Dispatcher to Owner Operator. How to buy your first semi truck. Podcast Episode 57

[Music] jack how's it going good good um so today we got our friend uh jack that just recently bought a truck and i want to talk to you about a couple things and maybe share your experience because you told me a little bit about what you did and how you did what you bought and i thought it's interesting to just kind of sit around and talk about a few things so uh you know we could maybe help out some guys that are looking for within that used 20 000 budget i would say right yes so tell me first let's start from uh the beginning beginning just so everybody knows uh what did you buy uh o6 volvo 670 with the d12 of course uh manual um 10 speed uh not uh ethan cooler but um matador okay okay which which is fine it's doable yeah it gets the job done it's a little more expensive but i would say um what did you buy it for what are you gonna do with it tell me some i know i mean i know more or less uh the specifics of it but like overview if you could give me a brief uh explanation so i mean uh the kind of a truck you can pretty much do anything with i mean you wouldn't want to do local like super local like rail you know uh containers you probably wouldn't want to do coast to coast with it either you know you want to stay away from california with it for you know specific reasons but it's kind of like a mid-range truck so midwest you know you could run 600 miles there and back it's you could do anything with it region will work is what you're playing regional work yeah regional midwest um yeah you could say that i'm still not sure what i'm gonna do with it you know i'm just trying to take it step by step like you know good well that's that's the goal right everybody's trying to um get better and better and i i like how you how you approached it that's why i wanted to share your your experience but tell me what's your experience in the industry what do you usually do um so i dispat now i'm still a dispatcher full-time i'm on call not right now so let's hope uh nobody calls me in the middle of this but yeah um full-time dispatcher for i've been dispatching for eight years before that um drove for two years so um when i started driving i had a pretty bad uh actually driving record so i got hired by a guy that didn't really care that much about that he was just happy he had a driver so i was thrown in the deep end like driving a truck with all kinds of problems you know and i learned like after a month or two that i should probably have my own tools if i want to make some money instead of sitting around yeah and so i did that the like second time i came back i you know had a toolbox and just whatever little hoses things like that so why are you gonna sit on the side of the road waiting five hours for a tow truck do something that you can do yourself you know at least limp your way to the truck stop where they can fix it properly and you know keep on going and as long as wheels are spinning you're making money so you're a hands-on guy that's not afraid to get dirty and i mean i'm i saw that i know how you get dirty which is awesome that uh that you know you're just like whatever i gotta get under the truck i gotta get under the truck sure i mean you can make money in the office you can make money under the hood you know it doesn't matter where you make money it's you know people have their preferences but there's money everywhere why did you do the switch originally from driving to dispatching um because you're you're trying to hop back in into uh driving right now so easiest way i had an opportunity to do it okay i had somebody that said hey i wanted to do it like my my way my thinking was um going from driving a truck to dispatching is getting closer to the to the cookie jar mm-hmm yeah yeah so you know i figured i you know it'd be good to understand it from that side of things and i just kept i just stayed at it for longer than i thought i would you know i figured i'll do that for a couple of years and maybe then buy a truck or um something nobody knows what they're going to end up doing when they're like 20 you know 23 really you're just you know working making money and trying to figure it out so how long have you been in this special for um ten years ten years wow that's that's a long time yeah ah okay so now you know now you're not afraid to jump in just by a truck and go start your own venture right because that's that's what you're doing i'm really scared actually but it's you got to roll the dice at some point okay it's it's you know what i'm like i'm not going to buy a truck on 50 and try to figure it out right now i think it's a good time it's never going to it's never gonna get better than this i figured might as well you know jump at it that's why i really didn't know a whole lot about not until i started talking to you and watching your podcast i that's when i really started to understand the mechanics of you know which what truck you know you want to buy what kind of mileage you know what years things like that from your podcast comes ninety percent of my knowledge okay honestly so okay um and yeah so that's that's what i based pretty much what i bought on is is what you told me and then i kind of verified it by talking to other people you know asking them what they bought you know i we have drivers and the company i'm currently working for we have drivers that have their own trucks and you know things didn't go well for them and now they're back you know working for us other places you know i have friends that i have a lot of friends you know obviously if you're they've been doing this for 10 years yeah you know you know people that that drive