Rookie Car Hauler Seeking Help

well i,ve never hauled cars but, i do work at a car auction and deal with the transporters every day, so hear we go.
first your gonna have all kind of trouble with to drivers that have never hauled car, all it takes is for one mess up and your profit for that week is gone insurance claims for getting the cars fixed. that and they will beat up on the equipment more than what needed. also i think your gonna be hard pressed to find two men who want to team in a flat top tractor.
your not gonna find a 9-10 car setup that 30,000-40,000 that in good shape and worth buying and running as far as it sounds like you will. that price would make a good down payment on a good used one considering they cost about 200,000-250,000 brand new. remember a 10 car unit are sold truck and trailer, cause the truck is useless with out the trailer. a good used one could be had for about 100,000-160,000
also central dispatch is not the place you want to find loads to bring you back to load your main customers cars. the people who post on central dispatch are looking to get their cars hauled as cheaply as possible and could care less about your business or how much you make.
your plan could work but you numbers are kinda off. car haulers are maintence intensive. i mean they take a lot of money to keep up. also your only gonna get around 4.5-5.0 Mpg and thats just the nature or the beast.
Also a good question is where are these cars coming from and going. if i were you i would ask your contacts if how they get their cars now and see if your can use that to get cars going back in the general direction of where you load at. or try to haul rental cars back or maybe haul for an auction, or a dealer that is taking his cars to auction.
ironicly enough i meet a car hauling O/O this weekend and he was a wealth or information for me. basically he has two main customers. he comes out of the Carolinas hauling down towards mid west for a dealer ,or sometimes a broker if the dealer didnt buy that week, then unloads then reloads repos and fleet/lease turn-ins for an auction house and heads back towards Carolinas to do it again. this is his weekly run and he sometimes does it twice. once the dealer asked him if he wold go to florida to haul cars that he bought and he told the dealer no because it would affect his hauling for the auction and his lane that he has set up.

 

Keep in mind that any transporter you buy in that price range will be pretty used and will need to be checked over well. Car haulers are subjected to a lot of forces not experienced with other tractor-trailer combos. They are also more difficult to maintain and there are a lot of moving parts. Cylinders, hoses, valves, sliders, decks, there are all kinds of problem spots, especially with older, used equipment. That is not to say that whatever you buy will be junk, you just need to be very diligent and inspect the daylights out of it.

Make no mistake, it wil be a nightmare with inexperienced drivers. If they have zero car-hauling experience, there will be damage and damage is costly. You need to find someone with some experience or it will get expensive. How much OTR experience do they have and what kind?

How long are these trips? The farther you haul them the less per mile they pay. 4-5 cars a trip isn't much, really.

I'll look at your numbers when I get a chance. They look a little off to me, at first glance, but that might just be me. I have to head to work, but I'll look at them closer when I get into the office. In the meantime, someone else may pop in and give you some insight.

 

I have owned car haulers and it is not something that you want to turn over to a novice. It is so easy to damage a vehicle. If you get even a small scratch on one you can say bye bye to a couple of thousand dollars. If the driver fails to get his height down you could make convertibles out of cars on the top deck. If your driver is unfamiliar with how to stage the load then he could easily be over weight. If he doesn't know how to properly chain then the car could move. If he fails to pin the ramps while loading you could blow a hose and the ramp could fall and crush another car or the driver.

On a 10 car rig you have 40 chain points. That is a lot of work. If the driver doesn't use the right hook, J-hook, etc., then the chain could come loose and break a windshield or damage the car below. Hauling cars and learning on the job can be very costly for the owner. Unless you run west, you don't want to have your height more than 13'8". If you run New England you need to be at or below 13'6". It can be difficult to get some loads under those heights. The last thing you need is to hit an over pass with a load of cars. If I remember correctly, each damaged vehicle has it's own deductible. So, if you have a $2,500 deductible and damage 3 cars, you will have a minimum to pay out of $7,500 before your insurance kicks in.

