Some numbers for new O/O

If it were that cost you could throw your truck away and buy a NICE used truck every year. When your maintenance/repair is that great it is catastrophic not average. Like John Wayne said "Life is harder if you're stupid"... That advice transcends to #### near everything.

 

Let's take an average guy who buys a 500k mile truck and does not have any mechanical skills, or just wants to drive and not repair things.
Let's calculate expenses for the next 3 years and 300k miles. PM's $12000, engine overhaul $30000, tires $8000.
We are already at $17k per year, not including emissions work, suspension work, A/C and whatever else.
Yes, some people get good trucks, which will cost much less per year, but other people can spend $40k per year to have their POS running (yes, I have seen people spend that much or more)
I think $25k per year is a good estimate number. It's great if it costs less, but better be prepared.

 

I guess its like an airplane, if you are clueless how it works or anything about it and just jump in the drivers seat and go, you'll probably crash. .. in this case financially. Goes to show the dumber you are the more you pay, those number are just crazy. Ripping people off on costs seems to be a good business too.

 

Its not necessarily about being dumb, its more about lack of knowledge and experience. A typical company driver does not know much, he often drives a new truck, rarely sees any shop downtime, so when he decides to buy a truck, he figures a 500k miles truck will be a good purchase, especially since the price is very attractive vs getting a new one.
It looks and smells clean, so why not. He only has a slight idea about regular maintenance, since his MEGA truck was getting oil changes every 40-50k miles, he knows nothing about after treatment system life span and he knows that trucks get repaired at dealerships and has no connections with good independent mechanics. There are lots of people asking questions on this forum about buying their first truck and they act exactly as I described, they are clueless and think buying a truck is the same as buying a car (the phrase Ridgeline often says).
So for the first 2-4 years he gets screwed by everyone. By his company (if he is leased on), by brokers/shippers (if he goes independent), often by factoring or finance companies and of course by dishonest mechanics or simply just by bad luck. If he survives those 2-4 years, then our driver gets enough experience and makes enough connections to stop being screwed and start making good money.
Its the same in every start up business, you are pretty much doomed to fail unless you really know what you are doing or have some serious help by someone who knows. The problem with trucking business though, its just very easy to get in. One would think 100 times before opening a restaurant, but with trucks it looks like a piece of cake. Put $10k down and get yourself a money making machine, then do oil changes 2-3 times per year, change brakes sometimes, watch cool Youtube vloggers, who show crazy pay stubs and live your dream.
Going back to your statement, why do so many new people come into this industry as new drivers and get suckered into lease purchase? Not because they are just stupid, but because they have no idea how things work and the sleazy recruiters make everything look really good on paper.

 

In other words, successful owner operators do not base their business plans on what they expect in a good year. Plan for a bad year, and a good year is even better.

 

From my experiences you should always set your stakes high even if it doesn't get that bad. After being in business now I think good success starts with most of your things paid off. Have a safety net for "surprises"...

 

Dont buy a emmisions truck and have a mechanic check out the truck before you buy it if you dont know anything about trucks mecanically and 2 theres tons of good vids on how to inspect a used truck !!! Not to say yiu cant get screwed easy

 

To be fair, by the time you are old enough to drive interstate CDL-A, a large chunk of the current population of pre-emissions vehicles will be gone. The parts will be more expensive. There will likely be more laws restricting them.

At the same time, in 8 or 9 years, the industry will likely have ironed out most of the remaining significant bugs in emissions systems.

 

Completely agree.

I have a friend that wanted to go O/O and started part time with a used truck... 550k miles

Told him when he goes full time it needs to go and replace with new truck and warranty.

So then he went Full time... Thought he'd beat the statistics.... It didn't work out so good.

He complained it was too "Expensive" for new... Etc etc.......Found out that in a year he spent 50K on that heap of uncomfortable , worn out , unreliable truck.

He could've owned TWO new trucks for what he pissssed away in that heap. I tried to warn him!!!

*Because of his "Cheap" non-committal choice, he's now back to collecting a paycheck from a boss ... He went out of business unfortunately.

 

It will be literally several decades before pre emission trucks are rare enough to be impractical. Today you can easily find late 70s and early 80 models for sale at a reasonable price. And parts are still available and cheap for trucks and engines going back to the 60s. Pre emissions is anything with an 02 or older engine, plus all gliders, current and future production. So at least 25 years before the late 90s/ early 2000s models are hard to find and expensive. Even longer before parts availability begins an issue.

As for legislation similar to carb limiting their running area, that isn't a concern. The vast majority of this country is rural. Those folks aren't going to outlaw old diesel engines. It would destroy their economies. Gotta remember carb style emissions don't just effect trucks but farm tractors and construction equipment, even freaking generators and air compressors. We might see carb legislation extend to the high population northeast but three will still be plenty of areas left to run and make money with an old truck.