Fleet Owners

[flattop40]

One of my goals is to become a fleet owner one day. I know right now is not the best time but I am trying to gather as much info before hand as possible for when the time IS right I will be ready.

My question is in a fleet, is smaller better or is there safety in numbers?

With out divulging too much of your fleet I would like for you to give the number of trucks you have and why you have the number you do.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

 

[flattop40]

WOW, Thanks for all the help.

 

[Tempest]

I have 11 now and control of 4 more. I just added 8 of them so I cant give you an experienced reply to the safety in numbers part. I can only offer my thoughts on the subject. Is thier safety? I think so If your payments are small. I wouldnt want to have half my fleet at $2000+ payments per month right now. With three trucksplus driving one of my brothers myself, many weeks I had to take most of my pay from his truck to maintain mine. I watched his (14) and found that the many did a pretty good job of covering the few that were O/S or just having bad weeks. There hasn't been a whole lot of extrra money these last few months but the bills have been covered and he and his other half have had to eat a few more meals at home these days but they have been doing alright. I thought about this long and hard before deciding to increase the size of my fleet. A few days ago I took the plunge. I added 8 trucks '04-'07 to my fleet with an average payment of $1225 per truck and all but 2 with good teams already in place. I think there might be safety in these numbers anyway but only time will tell. You will wanna do some real thinking before jumping and get a REAL cost per mile to go by. My cpm is a lot more than just fuel and labor. Anyone who will succeed in this will have to know what it really cost to operate the truck and get the "I anm gonna clear .50-.60 per mile" outta there heads. Hope this helps and good luck to you with whatever you decide to do