trucks that had trucks that you know want to buy trucks you know did they tell you uh i was uh i was wrong how many how many had to tell you a couple guys told me that no you don't wanna you don't wanna d12 you know get a cummins you know some people say uh you know cat's the best engine yeah parts are better you know more expensive so everybody has their own preference really so if you know if if somebody if somebody doesn't know what they want you pretty much want to get as much information as as you can and just just if you if if you want to buy comments you're going to buy comments you're not going to have anybody change your you know mind your comments guy fine uh if you really want to be practical then just figure it out like you you said it a million times in a bunch of episodes that d12 is the way to go it's a bulletproof engine this day and the other and a lot of guys will verify that they'll be like yes that's the engine you want to go with and so so that was good that was my question i was going to ask you like what makes a cummins guy or d12 guy right because you ultimately made that decision to go with the d12 and what makes what do you think makes a guy that well you know how did you go about it making finalizing like okay this is my choices this is what i'm going to stick to because obviously i did the same thing so when i started looking at trucks like really starting to look at them and going out and talking to the guys that had them um i was kind of all over the place i would look at trucks that you know like uh uh detroit's you know d60 series you know volvo's like 98 99 volvos and then the 2012 volvos you know so i wasn't really focused on what i wanted i just wanted to see what people were selling for what kind of you know for the money that they were selling for and it was really peculiar to me why people are selling trucks that are 20 years older for freaking you know 20 grand i mean eld is a thing okay i get that but it's a freaking beat up 20 year old truck it's got to be rusted it's got to have the half if not most of the components around the engine replaced why is it still that much money you know yeah and i saw a lot of them i don't know how many uh you know pre-eld trucks i saw but it was at least um maybe around 10 and that maybe that's not as many as you've seen in your life but uh after a while i figured um i don't think i want to go that crazy i don't have a 50 000 toolbox in my garage that i want to mess with all that so that those are older trucks if somebody's a real you know grease monkey go that route you know if but if you really want to be practical you want to pick something that's not going to break but it's kind of newer than that i guess okay that's interesting so um have you seen any pre-eld trucks that were you almost pull a trigger on because what you're saying is um interesting because i think you know the older the truck the simpler uh it is either or you're gonna need some kind of um knowledge and skill set to work on a truck just to get you by and uh you know fixed litter things right but but have you found the truck that was pld that was you were like close to or none of them were because 10 is as in your buying process that's that's a lot of trucks just pled because i know you you've seen a lot more that were newer than 2001 yeah and so overall you saw a lot of trucks right yeah the most like the most trucks i saw i want to say i saw about 30 trucks and and and most of them were um from like 2004 to 2007 eight something like that so two thousand six seven volts vienna six seventies manual d12s were about eighty percent of all the trucks that i went out and looked at what was the what was the logic behind that what was the re you thinking i'm just going to go out and look at trucks tell me about that uh well the logic behind looking at those particular trucks was those engines where apparently to me i've been told bulletproof um manual transmissions yeah you gotta you know move the stick around but compared to manual transmissions i mean uh automatic transmissions are much cheaper to fix and don't break down as often apparently um with the automatic you're probably better to comment on that than me but what i want to dig into is because and i don't really mean the specific d12 in general i know you saw variety right and and you would even sometimes text me hey i'm going to see something i know i'm not going to buy it i'm going to see it anyway yeah that's what i want to dig into so yeah tell me about that okay because like if i knew i wasn't gonna buy a truck i still went out to see it because i wanted to see what it was like if the guy was willing to sell it and he wanted you know he was okay with you know spending an hour with me you know walking around the truck or whatever oh and by the way another tip is don't waste guys time okay don't um don't we'll get two tips we'll get to this let's finish that let's finish why you did that because it's interesting just to kind of get experience in looking at trucks okay because it's remember the first truck i came here with the green volvo i was ready to i was ready to go to bank and get the cash out and you know give the guys get a cash and just have the truck sitting in my lot you know and moving the process forward and only where you told me it's out of a ten this is a five i was like whoa what do you mean why is it only a five to me it's a nine and a half you know it's yeah granted it's got some rust it's not a new truck but for the money it's a nine at least for me do you want to share whatever what was it yeah uh 780 um what year was it oh seven right i said it was all seven seven eighty uh 13 speed d12 decent tires i mean