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How Much Money Do Landstar Owner Operators Make? — Transcript

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0:00Can Landstar BCOS's
0:03make any money? Can you earn a good
0:06living as a Landstar owner operator?
0:12I was under I was a Landstar BCO for 6
0:15years from 2018 through 2024.
0:23Um, short answer is yes, you can make
0:26money at Landstar.
0:28And a lot of people have have comments
0:31about uh Landstar, like
0:35referring to the fact that Landstar
0:37takes
0:39takes a high percentage.
0:43Um,
0:46I'm not saying they don't take a high
0:48percentage, but the percentage that they
0:50take is less than what most people will
0:53quote. And I'll explain that in this
0:55video. I want to go through a settlement
0:57so you can see how BCOS's get paid what
1:00you pay through your settlement
1:02statements uh to Landstar.
1:05Um, I may touch on some the fuel
1:09discounts. Uh they have a program called
1:10LCAP so you get discounts on tires and
1:13fuel.
1:15Um
1:17I'll go over
1:19why some people have different
1:20experiences like why my experience may
1:23be different than yours. talk about
1:26different trailer types and where some
1:28of the confusion comes in
1:31and the difference in having your own
1:34trailer on with Landstar versus
1:38using a Landstar trailer. A lot of it's
1:41got to do with are you good at building
1:44relationships?
1:47the the truck trucking is a relationship
1:49industry. And
1:51so I think where a lot of people fail is
1:55because they Landstar may be their first
1:58owner operator like position. So if you
2:02come from a company driver and then
2:04Landstar is your first owner operator
2:06position,
2:08you may be used to someone dispatching
2:10you. you may not be used to having uh
2:13being required to
2:16run a business. So, you've got a lot of
2:18new things going on all at once. You're
2:20running a business now. You're a 1099.
2:22You're self-employed.
2:25You now need to
2:29there's a lot more stuff you got to keep
2:30track of and you've got to you're
2:33learning the relationship side of the
2:35business
2:37all at the same time. So, it can be
2:39overwhelming for people.
2:41I'll go over things in more detail. I
2:42need to get on to a computer. I can't do
2:44that while I'm driving. I'm going to
2:46I'll pull up a settlement and we'll go
2:48through things and
2:52I'll try to make it not a cherrypicked
2:55settlement. Maybe I'll go through a few
2:56of them just to show good years and bad
3:00years. I've got all my settlements back
3:02from
3:05I don't know. I think I when I started
3:08saving them 20 2020 maybe
3:12uh I may have them all the way back to
3:142018. I'll have to look through them.
3:16But I'll show you some from 2022 was a
3:17good trucking year. I'll show some from
3:19that. I'll show some from right before I
3:21quit, which is kind of the you know, you
3:24may you should be able to see from the
3:26settlements why why I quit trucking.
3:30You'll see the difference of 2022 versus
3:322023 and 24. So, I'll go through that
3:36stuff, but I got to get stopped uh at a
3:39truck stop up here.
3:43Here's one of the reasons that
3:47people have I'm looking at the Landstar
3:49the most recent quarterly earnings call
3:52or this is the like slides that went
3:55along with the um earnings call. So,
3:57it's from January 28, 2026.
4:02But I was looking through here, none of
4:04this part. Um, I didn't read through all
4:07that stuff, but
4:11some of the reason if I could find it
4:13here
4:15that people, and this section was
4:17actually kind of interesting here, they
4:20go over all the different ways they're
4:21using or planning on using artificial
4:24intelligence to improve the business.
4:25So, I'm actually going to go back and
4:27listen to the full call and just hear
4:29what they have to say about all these
4:30different points here. I'll listen to a
4:32little bit of it, but I was I was busy.
4:35I've got other stuff to do. Uh
4:39where was it? So, they were talking
4:42about Okay, here it is. So, van versus
4:45unsighted platform.
4:48So, these Let me zoom in here.
4:51So this shows on a quarter by quarter
4:53basis [sighs]
4:56from [gasps] the fourth quarter of 21
4:58all the way through the fourth quarter
4:59of 25 which is the most recent I mean
5:01that's the earnings call they're doing
5:02when they presented this uh information
5:05or that they referenced in their
5:07earnings call.
