Peterbilt 379 Owner Operator Interview. 9 years in trucking.

find the don't have a 2 000 a month truck no yeah out out the door for the week you're 600 down we didn't talk about feel yet we didn't talk about your insurance we didn't talk about your if the taxes if you don't know how to feel correctly throughout the states you know you you guys got to know you you got to be prepared for because they're they happen you know that's just a part of the game [Music] you ready are you sleeping hey i did have my eyes closed tommy tell me come here uh so tommy just stopped by to fix what are you fixing i'm fixing a wheel seal on the trailer it started leaking late last night okay so i just took the day off and coming around and have you guys take a look and inspect the truck and trailer and get this wheel still fixed so yeah you can roll you gotta roll tomorrow you gotta you gotta load for today i gotta load tomorrow i took the day off usually if i gotta work on equipment for the day i'm the day is wasted already so i'll just start up good milwaukee okay from lyons illinois not bad local run local run no road stuff for me anymore been there done that okay let's start from the beginning tell me first how long have you been an owner operator i've been the owner operator for nine years okay um as i was telling you before i started it graduated from college did the suit and tie gig you did yes i was auditing downtown chicago i did that for a year got fired um they told me i had a bad mouth you were just a business owner yeah so uh my my dad my uncle my my grandpa they all had trucks and they were all entrepreneurs so it was hard for me to be in an office for nine to five yeah so i um i started with swift transportation uh everybody's down you know they downplay swift but they're not bad they're not bad no no um i started with them the first two months i was over the road i was going out to minnesota i was on i started with a costco account okay so we're going to minnesota detroit they had me go out to new york state a couple of times and i told my dispatcher i was like hey man i'm not i'm not cut out for the over the road so that next week he said hey i got a pactive account and that was local it was great it was a graveyard ship but that was local and that was a 12-hour shift i did my work in eight hours and i was home i didn't tell anybody but um so i did that for six months i got tired of working at night and how when was the decision we were like okay i'm buying a truck when what happened okay so that transition was when i i started as a lease operator with crs team alone their flatbed division okay you know seven eight years ago it wasn't bad because i was going out to iowa and detroit i was still getting home throughout the week and weekends off seven years would be 2013 i'm trying to figure place it so what was happening okay we were coming out of the recession that was great that was bad that was good yeah yeah so i i did the crst lease operator for eight months i made enough money to get my own down payment to get my my first truck not a lease truck so yeah i was with crst flatbed for eight months i was able to get 20 grand it's driving for them saving up for you you're right playing for your rig right and out of the 20 compass truck sales up the street that's where i got my first trucks my first truck from they said hey we'll you know we'll give you a truck give us 25 down okay so i gave him the 8 grand for a t2000 it was old schneider truck i had absolutely no problems with that truck t2000 what a year was it remember it was a 2006. that's the terrific you still have it yeah i'm not getting rid of that nice you still use it i use that on my portage account heavy haul coils okay you have somebody driving it for you i drive that you drive it yeah i had somebody driving for it but i lost money okay yeah it's not worth the headache yeah um so i had that truck for three to four years jose replaced two pistons head gasket head i think a couple injectors and some other stuff the government started talking about the e-log i bought this the year before they made that active and that's a year before okay two years ago maybe two years no so i got that two years before they started talking about oh really yeah so i've had this truck for four years now interesting and i overpaid for it but it was worth it okay so tell me what do you have first so we know what it is a 97 [Music] 3.79 [Music] long hood large car uh 34 6e camp motor i got a bumped up to a 675 okay it's got a pdi tune 58 injectors [Music] i just installed water injection and that's pretty much it on the on the engine side i haven't had to touch the engine yet okay thank god for 40 years that's yeah i haven't had to touch the ninja for four years just oil changes and basic maintenance um but as far as truck suspension everything else yeah run in five grand yeah drive line two grand what about transmission did you trans haven't nothing no trash what is it 18 speed 18 speed 18 speed how do you like that attp i love it i usually drive like it's a 13 speed but um if i got 60 in the box yeah it helps yeah or or 100 grand on my flatbed i i usually split all the gears but other than that it's just i ride it like a 13 speed okay perfect it's got 355 rear ends i eventually want to change that to a 308 just for what reason just for mile pro you know mal power because i i run and for fuel mileage okay so when i'm cruising at around 70 75 i'm pegging 1700 rpms around 75. i want to bump that down to about 1500 so they're going to drop down there yeah the 308 gear would help that will feel knowledge perfect um yeah are you going to do it yourself do you need a lot of i'll probably have either you guys do