yeah the guy put a lot of money into it like he showed me a folder with all the parts changed he yeah he was solid yeah yeah he was a good owner but what do you remember what was wrong with it yeah it had a pretty big uh rust problem rust uh that we found but then one of the other ones was that it was converted yeah and then we just started piling up and looking more for the nose than the s's and they were like okay yeah the conversion wasn't really what i was the rust was there the refrain was pretty bad uh in one spot particularly well that's the one thing you can't swap right now yeah you could reinforce it this is not worth it i think um you know i've shared before i've lost some trucks to rust that were um low mileage um this is not worth the cabs and especially the frame yeah it's it's just you know um extra work but in that case we just found that trans was the head was actually swapped at some point i think even and the transmission was converted from automatic to manual and that's always if it's not done properly then you're going to have some issues yeah and wiring and everything else yeah and then the rust we found that the frame uh right under it was exhaust passenger side frame underneath the cab and you it was not that hard to miss you we could see it but for some reason i don't know i miss a lot of stuff if you give me all the time in the world i'll probably see everything but there's only so much time you have when you're looking at a truck you know it's not going to give you three hours to look at every screw and bolt so i missed the so tell me what was the time frame that you saw although like plus 30 trucks what was the time frame between oh from when i started when you started looking into when you bought it yeah about what three months maybe so not only that's impressive that's also winter time so you every truck you saw was at night yeah oh it was fun laying under underneath the truck in the snow you know checking the transmission checking all the leaks but i didn't give a damn you know it's i can always wash my jacket but but if i have to swap the uh transmission it's gonna be more expensive than getting your uh clothes you know washed yeah that's what was my thinking yeah no but that's why um guys are like what the hell are you doing i was under the truck you know moving the uh drive chef everything else they're like what are you doing then you're gonna get dirty i was like yeah don't worry man this is an investment you know so i don't mind perfect so so we established you worked at about you looked at about 30 trucks and you do you did treat it as a learning curve for you and as a um upping your skills and looking at things and uh finding things that are wrong with the truck um is that correct would you agree and i was only about the the trucks i wasn't i like i was pretty sure i wasn't gonna buy they were still in this specif the specs were still uh as you know the the specs were still the same as if i would buy the truck you know what i mean like say somebody was selling a truck for 25 grand i would still got all the seating even though it was out of my outside my budget but it was the same specs that i that i was you know looking for so for me that truck would have been would have been perfect not a thing would have to be done to it just road ready and then some you know both speakers i don't know what else you know for that kind of money well you did send me a truck that um do you remember that uh the mission truck you said the red one or which one oh no the the yeah the one that was in wisconsin yeah was i think oh oh nine yeah and you said that's a d13 you first gen get your yeah straight man because you're gonna have problems with that yeah and then the price was okay but again it it it's when you were in that bracket in that that price bracket uh it wouldn't be in my opinion a good good good move um like i mentioned a couple times before um and so let's go back a little bit because i do want to share a little bit more because what what tools and how did you go about actually you know looking at all the 30 30 plus trucks was there any any type of um system that you came up with or tools that you use what did you do at first no i was just kind of going out and going out and looking at trucks i just would message well what you want to do is definitely uh schedule an appointment like i dispatch for a living i know how important appointments are so you want to make and working full-time you want to make sure that the guy is there and you're there at the same time so uh it came to a point and so at first i was just like all right i see you next thursday you know next week whatever um but then it came to a point where i would schedule one saturday i had i looked at four trucks on one in one day i looked at uh truck the night before and then i looked at two more trucks the following day so within three days was that seven trucks uh yeah i had to uh utilize google calendar and get appointments you know so i wouldn't be all over the place i wouldn't i don't want to have guys waiting for me two hours because you don't want to respect three times yeah that's good yeah you know i expect the same from others so yeah why is somebody else's time um and yeah um also we came to a point where i was i saw like maybe after like truck number 20 i started to catalog everything uh with a spreadsheet okay um and i looked at the spreadsheet just now it's all volvo's you know i think it's um like out of ten that are on there eight are six seventies only two seven uh seven eighties um sorry six seventies and two seven eighties um eight out of ten were d12s two were cummins i don't know why i went to see the comments but i figured