5:09So if we look at the revenue per load
5:12for unsided platform freight
5:15um and then we look at the revenue per
5:17load for van. So, Landstar has van. They
5:22do have some reefer
5:24loads. Not a whole lot though, but I
5:27talked to a handful of reefer drivers
5:29that were on asbcos whenever I was
5:31there. I think they had like not their
5:34own customers obviously, but they had
5:36like just certain very few agents that
5:38they worked with on a regular basis.
5:40[sighs]
5:41So, and the unsolded platform freight,
5:44if you look at this the trend of the the
5:47revenue per load where it's at, and you
5:49look at the revenue per load for the
5:51van, look how much the van dropped off.
5:54And this isn't So, just one quick note
5:57about Landstar's unsotted platform
5:59freight. This isn't a comparison of dry
6:01van and flatbed.
6:04So, Landstar has some flatbeds or they
6:07have owner operators who pull a flatbed,
6:09but a lot of the Landstar unsided
6:12platform freight that's captured in this
6:14these metrics here, there's a lot of
6:16heavy haul and specialized trailers that
6:20are used for this. and a I'd say there's
6:24I mean I'm not I'm not you know [gasps]
6:26I don't have inside information like to
6:28their actual numbers but
6:31I felt like there was more a larger
6:34concentration of step decks relative to
6:38if you just looked at the broader market
6:39there's quite a few step decks there's a
6:41lot of low pro step decks three axle
6:43step decks RGN's specialized trailers so
6:47a lot of that stuff I mean people
6:50I don't I haven't counted it up how much
6:52money I made while I was at Landstar,
6:53but I I did pretty well. But and there
6:56was guys and I don't work very hard.
6:57Like I've I've never worked more than
6:59eight months out of the year as an owner
7:01operator. I've always taken a minimum of
7:03four months off.
7:05Um and so there's guys that made way
7:08more money than I did. So I I' I'd say
7:11with I'd say 90 99% certainty there's
7:14owner operators at LandStar that have
7:17made north of a million dollars in a in
7:18a single year. maybe revenue, probably
7:21not profit, but there's guys that are
7:23knocking down some really big numbers on
7:25some of those loads. So, they have a um
7:28explosives, I think it's called a A&E.
7:30So, they got ammo, arms, explosives,
7:33artillery, whatever it's called. You got
7:35to go through all the special training.
7:37So, there's a way there's ways to make
7:39additional money on that side of the
7:41business, I think. So, I actually I had
7:44to pull one of those guys out one time.
7:45They've slid off into a ditch. Um, a
7:48little van.
7:50I don't know what they had in the van,
7:52but we're in a blizzard and they had
7:54slid off in a ditch and I just happened
7:55to be stopped next to them. So, I put a
7:58I put a chain on their little Mercedes
8:00van and pulled them pulled them out.
8:03So, there's those opportunities at
8:05Landstar that most people may not be
8:07aware of. One of the benefits is the
8:10ability to haul hazmat. That's one thing
8:13like I don't think I would ever choose
8:15to go back to Landstar, but one of the
8:18things I miss is the ability to
8:22pull hazmat freight because there's some
8:24really easy loads that pay pretty well
8:27and they just don't take any time at
8:28all. I mean, just like the hazmat IBC
8:31totes, you throw a few straps and you
8:33take off. So, those loads, I I pulled
8:36some of those that paid really well. Um,
8:39and you can pull those in a van. Some of
8:41them are optional. You can do a van or a
8:44you can put them on a flat or step.
8:47But so I did some of all that kind of
8:49stuff. But you can see if you just pull
8:51a van, the numbers have dropped off
8:54significantly. The guys that are doing
8:56more of the heavy specialized stuff,
8:58their revenue has has not dropped off
9:01nearly as much. I don't know that
9:02there's Let me zoom this out.
9:06I don't know that there was any other
9:08interesting insights in here. Well,
9:13here we go. Sorry, I keep moving the
9:14camera around. I'm trying to use two
9:16phones at one time. But if we look at
9:192021, their five-year summary of
9:21accidents,
9:24they had a lot
9:26and then they dropped off. So, I was
9:29here I was there for 21 I mean I was
9:31there from 2018 all the way through
9:332024.