it or what happened i don't have the tools to even accomplish that feat so tell me as you're as we're talking about saving money maybe let's get a little closer here so tell me as far as your experience what would you what would be like the number one couple tips for owning operators that are thinking about buying obviously you did uh you've been doing this for quite a while so what is something that you would want to share as far as just getting into a cdl or getting an owner operator i have a lot of experience i just want to get a truck and i want to get into uh being an owner operator firstly do not do not do the the swift don't do the swift the jb hunt at least to purchase the purchase please do not do those why do you think that's an issue why do you think people do it i've heard the horror stories that you know they are you know you will get down to you know almost owning the truck within the last year and then they were starred you know having all these other excuses is why you can't buy the truck they always want you to stay in the truck and flip it versus you buying it off yeah and that's not the key you want to go ahead and buy that truck off pay it off as fast as possible um so stay away from that what else would you would you i've heard a good i heard i've heard a good thing about the schneider uh lease purchase one of my buddies he dispatches himself uh he doesn't talk to his dispatcher at all honestly he said maybe once a week he cuts his dispatcher but he dispatches himself and um he'll have his truck paid off at the end of the year nice and it's been two and a half years nice he's over the road he's rarely home yeah his truck was a hundred grand stay away from that get you a thirty to forty thousand dollar truck that would do the same as a two hundred thousand dollar truck correct um do you think knowledge around trucks is important how did it help you my question is how did it i've been getting dirty around cars and trucks since i was a kid so it helped me out tremendously some trop some shops aren't honest they will price gouge you if you don't know what the hell that you're doing they'll take advantage of you um so if you have experience over the road you kind of can estimate how much repairs cost just from toes wheel seals you know basic brake jobs injector jobs you if you've been if you've got any experience you should you should know how much that stuff and you could cost but there's i think researching online research i think you can find pretty much to every engine google is your best friend google is your best youtube and i told you that's why we have the channel is put out as much information as possible so right okay so don't get into these purchases with bet companies find the ones don't have a 2 000 a month truck no yeah out out the door for the week you're 600 down we didn't talk about phil yet we didn't talk about your insurance we didn't talk about your if the taxes if you don't know how to feel correctly throughout the states you know you you guys gotta know you you gotta be prepared for because they're they happen you know that's just a part of the game and uh just for a a better picture you have your own duty you've been running your d.o.t for authority for five years now this is my fifth year um i had a driver in my other truck i had three trucks at one point started getting gray hair uh the other driver had a a fender bender so accident stuff happens and he said the trailer glad hand service line popped off and he didn't know so he didn't have any trailer brakes okay hit three cars nicked them and you know he didn't rear-end them he hit the quarter and their fenders and insurance doubled and the insurance company doubled my my i commend you man he has 50 trucks it's been tough i don't know how he sleeps at night i couldn't sleep with three trucks it is yeah insurance my insurance doubled so you and then you decided okay no no more i'll stick to myself no more drivers my other driver that i were telling you about with my other truck that that's um a nine quad nine flatbed that has six axles um he had an overweight ticket that was a ten thousand dollar overweight ticket they told it another fifteen hundred dollars so so let's say we let's say we're starting i know my trucks i know and i know how to drive what truck do i buy what would you recommend as a good starter no it depends on regional freight right driving uh sometimes home but i don't mind staying out five days out right it depends on what your business model is if you are over the road um i would recommend the the freightliners they're affordable you can repair them you know if you get in the middle of nowhere yeah you can pretty much repair those unless you got the dd15 that's a different story you might as well take that to the shop but if you got the s60 you can make all the money in the world with that truck is the it's reliable uh it's dependable and it's cheap cheap parts cats don't have cheap parts don't have cats though for sure but do you have do you think um emissions matter oh yes that's um something that you would that's another reason why i went with the old cat motor and the older truck uh the dpf the def i don't know why the government is you know they implemented that regulation and there's clean air yeah and there's but there's studies saying that older engines are just as clean as the new ones you know so the reason i wanted to record this with you is because i i like what you're doing i think you know you've been in the industry long enough to to share your experience and you have a cool rig take me take me around i want to see what you got going on what have you done you've worked on it yourself right yeah so where did we