Want to know current climate HOT SHOT...hauls or no.

Shelbyville, you say? Things are much better in Springfield, welcome aboard. I think there will always be a call for HotShot, but not in RVs. The hot ticket these days for Hot Shot are like Sprinters, or delivery vans, that is going to be huge, already is, and those vans will wear out pretty quick. Freight of all kinds is covered by the megas, and the only thing a hot shot would be good for, is going where the megas don't deem profitable. They can't afford to run a 53 footer to some rural location for 2 pallets, or 1 Sprinter van. USPS uses a lot of those now, and maybe get into that, but RVs are dinosaurs, and we have farm fields full of unsold new ones, so I'd do something else. Good luck.

 

Hot shots just make full loads out of LTLs, would probably be better off contracting with a camp ground and moving seasonal
Around and depending on where in the mid west sticking a plow on it during the off season

 

If it's a pickup truck they'll make you take the bed off to comply with the stupid and arbitrary length laws if you want to pull an RV multi-haul trailer. You don't need an LLC or MC# to haul for companies like Bennett, Horizon, Indiana Transport, Starfleet, etc. You lease onto them as the carrier and they have different deals and arrangements on trailers they offer. Personally I would not do that to the truck but that's up to you. There are guys that do pretty well just hauling singles and doing power only reloads off other load boards.

Hotshotting with your own trailer and numbers I have no idea. IMO if you have a CDL, LLC, and MC# just go straight to a heavy duty power unit if you have decent credit and come up with the 20% down most commercial lenders with want for a startup. Preferably an older one that doesn't have a DPF/SCR aftertreatment system. Living in that pickup truck cab out on the road will get old fast, and you don't get the same level of support with the little trucks if something goes sideways and needs fixed out on the road. Pull into a Kenworth, Freightliner, etc shop with a problem and they'll get you in and looked at. Better support network on the heavy duty side. And the pickup trucks tend to mechanically not be built quite as sturdy and everything wears out faster, depending on how they're used.

 

Can’t tell you how many of these I see in Indiana. Most have never been washed, have a missing fender, and sleep in their back seat. They may be doing great but my gut says no.

 

You'll see a lot of 3-car/1-ton dually setups running between Chicago and New Jersey. Usually some Russian or eastern European who barely speaks English (if at all) and they keep it just this side of legal weight without requiring a CDL. Hauling RV's or cargo trailers requires a more expensive specialized type of trailer that are harder to come by and harder to get financing for, and the RV hauling companies in Indiana tend to be stricter about driver and equipment qualifications. Again IMO, skip the little truck and go straight to a big one if you want to haul an RV lowboy and have a CDL.

Running a pickup only really makes sense if you just want to haul singles, but the barrier to entry is low on that and therefore the rates aren't what they should be. Too many casual part-timers and retirees doing it as a hobby flooding the market. They don't typically last too long once they realize what OTR driving is actually about, but on the other hand there's an endless supply of them. IMO they should tighten the CDL requirements to anything 10,001+ lbs hauling anything for-hire, same as when the med card and HOS rules kick in. That would get rid of a lot of the casuals and riff-raff and pull rates up on the little-truck trucking side. Yet I know some guys who do pretty well hauling single RV's and power-only loads with their pickup. Maybe not a good as a 53ft dry van on average cpm for all miles, but with how cheap that is right now, sometimes they ain't too far off TBH. The challenge is the pickup truck. They require $300 transmission services every 50-60k miles, tires every 70-80k...they're harder to keep up with on maintenance if you're out running the piss out of it 2500+ miles a week. And being told a week from next Thursday at the RAM or Ford dealership when something goes wrong on a newer one is not what you can afford to hear when you're trying to make a living with it.

 

My opinion will always be just buy a semi instead of you already have a CDL and they are dirt cheap these days. Way cheaper than newer dually and will be on the road far longer. Lease on to decent place and go at it.