9:35So, ever since I quit in 24, you can see
9:39they flatlined. They stopped improving.
9:41So, obviously, if they wanted to get
9:43their accident numbers better, they
9:46would bring me back and we would start
9:48improving again. Anyways, I'll go
9:50through I'll go through a settlement. I
9:52got to fire up the laptop and I'll go
9:53through a settlement just show you all
9:54the line items to be aware of and kind
9:57of give you an example of how much you
9:59could make there. Here's a settlement
10:02from 2022
10:04has a better year. This is March the
10:0729th. So page I think there's four pages
10:10on this one. What you're looking at here
10:13is an IFA rebate. Normally you don't
10:17have this page on your settlements, but
10:18I had a I had an IFA rebate of $35.
10:22That's why there's an extra page on this
10:23one. This is page two of that same
10:27settlement statement. Uh the stuff
10:29that's blurred out over here, this is
10:30just my unit number. This is my trailer
10:33number and my tax ID.
10:36So this shows the year-to- date earnings
10:39for this unit.
10:41So through March of March 29th, through
10:44the end of March in 2022, the trailer
10:48had earned
10:50basically $8,200.
10:52And then it breaks down. There was two
10:55loads on this settlement. Low Oak,
10:57Arkansas to Miami, Florida. $5,600 was
11:01the Longhaul on that load. 9% of that
11:04was $54.
11:07So that's what my trailer earned on that
11:08load. And then another one, Puller,
11:11Georgia to Phoenix, Arizona, 4,100 was a
11:13total line haul, [gasps] $369 bucks. So
11:16the trailer this week earned $873.
11:21This is page three of the same
11:23settlement. This is for the truck. Guess
11:25this balance starts at zero and you've
11:27got to build it up to a,000. So, it's
11:29not working down from a,000 down to
11:30zero. So, that shows how much you've
11:32paid in. And once you get to a,000,
11:34that's all that's there. That's all you
11:36have to have is for escrow. And I don't
11:39remember, it's been so long, I don't
11:41know how how much they take per week or
11:43per month for escrow. It's not very
11:45much, though. So, the truck earnings
11:47year to date was $75,000.
11:51And these should be those same [sighs]
11:54these same loads. Lone Oak, Arkansas to
11:57Miami, Florida 5600. And so, this is one
12:01of the reasons I was I was trying to
12:02explain that Landstar doesn't take 35%.
12:06Because you you're getting a fuel search
12:08charge. So, if you look at the amount of
12:10this load, this load actually paid more
12:12than 5600.
12:14Now, all my trailer showed was 5600, but
12:17on the truck, I got 100% of the tarping
12:19charges. I mean, and that's just if
12:22you're at Landstar, that's kind of a
12:24negotiating thing. You can get their
12:26agents to give you a higher more of the
12:29percentage of the total revenue being
12:30100% to you just by getting them to
12:34throw tarping. I have no idea if I even
12:35tarp this load or not. Um, I mean, I got
12:38a lot of tarping charges when I wasn't
12:39tarping just because I'd, you know, I'd
12:42get them to add additional accessorial
12:45charges to it through a [snorts] lot of
12:48times it'll be called tarping or I mean,
12:50they could use different things, but a
12:52fuel search charge is one that's going
12:54to be on all of yours. So, this one, the
12:57fuel search charge was $700, $200 for
12:59tarping. So there's an additional $900
13:02or not an additional so whenever
13:04whenever you agree to the load you're
13:06agreeing to the total price of the
13:08entire load but then they'll break out
13:11your fuel search charge and then they'll
13:13break out additional
13:15assessorial charges uh tarping on this
13:18one [gasps] but you can see this one
13:20underneath the per Georgia to um Phoenix
13:23Arizona there's no tarp charges it's
13:26just the fuel search charge but that's a
13:28pretty good chunk of change that fuel
13:30search charge. I mean cuz it's a long
13:31load. So I mean I needed that fuel
13:35search charge. You should be getting a
13:37fuel search charge whether it's
13:39Landstar, Schneider, Mercer, Bennett, uh
13:42any smaller company, you know, you
13:45should always I mean depending on I
13:47guess you not always just depending on
13:50how the pay structure is set up. I don't
13:51know that there's anything else to
13:52explain on this one. The the truck stop
13:54scan up here there's two of them.
