Where do you buy cars/trucks ?

8 comments

1. Most trucking companies lease their trucks and trailers, though owner operators are also very common.

   To be clear, does he mean a semi-tractor and trailer? Box truck? Flat bed?

   Does he have a CDL? If so, it would be prudent to start by working for a company.

2. Honestly right now. I would not recommend to anyone to try to go independent as an owner op. he needs to get on board with ups or fedex.

   Ups has a strong union for better or worse. As a feeder driver he may only see his boss a few times a year. Home daily, free health insurance, great retirement and great pay

3. Don’t have an answer to your question, but congrats to your relative!

4. I work in the Supply Chain industry and he’s going to go absolutely ass-up if he attempts go become and owner op right now. Gas, insurance, maintenance, etc are extremely high. His best bet is to get on with a mega carrier for the time being. Then wait, save some money and make a big downpayment on his own truck. Most smaller trucking companies generally close during times like these, they go their separate ways and join megas, then once the market flips they leave the megas and start being OOs again or rebuild their smaller carrier.

5. I buy cars from the car dealership. Never wanted or needed to own a commercial truck.

6. The cheapest will be Facebook Marketplace but they may not have what you want immediately. Another option is public State auctions, States get rid of their trucks after a certain amount of mileage. Local dealerships will be a lot more expensive.

   He can work for a peer-to-peer delivery service that way he would have no boss basically it’s like uber for delivery. You can accept or decline various customers who want items delivered from point A to point B.

   My friend does this he can make quite a bit of money but he delivers a lot of weird stuff like live snakes.

   https://goshare.co/service/peer-to-peer-delivery/

   https://www.stowawayapp.com/

7. I co-own a small chain of heavy-duty truck, trailer, and school bus dealerships. We sell new trucks for two prominent brands and then every brand of used truck. For context, the smallest thing we sell is a competitor to the Ford F-550. We mostly deal with larger box trucks, semi-tractors, and some specialty construction-related trucks.

   I would *not* recommend becoming a self-employed owner/operator right now. *At all.* Parts are hard to get, insurance rates have climbed significantly in the past 2-3 years, and the price of a used truck has skyrocketed. A semi-tractor with a sleeper, 450hp engine, and around ~500,000 miles costs around $85,000. A 26′ box truck with 250hp engine, automatic transmission, liftgate, and around ~150,000 miles costs around $65,000. That’s up a lot over pre-pandemic values.

   It is a really significant undertaking, and if your relative wants to handle local deliveries with his own business, those guys don’t get paid well at all. To get paid well hauling over-the-road with your own tractor and trailer, you need to have a lot of experience hauling specialized or heavy freight or take a ton of short container hauls out of a port.

   EDIT: He would also want to get a CDL to drive anything heavier/ bigger than a box truck. You can have a larger company help pay for your CDL training, but it takes a few weeks and costs money.

8. r/truckers is where you want to ask, but if he’s new to working in trucking in the US, his best bet is to work for a company and get to know the industry and the local business before putting down a hundred grand or more for a vehicle.

   Edit: although reading your post, there might be a language difference here. In the US, trucking is used primarily for large trucks hauling trailers, usually long distances. The truck plus trailer is called an 18 wheeler for the number of wheels they usually have.

   The trucking industry means vehicles that require a special driver’s license, called a CDL, that requires additional training over a regular driver’s license.

   If your relative just wants to do things like package delivery or finding individuals who want help transporting bulky items, we wouldn’t call that trucking, just delivery and moving.