Taking the Conestoga off!
 

That's it: with the winter coming, I decided to get rid of the sliding tarp system. Most of the loads I've been doing lately don't even require tarping! Last winter when I got caught in a snow storm in the North East the wet snow bent the ceiling frame members. When I asked the dealer about this they said, "the frame is not load bearing." They replaced one beam only but the other 3 or 4 would bend again for sure as soon as some snow gets on the roof; and I'd have to pay again for all this.

The dealer agreed to take the system off for $1,000 and keep it on consignment in his yard till it's sold. I'll have to keep paying the financial company of course but I can use the $10,000 the dealer promised me to pay off and sell my car, which will improve my cashflow by almost 700 bucks. I use it 3 days in a month anyway ... so taking the Conestoga off will actually improve my bottomline (after the car is sold) and now the rig will be:

- 2,500 lbs lighter (the system + the roof deflector)
- able to take loads that stick out in the front and rear (like those utility trailers)
- more fuel efficient when empty (no side walls!)
- easy to drive under trees, bridges, and inside plant/factory doors (most of these are 14' tall and I always had trouble backing it with my 13'6" wagon).
- easier to load and unload
- safer to operate: the 107" wide system blocked view through mirrors and I could hardly see the rear wheels

I'll probably get a 4' tarp eventually but for now I'll look for loads that don't require tarping. There's plenty of these on the Landstar board. I won't be able to do oversize loads till Spring 2011 (company's policy).

Now I'll have to do something about the holes in the rub rails on the trailer where the Conestoga was bolted on ... can probably get new reflective tape and cover the holes.

Wait until the first load you wish you had it. You'll be like "Why did I get rid of that damn thing !" :) But really you are probably better off without it in the long run.

How does the 10k work?

Basically, the financial company I have a lease with, bought the system from the dealer. So, the dealer made their profit already... Now I'll pay the dealer $1k to take it off and hopefully they'll be able to sell it at a high enough price to give me $10,000. They said they'd give me a check and it'd be up to me what to do with it. I talked to the financial company thinking $10,000 NOW should be worth more than the same $10,000 over the lease term, but they wouldn't give me any discount. Whether I keep this 10k for myself or I give it to them, I still have to make ALL the payments under the lease. So, it makes more sense to use it to pay off the car, so that I can save almost 700 bucks a month ($430 financing + $170 insurance + $50 fuel minimum) on something I rarely use.

:eek2: I thought I paid a lot for insurance. My 2008 pick up and Trans Am is $220 for 10 months with collision. $170 seems a lot for 1 car:cool:

Here in Canada insurance is expensive: both for heavy trucks and cars. It used to be 120 bucks then they renewed it at ... $165 for no reason at all. Their explanation was "the bank rates are going up... all insurance companies are raising rates." Yeah, right. I had no accidents and no tickets. Part of a reason why I want to get rid of the car. It's much cheaper to use a rental (when I need one). I"m now in Sasketchewan, Canada and been on the road since the beginning of the month and my car is just gathering dust in Ontario, Canada - 1600 miles away! It's one thing when you have family members that can use it while you're away, but if you're single like me, it's' a total waste of money.

Some guy from Toronto called me this morning.. He has 10 trucks and he wants to lease the entire thing: the trailer and the Conestoga. He didn't seem put off by the combined payment. Probably made too much money and needs to write off something against taxes.

Why don't you try and sell it to him? If you know and trust him not to destroy it then lease it to him. Then you could lease on old junker. Landstar as a rule doesn't haul a lot of heavy loads so you don't need an expensive alum trailer.

If only we would all have that problem. LOL

that's a serious problem by the way. my truck is pretty much written off - i've used all the depreciation since i bought it in 2007 and i'm making 2 last payments in november. time to jump for joy or tear my hair out because my 2010 tax bill is going to be astronomical?

I know it can be a problem.Once my truck was paid for I just stopped working so hard.I now just run 1800-2000 miles a week.Less tax at the end of the year.

I'm in the same boat..... I bought my truck in 2004 for cash and took my depreciation already. I have owed around $10,000 the last few years but this year is going to be BAD. I cleared $255k already this year. I'm seriously thinking about getting a brand new truck just so i don't have to spend $20k for nothing, I can put it as the down-payment :)

also Tracer..... is this guy willing to take over your payments from the finance company, freeing you from it or is he wanting to lease it from YOU????