uh if i'm not gonna buy it for the engine maybe everything else is perfect and we're gonna get comments hate speech we do like no i'm saying you know if yeah the comments i i know guys that told me uh why'd you buy a you know d12 you shouldn't want the comments it's more customizable one guy this is one how one guy explained it to me um cummins is android uh d12 is iphone that's how long it what do you think about that same analogy a comment is like an android um for as far as phones go you know and uh d12 is uh apple so it's less customizable it's an interesting analogy to be honest with you yeah but you have an android phone so uh yeah well i know more about phones and trucks you know what i mean okay and you would still go with android yeah so you didn't why did you listen to it maybe it's something my entire office runs on mac that's fine that's all right i mean if i if you know when maybe at some point when i have you know a couple of trucks or you know a little fleet or something i'll start to go you know and look in the comments but for the first truck you want to get something bulletproof yet still stuff is still going to break down like the truck i bought is at a mechanic right now they're changing uh they found off uh oreo or oil pressure sensor and um what else are they they did the oil change they're they're just trying to find problems with it so that i don't have to find problems on the road on the side of the world the have them uh do the overhead did you tell them with the overhead adjustment yeah but they don't have a guy that they can do it okay i'll do it for you if you want but uh when jose's back oh jose i just wanted to mention brother uh we miss you he had a minor um thing going on that he couldn't make it but um yeah get better get a better man and then and hopefully he'll be back here recording soon with us but uh he had to rest at home um he got um a little a little sick so he's gonna be out of it really soon um so what i was gonna so so good so we'll we'll look into that you're not in a rush because you're you're doing everything um you know you have a plan of action right uh tell me are you uh going independent are you gonna lease to a company or what's independent 100 i've been doing this long enough to know you know how to set up your mc and how to do it all by yourself okay so you have you applied you already have everything rolling yeah i'm just waiting for uh for everything so okay good i have a 999 mc actually that i opened but never activated it so yeah that doesn't matter much nowadays but whatever um well we can talk about that there there are some some things you could do um so you had a calendar you had a google spreadsheet all the info what info did you put on the spreadsheet what was it just specs or actually no what how was this how was it everything um just let me glance at it you could you could send it to me and we can share it in the in the video yeah it's so uh column left or right uh make model year engine trends miles listed price and the price i actually everybody's to list the truck for the um for example if somebody listed 415 you can probably talk them down to 14 you know unless they're like no firm 15 but you know if you know how to negotiate you know that goes without saying location you know because if a trucks down the street versus a truck that's 100 miles away you know you still if you're trying to you know schedule these appointments you want to see where you're going um if the truck is pulling loads currently or is it sitting that was important too the truck i bought just when i was looking at it when i saw it it just came back from detroit yeah most trucks that i saw were sitting uh that's why i didn't buy them so you know we'll get that because it's an interesting story how we bought it um okay also contacts and after i saw the truck i would go back to my spreadsheet and make notes like how are the tires how was everything else you know the things that if everything was standardized and put it on there because there's no point in writing notes it you know make know but yeah like things like that was ross the you know a lot of rust good tires bad tires literals you know things like that things like that were around there uh what what did what what did the spreadsheet help you with other than an organization it helped me to see the big picture because when you're you know you're gonna forget what you saw you know two weeks uh prior you're gonna you know you're gonna think you're gonna go see a different truck but it's the same truck with you know if it's the same miles same price just a different color you know it's pretty much they're all the same volvos aren't well they're not all the same let me let me let me correct myself they're not all the same but i saw a lot of trucks that were pretty much same damn thing yeah so what else tell me some of the hard things that you experienced or if you remember any of the one of the hardest things or a couple of them that were like dang it about buying a used truck in that price range believing people and what they were actually selling you know some guys would just be like you do your thing see what you want to see i'm gonna be right here let me know if you got any questions those were the guys that i liked the most because they would like me you know take my time looking at everything some guys were like oh you know like they were just you know behind my back and they were just you know talking oh i was pulling light lows and oh actually i was pulling no loads you know this is like what are you talking about yeah you know yeah i got i'm trying to sell it for you know 16 but i like you i'll sell it to you for 14. like man