Buying A Truck

At what point in your career should you look at buying a truck? I know not to buy or lease right off of the bat, but at what point should I look into this? What would be the pros and cons of buying your own truck? I can't possibly think of any cons.

There is a article about this on this website. I think Brett wrote it. Look up leasing in the blog section.

There is a article about this on this website. I think Brett wrote it. Look up leasing in the blog section.

Found it, thanks. Looks like the answer to my question is never. Never buy or lease a truck. Got it.

There is a article about this on this website. I think Brett wrote it. Look up leasing in the blog section.

Found it, thanks. Looks like the answer to my question is never. Never buy or lease a truck. Got it.

Yeah, that's our take on it here at TruckingTruth. We have some lease drivers and owner operators that hang out here in the forum with us so that's not everyone's opinion. But the official TruckingTruth take on it is don't lease or buy a truck.

This question comes up quite a bit and there are tons of threads addressing it.

My answer is simple. Buy a truck when you can pay for it all in cash. Check into any and every expense, including engine and transmission rebuilds and have that money put away. Have estimated fuel money, insurance, simple necessities and such already put away in the bank. Have a relationship already built with the brokers you plan on using so when you do start, you can start making some money and not immediately dip into your cash reserves. Finally, don't expect to make any real money right away. There's so much to this industry and profit margins are extremely slim so the safest way to be successful is to not have any bills, payments, etc due on top of what you would normally have with food, rent, phone bill.

Simply put, to truly cover thine a$$, start out cash heavy and know that you could lose it. If you can do that without hurting yourself and family, then you might be ready.

Here's the thing about expenses. One example, from a company driver...

Earlier, this year, I was down for the entire day. The A C was down, and it needed to get fixed or I wasn't going to be able to survive the heat wave. Also, the engine fan was running continuously.

Both got fixed at a cost of over $1,700. The company paid for it, and for the time I had to wait. O/O's pay that cost, and don't get paid to do wait.

Dave

My answer is simple. Buy a truck when you can pay for it all in cash. Check into any and every expense, including engine and transmission rebuilds and have that money put away. Have estimated fuel money, insurance, simple necessities and such already put away in the bank.

My answer is even simpler than that. Whatever you were doing to accumulate that much cash is working a lot better than owning or leasing a truck will ever work so keep doing it! You're winning already! Don't throw it all away on a trucking business.

Touche' Brett lol.

Here's the thing about expenses. One example, from a company driver...

Earlier, this year, I was down for the entire day. The A C was down, and it needed to get fixed or I wasn't going to be able to survive the heat wave. Also, the engine fan was running continuously.

Both got fixed at a cost of over $1,700. The company paid for it, and for the time I had to wait. O/O's pay that cost, and don't get paid to do wait.

Dave

What is an O/O? I've seen people talking a lot about that and H/W. What does that mean?

What is an O/O? I've seen people talking a lot about that and H/W. What does that mean?

O/O is owner operator. H/W is a husband/wife team.