I personally would sell it to him or let him take over the burden, but no way in hell would I lease it to him.

And get rid of that damn car!!!

I sold my 2005 Ram 2500 and saved me $650 a month. I got a 1990 Olds Delta 88 that I bought back in 2000 for $800 and it's still running strong. Too bad they don't make cars like that anymore :(

If you are selling your trailer anyway, maybe you should get a loan and buy a trailer then you can write off some of it.

Here's a tip that might be worth looking into: if you have extra cash, use it as downpayment on a house and then rent it out (hire a management company to do all the work). In Canada you're allowed to use 5% of the house price as depreciation against your primary income, since you're self-employed, and this rental house is used for BUSINESS. It's not much - 10 grand from a 200k house a year, but it's something. I"m pretty sure your rules in US are similar for rental properties. I would do it too but I have to make some money first :)

That can be a possibility. Here in Canada I can write off 30% of the cost of the trailer every year. I could get one of those ultra-light Fontaine Revolution steps with the wicked floor :)

Damn you love spending money :lol:

as one guy said, "either you drive a new truck and make payments to the financial company, or you drive an old truck and pay taxes to the government." same with trailers ...

I couldn't agree more...... most guys on here don't believe that tho, but then again, they mostly pull van for companies and make .93cpm

That's my delima..... 20k as a downpayment or give it to Uncle Sam in April. Then again, I'm sure Uncle Jagerbomber3.0 would take it too

The deed is done. I came from the trip and dropped the trailer at Aero-Kit in Burlington, ON. The next time I'll hook up to that trailer it'll be 2,500 lbs lighter, have no walls, no ceiling and no headboard :)

Are you going to run a standard headboard or are you putting a headache rack on the truck? I think I'd buy another set of levelors with all the different work you get into with landstar and run a headache rack to gain some extra space on your upper deck. Welcome back to the tarping world!! LOL

I'm going to keep the trailer fully open, so that I can move those utility trailers that stick out 3 ft in the front and rear of the trailer :) I'm not using headracks - all my chains and stuff fit in side compartments on the International! As far as tarping goes, I'll try to minimize it as much as possible and will only get 4' tarps later on. If it's roofing metal panels like the ones I had last time, forget it - I'm not tarping. From what I've seen on the Landstar board so far, there's plenty of loads that are not afraid of a little moisture :)

I would seriously be worried about not having a headache rack on the truck. It wouldn't take much for various kinds of freight to break loose in an accident or something and come right through the cab. Stuff happens and the truck cab wouldn't even slow down a steel beam or pipe or whatever you can imagine. A headache rack would probably help quite a bit. I'm not sure but isn't there some sort of law for cab protection ? I don't know.:cool:

buying property can be a good way to pay yourself. I have bought, land/rental property instead of trading up over the years. for those considering paying higher taxes or buying equip to offset the higher tax, that does work for some, sometimes. you still end up paying & then wind up with used very depreciated equip & then find yourself in the same situation frequently. buying property has worked for me because of the related ongoing expensis that occur.that helps with the tax dilema, the income helps too but the write off last longer, but the best part is the appreciation not depreciation of the investment unlike eqiup that depreciates. with property, if you need a write off even after it is paid for, you have unlimited choices. new roof, new addition, e.t.c. you get the write off plus the added value to the property.

I read somewhere a few months ago that the DOT dropped the headache rack requirement.

I have a stepdeck trailer. Most loads sit on the main LOWER deck. If they move, they will just bump into the DROP/wall separating the upper deck and the lower deck. That's the beauty of the stepdeck.

I agree 100%. That's why there's a saying on Wall Street, "Never invest into something that eats or needs REPAIRS". Compared to houses, trucks need repairs pretty much all the time!

so, you hauling down the road without your curtain ? :)