you know what we're talking five minutes you know what are you doing anyway so yeah the guys would like come up you know they would tell me different things just to sell the truck and it's hard you know the guy it's it's hard to you know it's hard to say if somebody's lying or not if if they know how to lie it's his heart it's so as you went have you as you started looking at trucks when at what point you were like i'm calling your bs i wouldn't either would never confront the guy i would look at them no yeah like like to yourself like you know the guys trying to really sell the truck has some things going on because they're leaving the country i was like you're leaving the country but you have two more trucks that you're you're not working with what the hell yeah this story doesn't add up so did you get more sensitive to that kind of bs later on yeah the more you saw it the more you yeah i was like man if you have four trucks and you're selling this one in particular why is why is that you know what's wrong with this one mike yeah the question you want to ask yourself is what is wrong with this truck why is this guy trying to sell this truck is that there's really something wrong with it or is he really you know upgrading or it's a fleet truck and they're just getting rid of the older ones or what's going on you know some guys are trying to just you know sell their truck and they're honest of course but not all of them yeah so good so just pretty much um guys schmoozing you is is was that was that that's something that stuck with you but is there anything else that you would think right now looking back and thinking that was hard obviously you don't mind crawling under trucks in winter and snow and there were a lot of things like thing you can't check everything out when you're like in a field in somebody's yard you know you can't change you can't check kingpins you gotta lift the truck you gotta you know that's why i only brought what two trucks here for you to do a pre uh people just purchase the third one was a pulse purchase yeah so yeah two people we did we did a pre-purchase on the phone the two trucks that i brought here for a pre-purchase i was ready i was like if if if you guys can't find nothing wrong with them then that's the truck and thank god i brought him here because i would have bought a truck that i would have problems with tell me about the second one we brought here because i don't know yeah you were in here that was a red that was a 670 uh volvo um pretty much the same truck that i have now only uh when uh jose did a compression test on it and i saw the results i was like okay wow i did not see that i could feel it when i was driving it empty that it didn't have a lot of power i was like man there's no even empty trailer behind me and this thing is taking forever to get some speed yeah but i guess maybe that needs an oil change i don't know you know whatever we'll figure it out when i when i when you guys check it and you guys figured it out real quick yeah that's uh yeah so okay um so what what is what's what would you say people should know when uh when buying other than what you mentioned few things already but that in that price range what do you think people that are looking for a truck like that should know right off the bat that when if you knew starting what what are some of the tips that you would want to know get familiar with things they're uncommon sense so for example get um go online and see how much parts like like you know compressors fuel food you know fuel pumps oil pumps alternator starters figure out how much those cost you know for that truck that you're buying you know if you're going to buy a newer truck you know that's you know a different maker model prices are pretty much the same but most guys are clueless they don't even know how much a starter is you know you tell them it's 500 they'll they'll pay why is it why is it beneficial to know because when you're looking at the truck and the guy's like nothing's been swapped other than the alternator you know if if it's got 50 you know you know a million and a half miles on it then you know you're going to have to swap those so parts and also figure out how long it takes you know labor-wise how long it takes to do you know because some things will take you know four hours to swap others you know a day and a half depends okay so so what was that beneficial we talked about um because uh you want to know if some nothing was swapped and if you're looking at a truck that you're interested in you know how much money you're gonna have to spend on those um parts right yeah which is which is very um like you can find a truck for five thousand dollars you know you really can that will maybe even start when you uh turn the key but you know there's a reason why somebody's trying to sell it for that you know and there's a reason why you'll see a truck with the same specs for twenty thousand yeah posted somewhere exactly and so um that was the hardest thing for me i think is figuring out why is this truck so damn cheap and why is this truck so damn expensive why is the you know the difference the parts and and reasons why people sell them you know some guys really were trying to just you know push the truck and and just get rid of it asap that's why they had a low price and i just didn't like the truck so i didn't buy it but some guys you know and some guys were really proud of what they were selling that's why they they didn't care if they would not sell the truck this year even some guys said hey um if you know the truck's not running now but if i don't sell it now i'm gonna start driving it in the springtime or whenever you know the market picks up