↑

There have been a lot of threads lately here and in Facebook groups from people wanting to start their own business. Here are some rough numbers to show how much does it really cost to run a truck.
Lets take a single O/O with new authority and a dry van trailer, who will run 100% brokered loadboard freight (thats how majority of people start out, right?). Lets say this guy (John) has a family and wants to be home every weekend to have somewhat normal life, so he will work Mon-Fr.
1. Truck payment of $1500 per month
2.Average truck/trailer yearly maintenance/repair bill is $25000, so lets say $2000 per month
3. Trailer payment $600 per month. Yes, you should get a brand new trailer. Running a used one will cost you the same or most likely more, when you calculate the repairs and downtime
3.Insurance for the first year will be $12-16k, so lets say $1200 per month
4. Driver salary (pretend you are an experienced company driver and you make $72k per year, so $6000 per month.
5. Fuel $5000 per month
6. Ifta, plates,parking, misc expenses $1000 per month
So we have $17300 in expenses. Now for being a business owner and all the headaches, you deserve another $1000 per week, which makes it $21300 per month, I will round it up to $22000.
$22000 per month, means you need to gross at least $5500 per week, or $1100 per day. You have to figure out lanes/rates and how to make that amount every 5 working days and be home for the weekend.
If everything goes smooth as planned, John will make $120000 per year and be a happy camper.

Of course things never go as planned. John takes time off to spend time with his kids, some repair downtime adds up and now gross revenue starts shrinking. John is lucky if he does all repairs at home, thats usually cheaper. Because if his 500k Cascadia starts having DEF problems on the road and a gangsta dealer charges him $6000 to fix it, on top of the $1000k towing bill, his maintenance/repairs budget starts having problems. Its not uncommon for a new O/O to dump $40k into his truck during each of the first couple years of ownership. The worst I have seen is complete engine failure and a few months of downtime. (happened to me too haha).

Now think if you have a tough enough skin to deal with shark brokers every day, make your revenue goals and deal with all the headaches of owning this business. Remember, in busy months you have to gross much more, than $5500, because in the slow season you might be working only couple of days per week and only do $2-$3k. It means you have to play constant poker games on spot market. You have to be ready to talk to 50 people per day, constantly hear "NO" for an answer, be very resistible to stress and be very efficient with time management. The first year you will be spending time learning lanes,you will make many mistakes, like taking 1500 miles load to Miami for $3500 and thinking its a great rate, or taking already late loads to grocery warehouses and sitting there for 3 days waiting to get unloaded, while getting paid $150 per day broker layover fee. Some of those mistakes can have you make a great big $0 profit at the end of the week.

Oh, also, if you are one of those people who just want to buy a truck and put a driver in it, think about all that and about your truck going down for a month and how you will be paying your driver to seat and wait while your truck is getting fixed. Also think about your driver not checking oil level, ####ing up the engine 1000 miles away from home, getting put out of service for some stupid reason, damaging the load, e.t.c and another 100 mistakes crappy drivers do, because being a new business, you will not be able to hire great experienced drivers, they usually already have good places to work at.

Some people will be lucky and have less expenses and some will be lucky to make more money, but you still will be around numbers posted above. Good luck
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Well said, I work for a small fleet owner. He has 6 company trucks and 4 o/o leased on to him. I have no idea how he stays in business. The repairs are insane! I had no idea how much freight is zooming around this country. He is down to 4 company drivers right now and it's really hurting him to the point where he's thinking of jumping in a truck to haul ethanol. He's been driving since the 70s. Got his authority in 2010. Just started his own business last Sept. We try to do 4k to the truck every week, which is what he needs. Right now I spend all day staring at the boards trying to find decent paying loads. We got them all over 5k this week, but it took looking days in advance. A trucker just doesn't have that kind of time to sit looking for loads. Our o/o dispatch themselves and they're doing horrible right now. They're barely getting 3k a week. Fleet owner takes 10% of their loads. If we dispatch it's 15%.

I know it seems like dispatching is easy, but it's a pain in the ###. The brokers never know the dimensions of the load. They often don't know how late they load out or how late the receiver stays open. In the time they take to try to find out the load is booked by someone else. You get the load and all of a sudden it's gone or not ready etc...They wait 3 or 4 hours to tell you that and now it's the end of the day and you got to take whatever ####ting load you can find now.