13:57deductions and charges of $2. That's for
14:00using So, these are just transflow
14:04charges.
14:06I think there's another way you can send
14:08the bills into them, but I always just
14:09use transflow cuz it's so quick and
14:11easy. It's a rounding error compared to
14:15most things. So, let's go through these
14:18are the your settlement expenses or your
14:20settlement deductions is what they call
14:22them. The first line item here is else
14:25and these some of them are weekly, some
14:27of them are monthly. So I whenever I
14:30pull up the next settlement for the
14:33gosh, I don't know. I'll try hopefully
14:36there's some different charges on the
14:38one the final one from 2024 whenever I
14:41quit.
14:43But if not, I may I've got a couple
14:45other ones saved I can pull up. And this
14:48isn't like I didn't cherry pick the
14:50best. I'm not going to show my best
14:52settlements or anything that
14:55this is this is probably on the I'd say
14:58on the better side of the spectrum. It's
15:00not my best though. It's it's certainly
15:03not my worst. Um and I looked I tried to
15:06find neg uh some negative settlements,
15:08but I don't I was having to
15:12they don't just automatically send these
15:13to you. These are saved to their
15:15website. So, if I had a negative
15:18settlement, I guess I I didn't email
15:20those to myself because I I had to I
15:22looked through probably 40 different
15:24settlements to try to find a negative
15:27settlement. There there are negative
15:28settlements if you when you don't work
15:31and you have these charges that I'm
15:32about to go over with you. You can have
15:34a negative settlement where you owe
15:36Lancar money. Um, but I wasn't able to
15:39find an example of that, unfortunately.
15:42Um, but I had plenty of them. I mean,
15:44like I said earlier, I I never worked
15:47more than 8 months out of the year. So,
15:49the LCN fees, I I believe the LCN
15:52charges are for like your Honestly, I
15:55don't remember.
15:57>> [sighs and gasps]
15:58>> I was going to say that's for your ELD,
16:00but I'm I think I'm reme remembering
16:02that I think the ELD charges are called
16:04airway some something over the air
16:06charges or I think there's some other
16:08thing, but LCN fees there's a chance
16:11that could be related to an ELD [sighs]
16:14and I can't even spell my name right.
16:16Blackenship.
16:18[screaming]
16:19That's crazy.
16:21After all these years, I never could
16:23spell my name right. [sighs and gasps]
16:24CPP, contractor protection plan. That's
16:28like a crappy version of uh workers
16:30comp. It's not really workers comp, but
16:33[sighs]
16:34it's what they offer. And it's I believe
16:37they I'm not sure if that's required.
16:41If it's not required, they certainly
16:42made it sound like it was required and
16:44they encouraged you to sign up for it.
16:46But it's way too expensive for what it
16:48is. I mean, I don't think I don't think
16:50this is anywhere close to what actual
16:51workers comp is. Um, anyways, that's
16:54there.
16:56The prepass
16:58charge $2.50.
17:00And these are here's weekly deductions.
17:02Unladen liability charge
17:05$33.98.
17:082022 permits, just random permits that
17:11they pay for and then you have to pay
17:13them back for. [sighs]
17:15So, this will show certain things. If
17:18you look at this original balance here,
17:20this is what the total cost of something
17:22is. They don't make you pay for it all
17:24up front. Like the one I'm about to talk
17:26about is this my base plate. I just let
17:29them get it. You You don't have to let
17:30Landstar do your base plates. You can
17:33bring your own base plate to Landstar if
17:34you'd like to. As they charge you, like
17:37you can see there was 2 cents remaining
17:39balance. And that shows my after this 2
17:42cents was taken down on this settlement.
17:44My remaining balance is now $0 for the
17:472022 permits. [sighs and gasps]
17:50But the remaining balance that I I
17:51started with 1,700 for the base plate.
17:54My remaining balance is $1,3224
17:58because I was paying them $944
18:01every week. So, and this shows the total
18:031099 revenue. Uh the total expenses,
18:07deductions charged for that week and the
18:10net. So, here's the final page, page
18:13four. It's just a summarized version of
18:17everything we've already seen. And I
18:18think there is one other thing, the
18:19direct deposit fee. [sighs and gasps]
18:21So at Landstar, you have to pay for your
18:23own direct deposits. They'll put all
18:24your money onto your settlement card and
18:27then you can manually send money to your
18:30bank account from that. This shows my
18:33trailers
18:35revenue. It shows my tractor's revenue.