which that i don't know that made sense all the time because the market you know this year i think was all right pretty much the whole time so have have you asked any of the guys that you were buying uh what were what they were doing with the truck yeah but they could tell me anything they could do anything but um just you know maybe getting a little bit more context because obviously if the truck's sitting for a while that's that's also red flag i think right yeah the guy has the truck sitting for years yeah if you're selling something that's been just running recently or is running and um you've mentioned that in the previously you know you have to have the bs radar right if you if you can and and that the bs radar gets sharper the more the trucks you see that's why i remember we were on the phone the other time and you said why are you going out to see a truck that you know you're not going to buy because i wanted to sharpen that radar you know i wanted to i knew i knew what you were going to do i just want to see what you were going to say yeah because it is i mean it's unusual and that's how uh it would you know not everybody look you've dedicated to buy a truck that's going to help you start something and you committed the time to do it right um what i can tell you from experience it's a it's a complicated process and it's hard and people just pull the trigger on the first thing they like or they see yeah and that's what's giving them a lot of problems if it's not excluded that you're not gonna have problems for a deer shock but at least you did enough homework and you did enough uh yeah but you at least feel good with what you bought and when you actually went to look at that truck and we talked on the phone i really wanted to see how we're going to go about it i think you bought a really good truck and you have a picture you sent to me you can plug it in here you have a you probably have a picture somewhere uh i'll take your picture of it because i'm pretty happy with it and and we could show you know it tell me the story how you bought it and what happened so just another day uh you know me after work i was i went to the barber to you know you get get my haircut whatever and i'm sitting there in line and i'm scrolling through a facebook marketplace you know and i see this truck i've um you know guys gotta post it for a decent price you know it's the specs that i'm looking for i'll hit them up and i texted them you know hey um um i think i texted him i started you always want to start a conversation so that at least um you get a reply because i don't know how many guys i messaged that didn't even reply to me and there wasn't like a hard question i was like uh you don't want to say is it available either because that's like the stock whatever yeah of course yeah yeah you can message 100 people like that within 10 minutes so be like i would ask what people wouldn't oh yeah another thing people would pulse trucks with no they would have a picture of a truck with no specifics on the engine or transmission or miles or nothing they just had four pictures of the outside and great truck you know come see it you know what so people like that even want a message but i s you know what happened to my dad so you messaged the guy yeah i messaged the guy and he's like uh call me and he i'm like what's your number and he didn't reply i said here's my number he called me he was driving the truck back from detroit here and he's like yeah um i'm trying to sell this truck i got two guys coming in look at it tomorrow morning uh but they want me to have the title in hand so i think they were gonna buy it so if you wanna see it either be here earlier than them or something i said well damn i got work tomorrow i really like your truck can i see it tonight he said no i really want to go home you know to my wife and kid i said please man i'm really i don't know i'm really interested in your truck please let me look at it he said fine i i told the barber i think i'm gonna get my hair cut some other time see you later he was like okay that's weird but whatever um i went out saw the truck and i was looking at it guy was really cool and he said man if you're still thinking about it then i gotta go i said i think i'm gonna pull the trigger on it because i seen again i've seen over 20 trucks with those specifics i think this is a this is as good as it is gonna get and i don't wanna i don't want this you know i don't want those you guys to get that my truck tomorrow you know yeah so i figured yeah it was late at night it was cold yeah thanks for being with me on the phone and they helped me with that you got it but tell me you didn't say i asked you i didn't you didn't say buy that trucker don't buy the truck i didn't yeah i would never do that i think it's more about i wanted to help you uh answer some of the questions you had around looking in the truck and we i think what you i think when you started looking at the truck and that the guy actually came back from from the from the trip that was a big uh because you saw how the truck was used you saw the owner you saw that he was he kept driving with it and it was well taken care of right all those things i know when we were on the phone we were like okay that's those are good like big pluses for that truck so tell me more uh so you walked around what happened um i couldn't find a problem with it that's what happened that's that's what that's what made me buy the truck i was like man there's nothing like yeah obviously it's a it's a truck with you know over a million miles so yeah you're going to see some things and this that and the other you know volvos are always have that the rusted um door whatever