Do you plan on buying a high mount or stinger? Remember, you can only haul one thing with a car hauler. I always deadheaded more hauling cars than other types of freight. Have you checked on the cost of insurance for hauling cars? Hauling cars will cost you more for insurance due to the liability. If your insurance company finds that your drivers don't have any previous car hauling experience, then they could also be cause for either a higher premium or make it more difficult to get coverage.

I haven't priced car haulers in a while, but I would expect you will need to pay somewhere between $40-75,000 for a decent truck and trailer, if you are lucky. You could possibly find something for less, but I would really check it out before writing a check.

Car haulers are much more maintenance intensive. It isn't uncommon to burst a hydraulic line or for a ramp to crack. You will need to be much more meticulous on your pretrip inspections. Most of the car haulers have smaller sleepers. Occasionally, you can find one with a larger sleeper, but it is usually a high mount, not a stinger.

If you want to start hauling cars, I would suggest that you find an experience driver. Most will not want to team hauling cars. One reason is the small sleeper and single bed. You can lose your shirt hauling cars very quickly by putting an inexperience driver in the truck. Most anyone can drive a truck. Not everyone can haul cars. And just because your truck has 10 ramps doesn't necessarily mean that you can legally haul 10 vehicles. SUV's are very heavy. You won't be able to legally put 10 of them on a truck. At the most you will probably only be able to haul 7-8. If you haul the auctions, then your are likely to have a mixture of vehicles. An experienced driver will have a better idea of how to stage the vehicles for the best weight distribution. Some you would pull on and others might necessitate backing on for the right weight distribution. An inexperienced driver won't have a clue.

Since you don't have any car hauling experience you won't be able to train these new drivers as to how to load the truck. If you put two inexperienced drivers on the truck you are setting the stage for going bankrupt.

 

I will touch on some of your numbers. Most car haulers pay their drivers percentage. I paid mine 25% of the line haul. If you run team you may need to pay 30% and split the pay between the two drivers. Unless you pay them with a 1099 you will need to pay half their social security tax which is about 7.5% of their wage.

You may be able to get an occupational accident policy rather than workers comp. OCC policies run about $140-150 per driver. Workers comp rates can differ from one state to another.

Unless you run the toll roads, you should not have much in the way of toll costs. One trip to Long Island could cost over $100, depending on how you go. That doesn't count the other tolls, such as in Pennsylvania or other states. Since you didn't mention where you will be traveling, I am doing some speculating. Tolls around Chicago are not that expensive.

My fuel taxes usually don't run more than about $25/truck per quarter, depending on where I run and where I buy most of my fuel. If you plan your fuel purchases you can control how much you pay in fuel taxes at the end of the quarter.

You don't wear out chains and straps on a car hauler like you do with a flatbed.

I would expect to allow about $0.05/mile for tires.

Car haulers are about the worst for fuel economy. I would expect no more than 5 mpg, loaded or empty. If you run mountains or heavy winds that could drop. Car haulers catch a lot of wind. With fuel hovering around $4/gallon, that puts your fuel costs up around $0.80/mile or more.

The last time I had insurance for a car hauler I paid about $8,200/year per truck. You should check around for some rates. I had $1 million in liability and $250,000 cargo. Most auctions will likely require $250,000 for a 9-10 car rig. If you will be hauling primarily out of the same area, you may want to check their minimum insurance requirements.

It costs about $65-75 for a truck wash. Car haulers will usually cost more for an in and out wash. That is a small expense when you look at the other costs associated with running a car hauler.

I always carried extra fittings and hoses in case I blew a hose. I have made repairs on a number of occasions. If you blow a hose on a Friday afternoon on on the weekend, you might find it difficult to get someone out to make the repairs. I also kept some extra hydraulic fluid in case I blew a hose.

 

You won't be able to haul 10 cars if you have 4 or 5 SUV's on the truck, at least if they are full sized SUV's. You will be way over weight.

One other thing that you are not taking into consideration is the load time. It takes longer to load cars than to throw a few pallets on the truck. That could alter your plans for a reload on the other end.

Have you considered what would happen if your contact didn't have anything to haul this week?

 

Ask yourself honestly & objectively: why would alot of O/O's leave a business if it was remotely profitable in a time when jobs are to find?