start first when i first bought the truck i got the talladega fenders my rear fenders came from seymour indiana i forgot the i forgot the name of the company but those are some gangster fenders too i'll put those on put the pipes on our customer what is that those those eight inches i custom made the y underneath the truck otherwise the the whole exhaust was like 3500 bucks yeah so i just bought the stacks for a thousand and me and my welder custom made the wise underneath um i bought the reefer all stainless great dane 2012. i bought that in january this year this year you've already done a lot of work to it huh yeah painted that um you know painted the stripes down the down the trailer the master truck painted the unit i'm not done with that yet i still got a clear coat everything on the trailer before the winter comes but i painted that myself what year is the trailer sorry 2012. okay yeah 2012. this trailer came from a guy uh that ran produce east coast west coast i wasn't going to get a reefer if it didn't have a spread actually i could dump both bags with both axles i should say uh you could kind of cheat the scale that way yep i don't know what you're doing so yeah that's that's that's the reason nice you want to pop the hood show me inside the reefer hasn't given me any issues for what eight months so far it's what 90 degrees i did drop down to zero in about an hour and a half on an empty trailer which isn't bad is that what you primarily haul or you haul a different type of trailer this is my primary go-to trailer now just because the reefer race on amazing yeah they're skyrocketed yeah can you know during colgate but don't recover that stayed home tommy can you throw a number gross revenue a week what are you pulling with a reaper locally anywhere depending on if i'm lazy or not if i'm calling ass if you're not lazy yeah around six grand okay nice enough locally in your home yeah all the time yeah perfect for them every night probably put 700 bucks in the tank yeah nice you got to know how to negotiate your rates that's the only way to be successful so how was let's touch on that because how was your obviously when you started running for other people then you were like okay now i need to find my own work right you got your own d.o.t how is that learning curve for you um it wasn't that hard for me because like i said my uncle had five trucks so i pretty much already knew how to dispatch i knew how important time was so it wasn't a hard transition for me at all but for some guys you you got to know how to manage your time so that you can keep the wheels rolling at all times and they're planning would you could you talk about like a little bit more about planning so let's say you got your authority and you're like okay now i gotta go pick up a phone and start calling people okay so when i got my authority that was when i was primarily running the flatbed um i managed three one customer and three brokers that's all you need to make the money you know you don't need to be calling 10 brokers here you got to get your foot in the door but you have three you have three to four brokers and one customer you can make all the money in the world in trucking um provide a good service don't be late because you overslept yeah they don't want to hear that um so relationship with good relationships right right yes your name your job your name speaks for it all you i don't i didn't have to start a website because you know infinite solutions of course they know if they call me they're getting good service i do charge fairly high on rates but stuff costs money you know tires are 500 reefer breakdown overnight is about five six hundred dollars just to even look at it so i tell them that it costs money to operate a truck a refrigerant yeah you got two motors to maintain i know right let's see uh on the inside what do you got uh yeah this is the this is the 3406e this is my homemade water injection kit very creative yeah it costs 200 bucks i could have did the professional rock but it gets the job done um what's the mileage on it on the frame the truck has a 1.7 the engine probably has when i bought it the guy said he had a overhaul at around 1.2 so the motor might have you know four or five hundred thousand miles on it it's not one of those this ain't a show truck this is a this is a workhorse yes yeah you know no so i do have some oil leaks that i need to address but they're minor yeah i mean obviously you're not this is not the purpose of the truck to go truck it would be in the garage what would you have for a show truck a w900 that would be an android which would you what are you here because i i have the same but what do you mean a 98 okay w 900 flat top you know the aerocad i was actually before i bought this one i was going to purchase one in miami for 50 000 i bought this for 40 000. i was going to give the guy 50 000. i had my plane ticket and everything in the guy's wife said he can't sell the truck he's put he's dumped too much money into it he's not selling it he can't i was like oh man you got to be kidding me so i i i hunted this guy down in north dakota flew there and joe drove this truck back and started doing my little modifications this was a farm truck what did you do inside over here new seats gauges the seats were 1500 a piece i keep watching them yeah it's a cleaning yeah what are why why it is so expensive what is this i got these uh custom posters they are so comfortable man wow yeah super from here to houston and i wasn't even tired nice to meet you look that's just coverage just so i want to yeah yeah it's no that's perfect you're keeping them nice that's that's what i did my gauges this is a home built truck this isn't professionally