Picked up my stepdeck at the Conestoga dealer. Looks very unusual :) There's holes in the rub-rails as if the trailer was in a mafia shootout, but other than that it looks great. I can see the rear of my trailer in the mirrors again! The Conestoga was 107" wide and it was really limiting visibility. Pulling a bare stepdeck is a walk in the park compared to pulling it with that huge structure on it. I probably gained 2,500 lbs in payload weight (will know for sure on Monday when I weigh) and the trailer is much easier to work with now. Before there was a really annoying RUBBER seal under the rub-rail and working with chains and straps was a pain. Another plus is I can check on load security right from the ground. If a chain or strap is loose, I'll see it right away. With the Conestoga, sometimes it wasn't possible to check on all parts of the load - especially in the front - because I didn't have a front trap-door. Still another thing I don't have to worry about is trees and low entrance doors at plants and factories. Most places that do load curtainside flatbeds have only 14 ft high doors, and I was at 13'6" plus the tarp goes UP when you move it... Anyway, my truck is now at a Pete shop here in Waterloo, ON where they're doing PM and I also asked them to remove the roof deflector. Will have to change my picture now :) but I hope to gain some serious fuel mileage, especially when running empty. I'll be exercising a strict no-tarp policy for now but might get a 4' drop lightweight tarp later on. Thankfully, Landstar has a bunch of loads that do not require tarping.

No tarping.....Hey a young fella like you should have no problem wrestling with tarps and getting dirty. I though only us old guys don't tarp. LOL

Someone here once said, "If you don't want to tarp, increase your tarping fee, and then loads that "need tarping" will not need it anymore" :) When I get the small tarps, I am not going to unwrap them for anything less than 200 bucks, period. Half of the time the shipper wants it tarped because it hardly costs him/her anything. Like this last trip I did ... metal panels for the ROOF needed to be tarped! Forget it.

so do you wish for your Conestogo back?

not yet. the truck drives much better without it: less weight, less height, better visibility. i've just updated my trailer's flyer that i send out to agents ... it has my contact info, some pics of the stepdeck, and the specs. the last line in the FEATURE section now reads, "TARPS: NONE" :) On march 1, 2011 it'll be 6 months since I started with landstar, so i'll be able to start hauling oversize loads.

I'm doing my second load with the 'bare' stepdeck - both no tarp. Just weighed after getting fuel: the truck with 2 tanks of fuel, all my chains and straps, plus the empty 48 ft stepdeck weigh now 30,940 lbs. This is after I removed the Conestoga and the full roof deflector. Before it was 33,000 lbs ... I still have 8 STEEL wheels on the truck. Once those are changed to aluminum, the empty weight should go down by another 200 lbs.

Load 1: roofing materials from PA to BC (no tarp)
Load 2: wheeled equipment from WA to SK (no tarp)

Pardon what may appear to be a dumb question. I like to read this Board and am not a trucker......

Given the weight you posted above..... is it safe to say you can leagally scale 49,060 lbs?

Thanks!

R/

Frat

Yep, that's correct. Of course, it'll be difficult to properly center such a load, but if it's something short (that I can put in the middle of the trailer), as long as I do not go over 49,060 lbs I should be legal. That's with full fuel tanks. If I fill only one tank, I could probably take 50,000 lbs. (1 gal of diesel = 7 lbs).

Here's Load #2 I'm doing without the Conestoga sliding tarp system. 3 farm tractors ... 9.5' tall. I'm still surprised they fitted on the deck :) I was worried it'd be difficult to roll the front wheels on the upper deck, but all I had to do was put a couple of 4x4 under the wheels, and the tractor nose just went up. This is my first time with these kind of agricultural machines. A guy on the dock had to show me how to put it in gear :) Gears are LETTERED not numbered (the dock guy said, "Put it in "C" and I'm like, "What?") The amount of buttons and controls inside is probably 2 times what I have in my truck! The tractor in the front and one in the rear are 10,000 lbs, and the one in the middle is 14,000 lbs; so I used 3 chains/binders on each: 2 in the back - to stop the thing from rolling forward, and one in the front. Did 50 miles - so far they stay put :)

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...1112101407.jpg

now you are hauling good stuff............;)

Does farm equipment pay better, or is it average?

Above average. My experience has been that the more labor and money has been put into the product, the more money it costs to transport it by truck. Of course, a lot depends on where you pick up the load (area) and how many trucks are available there, plus how greedy the middle- men and women involved are. PLUS: how desperate the shipper is to get the stuff. I remember hauling some basic lumber but because of shortages caused by an earthquake the shipper was paying top dollar for the freight.

LOL I think that was me.

Good job on finally gettin' that turban off your trailer. Now when are you going to get that 53? If you're looking to spend some money, you can get a different kind of trailer so you can follow the seasonal freight.