Best truck for $50-60k

Are you driving for USA truck now? If yes what's the pay per mile? Subtract that from 1.14 and see if the remaining amount will be enough to run a profitable business on. I am betting it will come up short.

And don't figure you will drive 3500 miles a week for 52 weeks a year.

 

Someone would earn more money being a company driver, without all the stress and responsibility of running a truck.

 

Ding ding ding ding ding .....

Some people have to learn by making mistakes though. Some of those mistakes are very costly ...

 

You posted it in the right section.

 

Getting a $50000 truck you could be buying somebody elses problems without a warranty.
I would stay away from ALL emission trucks, if it was me and I wanted to buy a used truck i would get either a glider or a preemission truck that has full maintenence records.

But yes take our warnings and stay away from USA truck, extemely low pay.
Don't worry about buying a truck until you have a good job lined up.

 

What gets me is it's simple, basic math and what it tells me is most of these foolish people have no clue what it costs to operate a truck.
If you're not doing $2.00/mile or at least close to it, you're better off being a company driver.
I bought my Pete for $33,000 with a home equity loan at 4%. Took out a $63,000 loan with a measley $630.00 a month payment.
I was averaging closer to $2.40 to $2.60 a mile til the bottom fell out thanks to all these fools willing to run for $1.10.
I also leased on where I could book my own loads from anywhere. Not this "run our freight only"crap.
It's an epidemic of stupidity.

 

Do not go with USA!!!!!!! Do not! Go with prime before you go USA. My dad went with them. Through training (even though he had 30 years cdl experience...) they ran him 7k+ per week with the trainer. After they have to pay him by the mile they had him sit for two weeks with no truck and no pay. Do not I repeat do not go with USA trucking. Go with Schneider choice, kiswani, or do some research and go with any other company out there. I don't want to see you get royally screwed by those guys. If you do go with them don't sign any long term contracts. Go with a few months to see if you like it. As far as trucks go they're all about the setting anymore. Myself I'd go with whatever had the freshest verified rebuild and good maintenance records that suits THE JOB.

 

Cummins & Paccar are the two worst choices you could probably make. Especially the Cummins.
Right now Freightliner has two identical new trucks for sale, the one with a Cummins is $28K cheaper. Clue #1

All the used trucks at Freightliner that have Cummins vs. Detroit average $20K cheaper. Clue#2

I talked to a guy that's a mover at a TA one weekend, he bought used '12 Pete from RUSH with 450K miles on it. Cummins. Drove it less than 1,000 miles, $12K in DPF & EGR system repairs & replacement. Clue#3

There are threads on this site & others that well document the EGR horror's of Cummins & the sensor nightmares of the Paccar's. Clue #4

I bought a Volvo with a D13 for my first truck. No hassles. Got it through Penske. $54K. They keep meticulous maintenance records, and are maintenance freaks. That's what you want when getting a used truck.
Arrow has a very good deal on Volvo's right now.

If you get anything that has been at a mega carrier, that means the PM services were 45K to 50K apart. That's a long time between services. And you have a good chance some kids beat that truck in one way or another.

Get a Volvo or Freighty. Freightliners are the 350 Chevy of the trucking world. The Volvo was much more comfortable, and had 0 issues.

Don't lease / purchase a truck from any carrier. If you can buy a truck from a dealer, great. Then lease on with a carrier. But don't let the people holding the note on your truck be the ones finding you loads, or you F yourself. You want to be able to change carriers if they can't keep you busy.

As far as rates or % of load pay. There's A LOT of variables I've found that you have to weigh, so as to compare apples to apples. And I've discovered there is always money, but what are you willing to do to go get it.

Where do you live?

How often do you want or need to be by the house is the first question you need to consider. And if your going to get your own truck, and you really want to be a winner, want, has little to do with it, so how often do you need to be by the house?

 

You're going to run under your own authority and put me out of business, huh?
Where are you getting your loads and what are they paying?
Good luck. I just sold my truck and went to work pulling Hazmat Tanker. I'm better off with today's otr rates thanks to people lowballing them.
I work 5 days a week and go home everynight. Full company paid benefits package and I make $1400 to $1600 a week. No headaches. Paid vacation. Paid holidays.
Good luck making that at $1.10 a mile. You won't make $300 a week after all your expenses.
Simple math.

Too add. I looked into Tanker gigs as an O/O. The majority are company drivers. Some take O/Os and it turns out this one has a few. But guess what. The company drivers make more bottom line than the O/Os. This is often the case with companies that have both. They're going to look out for their company before yours. You can bet on it.
As an an O/O I would never lease on with a company that has their own trucks/drivers. You're going to get their table scraps.