panel the guy took care of that himself he like had a little customized i guess uh aluminum piece there he said he did it himself so i was like okay well you really if you if you did that then you probably did a lot of other things that most guys wouldn't so this means this truck is well taken care of yeah yeah yeah so and then uh what you bought it right i was like man i'm i'll be here tomorrow morning with you know cash and please have the title i'll see you let's make the deal okay and i was driving home pretty happy i couldn't i could hardly sleep that night i was like man please don't let this guy you know sell this truck to somebody else you you did and you i remember the next day we talked and you're like hey uh i bought the truck i i i'm not gonna say i knew you were gonna bite i i just thought oh that that you will make the right decisions for yourself and and ultimately seeing it next day when you brought it it looked like a really good truck uh i i would say that the only thing would be the rust just because it was at night and i don't think you you know you could thoroughly check everything but it's actually it was actually pretty good the frame was healthy and and the truck was well taken care of so good good definitely a good job buying that i see some better frames but yeah this this was good enough too i was like it's not going to rust through you know it's it was it was good enough yeah i thought yeah so good so now we have a truck so what are your goals now what are you going to do uh well other than what we talked about looking for work and what's your long-term goal long term long term is buy a second one okay a third oh yeah guys yeah i know some guys just want to buy a one truck and they just want to put in a company that's fine yeah that if you that's that's that's one way to go about it just you know have somebody else dispatch you and that's that's the easy way i'm yeah i'm gonna let you go i'm gonna get my you know ass kicked because you know you probably gotta beat that out whatever i know i know i will um you know long long term but that's fine you know let's buy a couple of trucks and have a company that's um more honest than others i guess because dispatching for the all the companies i worked for um i've seen some things that yeah i just don't want to deal with that working as a dispatcher you're kind of forced to not say the truth all the time i guess would be the right way to say it so yeah if you have your own company you're running it the way you want to run it you know i've seen there's there were a lot of times where i would not do the things that my boss decided to do which he's the boss you know he's going to tell you to you know you have to do it yeah yeah to lose money you're gonna the company's gonna lose money he wants his money you know that's but why you know yeah well you're speaking my language because that's that was the reason i started era and i the same thing um i saw a lot of um behavior around that i didn't like and as a driver and i was like well i know it can be done better and that's why i think it's valuable to have that goal and and what you are setting out to do is you know not only focus on making money which is important uh but you're committed to actually create some kind of a different company and make a change and make it better a little bit better and i always say if you can make anything a little bit better everybody would be better off right if you create a better product if you share if you treat different people differently we'll leave the world a little better than when you found it yeah yeah no that's that's a good that's a good quote but congrats man i think you definitely have a good structure start um we'll see what's going to happen with your second purchase or whatever things you're planning to do i think you have a good enough truck that you could um even find a driver and then start thinking about something else and grow your fleet which i um you know wish you start converting into gliders maybe i don't know i'm i need to figure out uh more i need to find more trucks to be honest with you but um i there's plenty out there yeah yeah uh and so ultimately any final tips that you that you think about and you would want to share with everybody other than we've covered a lot we've covered a decent amount and i would say anything else that we missed i'm trying to think of anything that um you know thorough inspections respecting somebody's time guys are i know guys are going to be scared to pull the trigger on on on on trucks like you said don't don't buy the first truck uh that you see you guys are going to be scared to buy the truck in the the whatever 12 trucks their 12 truck that they're looking at you know they're gonna think it's a good that's good but they're going to be sure about it um sebastian here has a service i know you're busy now but you guys i know if you have a minute you can do uh we do pre-purchase inspections yeah i have somebody actually that we use for people just pictures so as our as our shop yes we do pre-purchase inspections yeah i rolled the dice on my truck i didn't do a pre-purchase inspection on the engine but i figured i don't need to this this one's going to be fine the engine is running you know oh yeah listen to the engine when it's running like when you start a truck listen to the ticks i i saw i heard a lot of engines that were they were making noises i never heard yeah which is interesting you're saying that because across the 30 trucks you saw if you have an ear for it you will see the difference in how d12s run yeah because you primarily sell d12s and that's funny because when i happened on any of my uh d12s or uh when i