18:38And then this was the uh the refund was
18:41the IFA refund. Shows my total
18:44deductions here.
18:47and the Nets. Um, so the total
18:52for this settlement was
18:56919314
18:59after they pull out the direct deposit
19:00fee. 9191 uh39. The bottom section here
19:06is future loads or loads that you've
19:09already booked that you may or may not
19:11have delivered, but it's loads that
19:12you've either booked or you've booked
19:15and picked up and are in transit with,
19:18but you have not um or even if you've
19:21delivered them, if you haven't been paid
19:22on a load yet, it's going to show up
19:24down here. And then at the bottom, they
19:26just keep you updated so you know when
19:28your next inspection is due. This is one
19:31of my least favorite things about
19:32Landstar. I really hated their 120day
19:35inspections. Not so much the frequency.
19:37I mean, they're useful to I mean, have
19:40somebody else look over the truck on a
19:42regular basis. I mean, that's kind of
19:43helpful, but I just hate the fact that
19:45they they make you go through a Landstar
19:48inspection rather than just I mean, if
19:50you could just go to any shop that does
19:52DOT inspections, it really wouldn't have
19:53been as bad. and they tell you about
19:55maintenance report being due and other
19:57other things I just want to keep you
19:59aware of will be down here in this
20:00bottom section.
20:02Okay, so here's a much less impressive
20:05settlement to look at. It's not
20:07negative, but it's not as good. This was
20:11the this was my final my final
20:13settlement before I quit. So you can
20:16just compare this was already this was
20:18May 21st. So that other one was through
20:21the end of March. This is almost to the
20:22end of May and my trailer had only made
20:24like $5,000 so far for the year. That's
20:28pretty bad. Oh, this is my actual TR.
20:31Okay. Well, they got a tire purchase on
20:33here. So, I thought this might have been
20:36that top sheet. I don't know if there's
20:37four pages on this one or not. I hadn't
20:39even looked through it all yet. So,
20:41there So, you can you can pay your tires
20:44off over time. Apparently, that's what I
20:46did on this one because [gasps] because
20:49things were I'd normally never paid them
20:51off over time, but uh I'd normally just
20:53tell them just take it all off of the
20:55same settlement, but [gasps] that kind
20:57of is just an example of the state of
20:59the trucking market back in 2024.
21:03I mean, and we kind of had a similar
21:04trucking market in 25, but when you
21:06start financing your tires and paying
21:08them down over time, you know, it's
21:10pretty bad. This is going to have all
21:12sorts of just weird I think these are
21:14some advil alarm charges through from
21:16the state of Arkansas. Okay, because
21:18this is my final one. I think I'd
21:19advance myself some money. That's what
21:21that card pre-trip
21:23deduction is. And then this is the
21:26normal stuff we looked at. Rate change.
21:30Okay. So if there's an every now and
21:32then you'll see an adjustment
21:34to
21:36for for whatever reason if they I guess
21:38they underpaid me on this load so they
21:40add an additional two uh $22.75
21:44if something wasn't correct in the
21:46system eventually it'll if you don't
21:48catch it a lot of times their system
21:50will catch it or somebody will. But
21:52you'll also have, if you go through
21:54Gallagher Insurance, which is their main
21:56insurance provider, [clears throat]
21:58you'll have your physical damage will be
22:00here for your truck and trailer. You'll
22:02see I'm going to look for one, see if I
22:05can find that on one of them. Physical
22:07damage for my trailer was $162
22:11per month. So, the physical damage
22:14premiums for the truck were $258.
22:18There's the money I made
22:20through the end of May with Landstar.
22:22[sighs]
22:24That's why I decided not to fix the
22:27truck and I just took it out of service
22:28for a year. So these and these numbers
22:31are all they're total revenue numbers.
22:34They're I mean that's not income. That's
22:38gross revenue. So, and these numbers
22:41here, like if you've been looking at the
22:44year-to- date earnings on any of these,
22:46that's that's not profit. Here's a 1099
22:51from 2022.
