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Questions regarding Straight Truck business

NewEntrant

NewEntrant

New Recruit
Fleet Owner
Greetings everyone,
I’m Mike from Indy. I have a very small fleet of semi-trucks and I operate one of them myself. However, I want to start pulling out of that business because of various reasons (changing market, cheap rates, difficulty finding good drivers, equipment/parts costs) and transition into the STRAIGHT truck business.

I have many questions that I would like to pose to the knowledgeable members of this forum and I hope that you will take the time to help me out.

I already have a DOT/MC# set up and I intend to book the loads myself once I buy the truck. In the beginning, I would want to drive it myself for a month or two until I get a better grasp of this business. So my questions are:
A) What sort of insurance would I need for my company and my equipment?
B) What are the generally acceptable rates for loads? In other words, what is the break even point? I ask this for local, regional and OTR.
C) How many miles per gallon of fuel can I get with a straight truck in the city and highway?
D) Do you guys typically use factoring companies in order to get paid?
E) What are some of the better straight truck brands on the market? How many miles can a straight truck typically pass before the engine needs to be “overhauled”?
F) What are the best load boards?

I have more questions but these are certainly my biggest ones. I have previewed the forum a little and I know I am probably repeating some of the questions that were already raised by other members but honestly I haven’t really seen all of my questions answered in the posts that I did take a look at. So with that I hope I can get he conversation start and really look forward to the responses!

Thanks to everyone in advance for your help and insight and taking the time to help me in this new business for me.
 
Grizzly

Grizzly

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
"I have a very small fleet of semi-trucks ..."

That's where you lost me.
Wanna try again ...?
 
ntimevan

ntimevan

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
NewEntrant said:
I could use some helpful insight into straight trucks; smart ass comments are unnecessary.
Click to expand...
..Just an Idea , please check out the Newbie section and Read past posts and Questions on Straight trucks.
Also please note Comments that you receive pertain to the Quality of Questions asked . uX4Mkxw93yzsI.gif

...$$$$
 
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guido4475

guido4475

Not a Member
Primary insurance if you have you're own authority. If you akready are planning on using factoring services to get paid, I think you are destined to fail right from the get go. Load board freight is usually cheap scraps that the bigger companies cant cover, or get rid of. Not all, but many. When its slow, it seems as if the load boards are the first to take the biggest hit, in my opinion.
 
NewEntrant

NewEntrant

New Recruit
Fleet Owner
guido4475 said:
Load board freight is usually cheap scraps that the bigger companies cant cover, or get rid of. Not all, but many. When its slow, it seems as if the load boards are the first to take the biggest hit, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Why do you feel this way about load boards? Isn’t this the best way to get loads?...To work directly with the shippers you need dedicated contracts and have to have a lot of equipment and drivers, at least this is the situation with semis. I don’t know if it is the same way with expeditating...
 
A

asap4u

Expert Expediter
To your break even question: Categorize your expenses as fixed or variable. Fixed expenses include liability/cargo insurance and physical damage insurance, truck payments. These expenses are ongoing whether the truck is running or not. Variable expenses are fuel, driver pay, and maintenance.

Monthly Fixed expenses need to be spread out over an assumption of miles per month. This will give you fixed costs per mile. For example- trk pmt $2000, insurance $1500, single driver 8000 miles. ($2000+$1500)/8000=$0.44 per mile. If you only drive 4000 miles per month your fixed expense is $0.88 per mile.

Variable expenses per mile for fuel: $3.00 gal at 9 mpg $3.00/9= $0.33 per mile. Driver $0.45. Maint allow $0.10 but have a BIG reserve and maintenance comes hundreds and thousand of dollars all at once.

So, from the above your breakeven per mile is the sum of your fixed and variable expenses


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A

asap4u

Expert Expediter
Which might be $0.44 fixed + $0.78 variable = $1.22 break even per mile. Hint, save your liability and cargo fixed exp by leasing on to a major expediter carrier.

Hope this helps.

Also, cdl a drivers are hard to keep-too many open jobs for them.


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E

expediteisawesome

Rookie Expediter
Retired Expediter
Hey man, I am pretty well versed in the expedite game. I built multiple multi million dollar expediting companies over the last 6-7 years. The industry standard is 1 million in BIPD and 100K in cargo. Most sprinter loads then to be a few thousand bucks to about 10K in value, but just about every single bigger carrier has semi freight so they require the 1M/100K cargo across the board for all of their divisions. I was just talking to a friend of mine who has his own expediting company in the north east and he said that since January 1 till yesterday that his 24 ft box truck grossed 17K so from there he has to pay for gas, his drivers salary and any other expenses, but he walked away with a solid profit at the end of the day. I think you'll have a much easier time finding drivers since they will only need a medical card. You can DM me with any other questions, but I feel like you should get 1-2 box trucks and 1-2 sprinters and get into the industry that way. If you dispatch your own vehicles, you should be able to nab around 1K-1.5K per sprinter per week and probably 1.5-2K with a box truck on average. A lot of companies are really utilizing sprinters rn because of their rates/efficiency. Best of luck to you!

Oh and there is nothing wrong with using a factoring company!:)
 
americanom

americanom

Not a Member
Driver
In addition to all this, consider investing in advertising to find new customers. In general, the search for clients is always a risk for business: people most often prefer older and well-known firms, which can complicate the flow of funds into the company. Do not forget that any business requires investment, which is not a fact that it will pay off in the first years of even very active work in the United States. If you understand and accept all this, then act. To establish your own truck business in the States, you need to go through several official stages of its registration. I advise you to study the site in more detail investorjunkie.com to get more information about investing.
 
D

danthewolf00

Veteran Expediter
americanom said:
In addition to all this, consider investing in advertising to find new customers. In general, the search for clients is always a risk for business: people most often prefer older and well-known firms, which can complicate the flow of funds into the company. Do not forget that any business requires investment, which is not a fact that it will pay off in the first years of even very active work in the United States. If you understand and accept all this, then act. To establish your own truck business in the States, you need to go through several official stages of its registration. I advise you to study the site in more detail investorjunkie.com to get more information about investing.
Click to expand...
Are you stupid? owner operators are not going to pay thousands of dollars to advertise......your talking about one person or a husband and wife team not some company with a fleet of trucks.
Find a big carrier on here and call the recruiter.
 
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Ragman

Ragman

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter

Wow!​

He's 23 years old and had mastered the expedite trucking business.

​

​

americanom​

Driver
New Recruit · 23 · From USA
Joined Monday at 8:14 PM
Last seen Today at 4:39 PM
 
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