was buying them i heard how they ran because i've been in so many of them that it you can really make your ear um you know okay there's a leak somewhere or this is this something's going on there's a boost leak there's an exhaust leak there's different that's why the expert just listening to what you can tell what's wrong with it yeah most guys don't know what it's supposed to sound like at all that is a good point i think you're missing one more we're missing one more tip that you're that we haven't talked about and is the people around you yes right yes so make sure people support you make sure nobody's you know telling you hey this is a bad idea you know to buy the truck my my wife is she's really helpful she's very supportive she's like i'm super glad you know you're doing what you want to do my dad is also super helpful he was he was a trucker in poland i know uh yours was you know we might have those two yeah yeah my dad yeah i remember he would pick me up from school um even if he weren't going home he was going the other direction now hopping with him there was a big sledgehammer and i would use that as my stick shift and i don't know what what was going on my yeah i don't know what he was doing but i was doing the same thing so yeah that's funny my dad my legend of bosses in poland i was a kid and i remember uh learning what cars because i had a little uh stool next to him which is can you believe that you could bring a communist pawn you would bring a kid yeah now somebody would get sued and fired and yeah i was sitting with him in the bus and he would tell me i will learn uh the cars and i will just be with him at work sometimes a few days a week uh just a little kid he's sitting there and i was cleaning the the buses so much fun but the best memories right yeah exactly good old times but um yeah the network support network and people that help you out in general family is one but you know you you didn't hesitate to reach out and dig uh deeper you know with people talking to mechanics with guys that had experience maybe to expand on using me into yeah first thing is get your people like like get the people around you first in line you know make sure if you have a wife make sure she's okay with you buying a truck don't buy a damn truck if if your wife doesn't want you be you know you should if she wants to don't buy a truck and go over the road if she wants you to stay local because that's a recipe for you know uh the force you know what i mean like no joke it is yeah yeah so you 100 right that's something we rarely talk about is your other half's um opinion or what are you trying to do are they in agreement with it because i've seen too many domestic issues because of the guys like hey i'm you know i'm just not coming back for two three weeks and it is hard but at the same time if the guy is fine and then he didn't talk to his wife hey we plan let's you know just understand that i'm going to be around um there's couples like that some couples have no problem you know with the guy being on the road for a month you know making money you know yeah as long as you align your goals and and everybody's fine with that but uh this the problem is when you're trying to buy a truck and you own you want to be home every day and you're relying only on a local freight which if you're limiting yourself to that it's going to be it's going to be very hard to make it yeah i told her i'm going to try to be home every night but if there's a million-dollar load going you know somewhere farther away every now and then i'll tell you i won't be back you know a million dollar you said yeah maybe you know what i'm you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah there's you're going to find some good rates and if you're staying one night out why not yeah so she you know she understands good that's good make sure you find a good mechanic too good now thank you i appreciate you sharing your story i think um i'm i'm pretty certain you bought a really really good truck for the money you did we're gonna it was a very good price yeah and i think you should you have enough budget to you know work on it and make it ready and uh tweak it yeah uh the harness is gonna be something that we're gonna have to look at which is a data link is that's where the issue is with uh the volvo d12 so i just had a customer uh that i told him that i was like it's very hard especially now in winter you can go under in summer you can go under your truck and start looking for those kind of connections corroded connections to swap it yourself or fix it but you're not gonna make it a brand new harness you just have to buy a brand new harness which which doesn't cost you yeah yeah yeah especially the main and so but you got a good truck so brother thank you for sharing your um story i think you know i would say good luck with your building a fleet is that something that's i think you're going to be a lot of fun for you and uh yeah it's going to be hard but yeah i'm ready you got to get my thank you very much brother thank you

Channel: Truck Yoo

Views: 3,131

Rating: 4.8730159 out of 5

Keywords: Dispatcher to Owner Operator. How to buy your first semi truck. Podcast Episode 57, how to become an owner operator, how to become a truck driver, what is an owner operator, what is a truck driver owner operator, what is an owner operator truck driver, starting a small fleet, buying a semi truck, how to buy a semi truck, buying a used semi truck, truck driver tips, semi truck driving tips, era service chicago, era service trucking, owner operator chicago, truck drivers chicago

Id: MIXmgy0hlWI

Length: 46min 24sec (2784 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021