22:53That's I'm sure people comment that's
22:56terrible. You should have done a lot
22:58better. Or some people think that's a
23:00lot. I mean, that doesn't include
23:02obviously I didn't make that much money
23:04because I had expenses. I had fuel. I
23:07had all sorts of other cost, insurance,
23:09everything you saw in the settlement
23:11[gasps] stuff. But you can make money
23:14with Landstar.
23:16Here's a less impressive number. [sighs]
23:19[gasps] If you thought I did bad in that
23:21year, well, you probably thought I did
23:22real bad in 2023.
23:26There's 2024. Even less impressive. Now,
23:30this 2024 numbers, I mean, it wouldn't
23:32have been that bad, but [gasps] that was
23:34only through the end of May.
23:39So, if you're looking at
23:43not having your trailer
23:46and you're thinking
23:49that like if if you just want to use a
23:50Landstar trailer, you think that's a
23:52bigger deal. What I'm what you're not
23:54seeing on the on what I showed is the
23:56expense line item. So, you might be
23:58missing that trailer income line item if
24:00you don't have their trailer, but you're
24:02also missing either your trailer payment
24:06of your loan payment that you're if
24:08you're paying the trailer off or your um
24:13your trailer rental monthly fee. So,
24:17it's not well and you also avoid, you
24:20know, with that trailer I you notice I
24:23have um that physical dam, you know,
24:26I've got physical damage policy
24:27insurance on the trailer. So, it's a
24:30closer it's the numbers are closer than
24:32they appear. I mean, I I still think
24:34having your own trailer is beneficial.
24:37Uh unless you do if you don't do a bunch
24:39of dropping hooks, then obviously it's
24:41not beneficial at all cuz you can't do
24:43it. The reason I really didn't like the
24:47dropping hooks, and I did a lot of them
24:48for a while while I was uh
24:52um when I was pulling the van. I mean,
24:54the only vans I pulled was
24:57the I never owned a dry van.
25:00>> [clears throat]
25:00>> So, but the reason
25:04I like having your own trailer versus
25:06doing the drop and hooks or I mean uh
25:09versus just using a Landstar trailer is
25:12because you've got to do inspections,
25:14you got to do repair. Like if you hook
25:17up to a new trailer in their trailer
25:20pull, you go haul a load with it.
25:24You might haul another load and then you
25:25do a drop and hook, you end up with a
25:27different trailer. If you go do dropping
25:29hooks back and forth all the time, then
25:31you literally have a new trailer every
25:33load.
25:36Well,
25:37the inspection process whenever a
25:40problem comes up. And another factor is
25:43that the the equipment has different
25:45inspection cycles. So, if you have your
25:47own trailer, if you have your truck and
25:50trailer, you're doing the inspections at
25:52the same exact time. So, the trailer
25:54inspection comes due the same time your
25:56truck inspection comes due. You do them
25:57both at the same time. You get
25:58everything fixed at the same time.
25:59Anything that needs to be fixed.
26:02Well, if you're always hooking up to a
26:03different trailer, they you hook up to a
26:06new trailer and it shows, oh, inspection
26:08pass due. They want you to go do the
26:11inspection.
26:13You don't have to do the inspection, by
26:15the way. Um, if you hook up to a new
26:17trailer and they tell you you have to go
26:18do an inspection,
26:22no, don't do that. Get your load, do
26:24whatever. you need to talk to somebody
26:26else, a higher up that has more common
26:28sense than whoever the hell is telling
26:29you you had to do an inspection right
26:30away because there's people that never
26:33do inspections on the Landstar trailers.
26:35And when I was new, I thought every time
26:38that thing showed up in my settlement
26:40that the like a a trailer inspection
26:42warning or something that I was supposed
26:45to go do it
26:47and yeah, you should. And I did a lot of
26:50inspections on those trailers and they
26:52pay you I think they pay you some little
26:55dollar amount to do it. But
26:58it's not worth it. It's definitely not
27:00worth the time. I mean I think it's less
27:02than $100 they pay you. And just the
27:05amount of time of going in to check in
27:07at a inspection site is not worth a
27:10hundred bucks. Um you know drive cuz
27:13you're drive you have to drive to
27:15whatever site it you know wherever it
27:17is. It's not worth it. But let's say you
27:20do an inspection, and I I mean, if you
27:24if you're going to hold that trailer for
27:25any amount of time, I mean, you should
27:27do the inspection on it. You should get
27:29it done, but it's it's it makes more
27:33sense if you have your truck inspection
27:35coming up and then you can get both of
27:36them done. Like, you can get their
27:38trailer inspected and you can get your
27:39truck inspected at the same time. That's
27:41what would make that's what makes the
27:42most sense really. That's what you
27:44should always try to do.