Ruthless · Oct 3, 2018

Arcana said: ↑

Well said, I work for a small fleet owner. He has 6 company trucks and 4 o/o leased on to him. I have no idea how he stays in business. The repairs are insane! I had no idea how much freight is zooming around this country. He is down to 4 company drivers right now and it's really hurting him to the point where he's thinking of jumping in a truck to haul ethanol. He's been driving since the 70s. Got his authority in 2010. Just started his own business last Sept. We try to do 4k to the truck every week, which is what he needs. Right now I spend all day staring at the boards trying to find decent paying loads. We got them all over 5k this week, but it took looking days in advance. A trucker just doesn't have that kind of time to sit looking for loads. Our o/o dispatch themselves and they're doing horrible right now. They're barely getting 3k a week. Fleet owner takes 10% of their loads. If we dispatch it's 15%.

I know it seems like dispatching is easy, but it's a pain in the ###. The brokers never know the dimensions of the load. They often don't know how late they load out or how late the receiver stays open. In the time they take to try to find out the load is booked by someone else. You get the load and all of a sudden it's gone or not ready etc...They wait 3 or 4 hours to tell you that and now it's the end of the day and you got to take whatever ####ting load you can find now.
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^^ sounds like y’all should get out while you still can. With freight rates at record highs- if y’all ain’t making it now you’ll be going bankrupt in the next cycle.

REO6205 · Oct 3, 2018

Arcana said: ↑

Well said, I work for a small fleet owner. He has 6 company trucks and 4 o/o leased on to him. I have no idea how he stays in business. The repairs are insane! I had no idea how much freight is zooming around this country. He is down to 4 company drivers right now and it's really hurting him to the point where he's thinking of jumping in a truck to haul ethanol. He's been driving since the 70s. Got his authority in 2010. Just started his own business last Sept. We try to do 4k to the truck every week, which is what he needs. Right now I spend all day staring at the boards trying to find decent paying loads. We got them all over 5k this week, but it took looking days in advance. A trucker just doesn't have that kind of time to sit looking for loads. Our o/o dispatch themselves and they're doing horrible right now. They're barely getting 3k a week. Fleet owner takes 10% of their loads. If we dispatch it's 15%.

I know it seems like dispatching is easy, but it's a pain in the ###. The brokers never know the dimensions of the load. They often don't know how late they load out or how late the receiver stays open. In the time they take to try to find out the load is booked by someone else. You get the load and all of a sudden it's gone or not ready etc...They wait 3 or 4 hours to tell you that and now it's the end of the day and you got to take whatever ####ting load you can find now.
Click to expand...

Ruthless said it right but I'll add a little something. A lot of people jumped on the trucking bandwagon a couple of years ago when things were going good. That was fine but it created an over supply of small trucking companies. Brokers know that and they take advantage of it.
If you're depending on load boards and dealing with brokers you've never used before you're skating along the edge of trouble.
If you don't already have a base list of steady customers that you're hauling direct for you are already on the skids.
This might be a good time for your boss to think about getting out of the game entirely. Things aren't going to get better anytime soon. Better to cash out now than to go entirely broke and lose everything.

Scooter Jones · Oct 3, 2018

Ruthless said: ↑

^^ sounds like y’all should get out while you still can. With freight rates at record highs- if y’all ain’t making it now you’ll be going bankrupt in the next cycle.
Click to expand...

Yes, yes! Please get out while you can!

Rideandrepair · Oct 3, 2018

77fib77 said: ↑

Are they hard to put in/on?
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I’ve done all except rear springs hanger bushings .Shop used special Mobil press made just for that job. It was worth the labor. Haven’t done front springs yet or 5th wheel will change and rebuild Holland looks fairly simple

Arcana · Oct 3, 2018

REO6205 said: ↑

Ruthless said it right but I'll add a little something. A lot of people jumped on the trucking bandwagon a couple of years ago when things were going good. That was fine but it created an over supply of small trucking companies. Brokers know that and they take advantage of it.
If you're depending on load boards and dealing with brokers you've never used before you're skating along the edge of trouble.
If you don't already have a base list of steady customers that you're hauling direct for you are already on the skids.
This might be a good time for your boss to think about getting out of the game entirely. Things aren't going to get better anytime soon. Better to cash out now than to go entirely broke and lose everything.
Click to expand...

We have regular brokers that we work with, but their loads are drying up so you just got to seek out new pools to draw from. My boss has been trucking for a long time and is pretty savvy he'll be fine.

Arcana · Oct 3, 2018

Ruthless said: ↑

^^ sounds like y’all should get out while you still can. With freight rates at record highs- if y’all ain’t making it now you’ll be going bankrupt in the next cycle.
Click to expand...

We're making it just fine

Scooter Jones said: ↑

Yes, yes! Please get out while you can!
Click to expand...

Yeah from reading these boards it sounds like people would rather deter other people from being in the business than offering anything helpful.

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