built if it was more money look you're you're doing it right brother trust me no you're doing it right are you gonna buy a w9 no no probably uh-uh you're sticking to this one yeah i'll probably just stick to this i do want to sell my t2000 okay i do kind of want to keep it i want to sell it and get a day cab okay what's the mileage on the t2000 uh the t2000 did you say serious 60 is in it what's up um that has 750 000 on the clock of 2007. so that's fairly low miles for that year that should be you know at least 1.5 million that's going to be an easy sale if you yeah is it taken care of i need to change brakes and shocks other than that it's good to go what did uh what day cab do you want to get a t800 can work yeah you know the sloped hood a little bit more aerodynamic easier to drive in chicago than this truck um what are you looking at another 95 so primarily you're sticking with it i'm sticking yeah i'm sticking to the older trucks i can work on them myself they're easy to maintain you open up the hood on the new trucks you're like oh my god you need to have a computer yeah pretty much yeah but i'll stick on the other trucks i'll i'll pay the extra insurance yeah you know of course it's not worth it tommy tell me your biggest mess-ups in your entire history what was the biggest mess up you've done three years ago first quarter i was down 30 grand that's when i bought this truck i needed new drive line new front end i had a breakdown on the i had two water pumps go out on the road i drove 200 miles with no water pump wow i whenever i had a chance to get water i just kept filling the radiator you guys got to have some ingenuity or you will pay you know so 100 um i drove it every 20 miles an hour i don't know if i really had any screw ups because i had i had a lot of advice from my uncle so so you did have support yeah mentorship and help out that's great i have support throughout this whole thing um i always tell people that you need to have people that you gotta have a support system you know if net worth and listen you know if you don't have any experience in this don't go out here without any help you won't make it my sister helped me a lot um kudos to her she she has 800 credit scores she's the first one that helped me get my flat bed um would you say credit score is important oh yes you can't be in business without a poor current score of course you're going to pay high interest you know so have you did you know that when you started yeah yeah i wasn't a knucklehead when i got into this um my sister helped me out a lot my grandma helped me out a lot with a cosign um i didn't have any credit when i was you know 22 or 23 yeah you know coming out of college you didn't pay any student loans yeah yeah your credit score was already screwed but yeah i had the credit score but i just didn't have the history okay you know so they both helped me out get started and paid those loans off two years early and now i'm gonna come off a mile nice i don't really have any as far as making decisions i don't think i made any bad decisions maybe some money lost here in there money loss you know just for being a business right just for being in business but um actually i made a mistake buying that that sled flatbed the we i signed the dollar line with a two-year contract another carrier came in and underbidded me yeah the rates have to make sense right right yes you know you have to know your operating costs right that's that's the that's the part about being in business is knowing the cost and you know they were trying to get reefer lows chicago locally on the covey for two three hundred dollars you guys crazy it takes nine hours to do the load yeah don't work for thirty dollars an hour with a truck you won't make it yeah um but i had enough money in the bank so i could just work a day pay my bills break even for you know doing the covet and i stayed at home with my wife but everybody was out trucking nice oh but yeah that was my mistake was buying that trailer and i'm trying to sell it i appreciate you thank you for uh filling me in and showing your truck i'm gonna um help you out and yeah no i appreciate it yeah we should i want to let's uh plan your comment have you come over on the podcast we'll record it a better way this is more about you know i grabbed you i'm in between meetings so i saw you started talking rigs but uh i i knew i was going to get some good video here so quick tips guys have an affordable truck no more than 12 1300 a month that's 300 a week you can muster that um keep your license clean very important very important um mechanical knowledge right no knowledge you're trying if you want to get your own very important yep you want to get your own dlt authority try to do it yourself if you could it would save you a lot of money um build the relationships right build relationships support family anything you can get to make this work but most importantly do please buy a affordable truck yeah that's that's what makes your breaks in this business yeah yep everybody wants the brand new 2020 chrome don't get you home that's a good one to end it on you

Channel: Truck Yoo

Views: 254,278

Keywords: owner operator, owner operator interview, Peterbilt 379 Owner Operator Interview. 9 years in trucking., trucking podcast, owner operator advice, peterbuilt, peterbuilt 379, 18 speed, truck yoo, trucking lifestyle, day in the life of an owner operator, owner operator life, truck driver advice, truck driver tips, cdl tips, trucking 101, new dot authority, trucking authority, trucking dispatch, truck driver to owner operator transition, 3406 e

Id: cmWL1WJ1Epk

Length: 28min 45sec (1725 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020