27:47But let's say you're in the trailer
27:49pull, you're doing the dropping hooks,
27:51you do an inspection on a trailer,
27:54there's whatever, or even if you don't
27:56do an inspection, this is more common is
27:59you're not doing the inspection, but you
28:02hook up to a new trailer and whoever had
28:04it before you, there was all sorts of
28:06problems. Um, lights that didn't work,
28:10brakes are there's air leaking out of
28:12everything. Now, Landstart, in my
28:15experience, they have a pretty decent
28:17trailer pull. It's not just a bunch of
28:19garbage trailers, but you do still I
28:21mean, it's reality of life of any drop
28:24and hook operation. You're going to hook
28:26up the trailers that have problems. And
28:28you're going to hook up the trailers and
28:29you're not going to want to move those
28:31trailers until something is fixed on
28:33them. Or you're just going to want to
28:34move them a little ways up the road and
28:36get something fixed.
28:39So, if you do that, you get it fixed,
28:43and then two loads later, you hook up to
28:45a new trailer, you find more problems
28:47with that trailer, you do another load
28:49or three loads or whatever it is, you
28:51drop that trailer, hook up to a
28:53different trailer, more problems. So,
28:54you can keep fixing problems for
28:56everyone else. If you own your trailer,
28:58you fix a problem, you benefit from that
29:01repair and that time that you spent
29:03getting that problem resolved um long
29:07term.
29:08So, that's why I like having my own
29:10trailer. Um, in addition to the
29:13percentage, I mean, obviously it pays
29:15the trailer. If you own your trailer, it
29:16pays
29:20I'm supposed to wake up apparently. But,
29:23um, it pays the trailer pays for itself.
29:25So, I don't even look at a trailer
29:27payment as a that's not even really a
29:29cost cuz it it it pays its own way.
29:35Um, and then eventually like my
29:37trailer's paid off. So now that the
29:39trailer's paid off and my payments were
29:40really low, I mean there's people that
29:43had lower payments, but my payments were
29:44only
29:46like $1,100
29:50cuz I got it when I got a low interest
29:52rate. Uh, and
29:56I bought the trailer before
30:00all the money printing started.
30:03I was able to get it for
30:06I got it for about somewhere around 35%
30:11of what a I specked a trailer out a
30:15couple two or three years after I bought
30:16it. I was like, "Okay, if I just want to
30:18get a brand new version of this, spec up
30:20identical trailer, same manufacturer,
30:22Dunan
30:24um
30:26lowro 3xle.
30:31I don't think I can come up with
30:32anything additional. Although I had
30:34switched the ramps from instead of ramps
30:38on the sides, I had ramps on the back
30:40like a beaver tail setup, but that was
30:42the only difference. And I don't think
30:44the cost difference on that was anything
30:47significant. They wanted $110,000 for
30:51the trailer. I only paid $40,000. So
30:56whatever the math on that comes out to
30:58less than 40% of what the new and I
31:00didn't buy new. I mean, I bought it when
31:02it was has a few years old. It's a 2015,
31:05so it's got some age on it now, but
31:09I would
31:11and I've thought about buying a new I've
31:13thought about going over to that
31:16Beavertail thing now, and I just
31:18recently specked one out. They're
31:21$20,000 cheaper. Now, I hadn't put all
31:24of the I put, I'd say 70% of the options
31:27that I wanted, but I still had a few
31:29other little conveniences I wanted to
31:33add to it.
31:36But I had most everything on there and
31:38it was only going to be I think they
31:39came up with 89,000
31:43where, you know, couple years prior was
31:46110,000. So, trailer prices have
31:48actually come down and that was from
31:50Dunan. That was the same manufacturer.
