Thinking About It

TruckinBear · Feb 3, 2012

Hi all,

The wife and I have been tossing around the idea of possibly hotshotting together. I think I am interested in the 1 ton p/u truck arena with a trailer. We live in the Lexington, KY area. Any offerings or suggestions or info of where to find more info would be greatly appreciated.

I am currently an OTR driver and looking to do my own thing. Thanks for any guidance you can muster.

Bear

kwexpress · Feb 4, 2012

this forum is mostly van expediters. nothing wrong with that I did it for several years but now I do what you are thinking about doing.

to me its much better with the one ton truck and I pull a 35' flat and stay busy even this time of year.I average around $1.50 per mile per load but I usally have 2 loads on at a time and I guess thats the biggest difference.the freight I run isnt really time sensitive and I find it easy to stay on track with the log books.if you consider a week 7 days then I would say $2500 gross is a bad week and 1,500-2,000 per day is common it takes me about $240 per day in fuel.and the combined weight of both the loads I carry is usally under #12,000 this week I grossed a little over $3,900 and paid out $800 to the carrier I run under and $1000 out in fuel the rest is mine but I am at home for the weekend half way done with one load I have on the trailer now that pays another 1500 that I have already paid for fuel on so I guess I should count $750 of that as made money also but I dont cause it has not delivered yet.and I guess it is gonna work out ok for me I made a couple bad choices right off the bat first one was buying an 06 f-350 with the 6.0 diesel dont do that or if you do be ready to have a bunch of downtime it took about 6k just to redo fords screw-ups. egr cooler,egr valve,oil cooler and plus the fords get the worst fuel milage I am only getting about 9-10 mpg so I am installing a tuner that will bump it up an extra 110 hp and supposed to get it up to 15 mpg and if that happens then I guess it will be worth the extra money to do it.
oh and sleeper is another issue I am saving up for the woodhouse conversion kit its another 2k or so but also dont really mind the hotels so much better than most truckstops and free breakfast to.
but yeah I would say alot less deadhead and more revenue per mile than most d-units but also a little more work as some loads have to be tarped and all loads have to be strapped.
and maybe a little more attention from the dot as far as roadsides but if you got the med card and keep your log book your usaaly done in 10 minutes

TruckinBear · Feb 5, 2012

Thank you very much for the reply. I was certainly thinking about a F-350 but maybe I will do some more research on the truck. Do you have any online resources you could share to help me research and possibly where to go to find loads? Would greatly appreciate any info you would be willing to share. I'm not positive but I'm thinking this area may be pretty decent for staying busy. I'm hoping thats the case anyway. Thank you again for your reply.

chefdennis · Feb 5, 2012

The above post is a good one and yea you might get 1 or 2 more, but for the most part you are on the wrong forum.....

Monty · Feb 5, 2012

If you are already a otr driver .. why not consider a used class 8 tractor .... it will cost you less than a new 1 ton, and give hundreds of time better service.

I was leased to Hot Shot Express for years.

The truck above was my old Roberts Express truck I had converted to a tractor.

kwexpress · Feb 5, 2012

TruckinBear said:
Thank you very much for the reply. I was certainly thinking about a F-350 but maybe I will do some more research on the truck. Do you have any online resources you could share to help me research and possibly where to go to find loads? Would greatly appreciate any info you would be willing to share. I'm not positive but I'm thinking this area may be pretty decent for staying busy. I'm hoping thats the case anyway. Thank you again for your reply.

what area are you from? dont get me wrong the 350 can be a dependable truck there are just issues you will need to correct.read about the lawsuits between navistar and ford.
dodge with a cummins would have been a better choice I think. but once I spent the money on the truck there was no turning back for me.Landstar is one company I like to haul loads for landstar ranger,gemini,inway etc.they pay the broker carriers in 2 days and have alot of freight that you can get truckload rates out of. www.landstarbroker.com

but anyway what are your plans are you going with your own authority or looking to lease on to a company.most the companies I work with you have to have your own authority.there is some of these expedite carriers on here that move flats.another company thats well known is schneider national has some oil field work.but really I know of hundereds of places to get freight from it just depends on what area you want to run as to what companies I would recomend to you.
good luck its not rocket science but it does take a good cash flow to stay healthy.if our looking to lease on wih a hotshot company pm me I dispatch my own trucks set my own rates and basicaly just pay them 20% for signing rate sheets and floating my money for a week.no advances you pay for fuel,insurance everything is on you.but its his name on the side of the truck and if there is a dot audit then its at his office not mine.