What are we doing wrong?! This is long but the backstory is necessary :)

yea 1 truck 2 trailers in Mass

 

You say your cost per mile is 2.39 and you say you are losing .17 cents per mile. Then you say this

2.39-.17 is 2.22. 2.22 x .05 is .11 cents per mile. Now you are only losing a nickel per mile. And if you were driving the truck I guarantee you’d make up that nickel. Then you would value your time and what the load demands and you’d probably price it higher. But keep on with only this and only that. It’s a death by a thousand cuts.

 

Rough math, at a 17 cpm loss, you'll be putting at least $15,000 into the business for the year. Assume you keep this up for 3 years. At that point you'll have a truck that is worth nothing, a business that is worth nothing, and nothing in the bank. You'll have a spent a lot of time, effort, and money for NOTHING.

If you put the same amount into a basic savings account, after 3 years you'll have at least $48,000. For zero effort.

You mentioned that the initial funds came from selling a rental property. When you first got the rental property, you probably made a lot of mistakes that cost you time and money. That was fine because you were dealing with an appreciating asset with few variables and a slow moving environment. Trucks depreciate, and the industry has a lot of variables that change quickly, often in 'interesting' ways. The odds of you getting to break even are slim, avoid the sunk cost fallacy and cut your loses now.

One other thing you're not thinking of - what happens when your driver is involved in an incident? We had a driver get rear ended by a 4 wheeler, the pov driver got out of her car directly into the path of a pickup truck. Our truck and trailer sat at the yard for almost a year before the investigation was completed. Could you pay the truck note and the storage fees while receiving no revenue?

 

How many miles are you running per week? I have put $4,000+ in fuel through mine in 1 week more than once. But, I drive my own, and when the money is there, I DRIVE it. And, to simply repeat what others have already said, there is not a driver out there that will run as hard as an O/O. I know where my money goes, but I also see what a run pays, and 1 more round is gravy money. Do that repeatedly, it makes a difference. You have several options, #1, listen to @wichris and @Ridgeline , they both know everything you have admitted you don’t. #2, either quit your gravy job, fire that driver and run it yourself, or sell out. Unless you overpaid for the truck, you should be able to pay the loan off against it. Otherwise, the way you are trying to run this “side gig” will bankrupt you entirely

 

You don’t have to worry about quitting. At this rate, you’re already out of business. You’re practically paying to haul brokered freight.

 

A long time ago a boss who started driving [like most owners back then!] remarked after hearing another Lease Op's driver gripe about his boss that "It's hard for two people to live on one truck"....

I repeatedly mention an old trucking joke:

How do you end up with a million in trucking, START with TWO!

OP you are the living example of the reason this phrase existed early in this business.

Remember; all those owners that started driving had one big thing, they were out there selling themselves!

Independent trucking exploded Post WWII with growing companies begging for reliable trucks dedicated to them.

Trucks were crude and the first man loaded each morning wa the winner of the daily morning fist-fight outside the gate.

Gradually individuals rose above the melee' and companies were built serving a single or a few related shippers.

Ever since this industry has some form of 'sales' with the clients that were paying the bills and individuals became small trucking companies.

EVERY little one I worked for in the 70's through my retirement in 2022 still had the owner hands on with the customers still selling themselves and their company.

Only the huge 'mega" carriers had a sales force; I remember the head of sales at Matlack telling the terminal manager training class how they 'lost' 15 to 20% every year for whatever reason and had to 'sell' that along with the projected growth for the new year.

Without a base customer in hand most startups do fail.

OP is is time to build up or sell and cut the losses.

 

see this alot out here in Aus.

Guys who buy trucks to "do less work than I currently do as a company driver and maybe employ a driver so the truck can earn money when I am off"

4 weeks later, you ask them how many miles they drove, and the answer is 0.

then they wonder how they are not making money, why the truck is running like ####, dirty and unkept.

You will not make money owning 1 truck unless you are the fulltime driver, its as simple as that. Especially if its your first truck.

I think you have 3 options

- Drive yourself.
- Quit and run.
- Go buy another 15 trucks, and try and get some big boy work/clients

 

Yep, of course, because that driver will never wake you up in the middle of the night when he's having problems with a lumper fee or call you when he's slid off the road in a blizzard on the other side of the country. I love how these guys think they can 'make money when they are off' and 'do less work than company drivers'.

 

Well, looks like OP didn't get the answer that would allow them to just make passive income as a truck owner, so they're gone. I just keep thinking that this insurance is going to stop these people looking for the TikTok/YouTube business model from getting their Authority, but it hasn't. OP's story is another perfect example of why we still have a lot more capacity to flush out.