31:54I didn't pull the trigger on it either
31:55time. Uh, I thought 110,000 was high at
31:59the time and now in the market we're in,
32:02I thought 89,000 was high. I mean, too
32:04high for me to justify whenever it's not
32:06going to make me any more. It will save
32:08me time and I would have the ramps like
32:10the ramps on this trailer got stolen.
32:13So, I've already kind of rang the
32:14register on that. The insurance paid me
32:16six grand for those ramps and I just
32:18never replaced them because I didn't use
32:20them that much. And the ramps,
32:25I kind of look at it like tarping. Like
32:27you've got to pay me more to get them
32:29out and use them because those ramps
32:32take a little bit of time to drag back
32:34there and set up and everything. The
32:36ones that are on the side of the
32:37trailer. But if I had the dovetail or
32:40beaver tails, then I wouldn't really
32:42have to charge them. I wouldn't have to
32:44get a premium. I could just do it for
32:47more like what the general freight
32:49whatever just regular loads are paying
32:51because it wouldn't just flipping them
32:53out from the back wouldn't take any
32:54time.
32:57But there's so many hot shots that have
32:59you know they've got ramps all set back
33:01up there. So you there's not really a
33:03premium built into the price. So, you
33:05just have to you got to negotiate and
33:09just explain to them, I'm not getting
33:10these ramps out unless you add $500 to
33:13the price kind of thing. And a lot of
33:15times they can just find somebody to do
33:17it cheaper. And if they can do that,
33:19that's better for them. And if they
33:20can't do that, well, I'm not hauling it.
33:22I'm not going to spend extra time
33:24whenever I can go 5 miles over up the
33:27road and do a load that doesn't require
33:29the ramps for the same price or close to
33:31the same price.
33:33So, that's why I don't like those ramps
33:35on the sides. Um, every now and then if
33:37you're in a bad area, I mean, I used
33:38them to get out of bad areas and I a
33:40couple times I had some good paying
33:42loads on them, but most of the places
33:45you go, like if they're a bigger
33:46manufacturer,
33:48um,
33:50they've got ramps. Military, they have
33:53they've got ramps most of the time. Not
33:55all the time, but most of the bases here
33:58in the United States will have a dock or
34:01something for you to back up to.
34:06And I looked the
34:08So,
34:10what's the name of that?
34:18um a guy, a YouTuber, truck driver,
34:21Super Trucker Dan, he he's sponsored by
34:24his trailer, the trailer he uses, uh
34:27Dorsy, and I saw he did a video
34:31on a trailer they had that had built-in
34:33ramps for the top, like mine's got ramps
34:35for the top deck, and they slide they
34:37slide away. But theirs were built into
34:40the trailer deck which has some pros and
34:43cons. But they had their they had them I
34:46think they call them mega ramps or
34:50they had some name for them but they
34:53were fold out. And the problem with that
34:56those trailers are super cheap. I was
34:58actually like I could have got that
35:00trailer for 50 less than 60 grand with
35:02all the options on it. But they're the
35:06way they're engineered.
35:08The hinges on the back of those ramps
35:11were not
35:12engineered in a way that I could use
35:14them to back up to a dock cuz it would
35:17crush the hinges. They're all exposed.
35:20And it's I mean it's a massive amount of
35:22the hinge that's exposed. It's not
35:23something where you could add I mean
35:24you'd have to add like it looked like
35:26maybe an 8 to 12 in dock bumper off the
35:29back and still I wouldn't really be
35:31comfortable with bumping a dock with it.
35:34And so
35:37I asked him about doing like
35:41re-engineering those and they it didn't
35:44sound like they wanted to mess with it
35:45or I asked the dealership to ask them
35:48and uh
35:50they didn't want to mess with it but u
35:52Dunan does more customized like they'll
35:54they'll just custom fabricate whatever
35:56you need and I'm sure Dorsy will they
35:58would do it if it made sense but for a
36:00sing like I'm a single truck owner
36:04They don't want to
36:06they don't want to put they don't want
36:07to put a team of people on on some
36:10problem like that to to try to satisfy a
36:13single purchase, you know, a single uh
36:17transaction.
36:20But anyways,
36:23y'all take care. Thanks for watching the
36:25video. Like, comment, subscribe, and
36:27I'll see you next time.

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