MKW wrote:
Quote:
Splitshifter gives what appears on surface to be disgruntled trucker advice but you might do good to listen to him. He said that business was so good he sold all his trucks and went to work for someone else.
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Not disgruntled at all, I loved being in the business, but when you have to compete with people who obviously have no business sense and will run their trucks for whatever crappy rate is offered, it becomes darn near impossible to turn a profit.
I ran older trucks and kept them well maintained, I didn't have big truck payments every month, and I did just about all the mechanic work myself, unless it was something that required specialized tools or equipment that I didn't have in my own shop.
Then every spring you'd see several people go out and buy brand new fancy dump trucks and offer them up for hire at dirt cheap rates.
The newcomers sometimes would only last 1 season before going belly up, victims of their own ineptitude.
But the constant stream of these cutthroats had the effect of keeping truck rates artificially low for everyone.
Maybe it's not like that in your locale, I certainly hope it isn't, but I just wanted to clarify my motives for discouraging people from getting in the dump truck business right now.
I was in the business for 19 years and I tried to do it the right way, but in the end, those 18 hour work days made no sense anymore because I could make more money working for someone else.
Now I am working for a union excavating company as a mechanic, with full union benefits, and when I go home at quitting time, I can forget about work and actually have a life.