getting back hauls surely helps pay the fuel to get home again. Especially simple jobs like cars/trucks.
I'm doing better than that, it's paying for the fuel for the entire trip.
Now maintenance, repairs and tires come out roughly the same at about $0.05 per mile in a pickup, medium duty or class 8 road tractor, insurance costs are about the same so the real variable is fuel cost. That said, let's do some simple math for a 2000 mile run (4000 round trip) with fuel at $3.00 gallon.
Pickup hauling singles @ 13 mpg avg
$1.25 mile outbound
$0 return ... 99% of the time you come back empty
$2500 gross
-$923 fuel
$1577 Net before maint and living expense
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Haul and Tow doubles @ 10 mpg avg
$1.75 mile outbound
$0 return coming back empty
$3500 Gross
-1200 Fuel
$2300 Net before maint and living expense
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Haul and Tow doubles @ 10 mpg avg
$1.75 mile outbound
$1000 return coming back with a car or boat (I'm actually doing better than this)
$3500 Gross Outbound
$1000 Gross Return
-1200 Fuel
$3300 Net before maint and living expense
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Tractor trailer with 3 units outbound @ 8 mpg
$1.85 mile outbound
$3000 coming back with 3 cars
$3700 Gross outbound
$3000 Gross return
-1500 fuel
$5200 Net before maint and living expense
Hmmmmm...... where am I headed next........ either a stinger steered tractor trailer or back to retirement.
What most probably don't see right away (if they even caught it at all)with everything in separate threads is what I have actually done in the last almost 3 years.
I started a business starting with something I already owned and kept finding opportunities and building it up in the middle of a bad recession to be more and more profitable and have steady work. It takes time and money. What I didn't do was borrow money for the last 2 trucks. I have no truck payments.
Started transporting RV's with my 2006 F-350... Beautiful comfortable truck, but the 6.0 and 6.4 powerstrokes are the wrong engines to hotshot with as they are horrible on fuel. Ran this truck for 4 months and traded it. Got a whopping 11.5 mpg avg loaded and empty with this truck.
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2nd truck, my 2004.5 Dodge 3500, this truck had lower payments than the Ford even after rolling in a ton of negative equity and it saved me $500 a week on fuel over the Ford when fuel was almost $5 a gallon. I ran this truck for a year. I average 15+ mpg loaded and empty with this truck
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Seeing virtually no competition in the haul and tow segment and that they were steady when times were hard I bought the F800 for $3000 and spent about $10k and several months putting it together with help from a good friend GEO. Ran this truck for a year before it was totaled by a dumb @$$ in a truck stop parking lot... While it was parked.
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With the medium duty killing me with a lack of power, comfort, horrible ride and a lot of broken parts (often because of the rough ride) doing some quick math and speaking with hot shot operators running class 8 road trucks a buddy and myself figured we could get better fuel economy, comfort and power with a converted road truck, and we were both right. Both of us hit home runs with the big trucks. Which is where I'm at now.
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