Trucking. A necessary evil.

My old boss told me to never get into trucking. My heavy equipment mentor, Dennis, never had his own trucks.

But I’m hard headed and I don’t listen.

I make the least amount of money with my trucks. I would say on average, I just about break even.

Trucking has the highest overhead and highest cost per truck compared to heavy equipment.

An on road truck requires a special safety inspection, a yearly registration cost of about $1,800 and an extra 4% of heavy vehicle use tax.

And don’t forget special heavy use commercial insurance.

It also costs $2 more per gallon of on road diesel compared to off road diesel.

Trucks require expensive replacement parts. Each truck has a minimum of 10 tires. Tires can cost from $400-$800 per tire, and they wear out like cheap Walmart socks.

Every time a truck breaks down, I think of the B.O.A.T. acronym. Bust Out Another Thousand.

For the most part, a diesel mechanic is required to fix your (often) broke down truck (shout out to Alan and the crew from New Era Diesel repair 🤙🏼).

When a truck breaks down, it is extremely painful. It physically and mentally hurts me. Every single time I ask myself why I didn’t listen to my old boss!

So here’s my reason why.

Nothing in the world gets to where it needs to go without big on road trucks. Right now, your Amazon package is getting delivered by a truck. Food to stock the grocery shelves gets there by trucks.

Building materials, toys, engine parts, toilet paper, boats, planes and most of all, heavy equipment — all get to their destination by a truck.

The world does not function without trucks.

So how can an excavation company run without trucks?

You most certainly don’t have to have your own trucks to move dirt but damn, it sure is convenient.

And that is the magic word. Owning your own trucks is convenience.

Every single day I need to transport equipment to a job or move material. Multiple times per day.

Years ago, when I was so fed up with losing money on trucking, break downs, drivers getting into accidents etc., I thought, “I’ll get rid of all my trucks then just hire a trucking company and bill it into my costs!”

As you can imagine, that idea didn’t work out so well for me.

The reason is because time is money.

I would wait for my guy to move my machine. Then wait for his truck to bring me aggregate. Then hear his excuses of why he couldn’t get there when he said he would because his truck broke down. 🤦🏼‍♂️

It’s the circle of life.

If I can’t make money with my trucks, I’ll make money with my equipment by making sure my equipment keeps moving.

Through the years, I’ve owned many, many, many different trucks and trailer configurations.

My biggest problem was buying someone else’s used broken truck that I thought I could magically restore to its original glory.

That is the biggest lie ever told.

Once I realized it was cheaper in the long run to buy new trucks, it was a little less of a headache for me.

Granted, a new truck or machine is never perfect. It comes with new sets of problems. New trucks still break down, the problems are just fewer than they are on a used piece of 💩.

So here I am now. I just have the bare minimum of trucks and trailers that fit our crew size. We could use more but it’s been good enough to keep the Tru.X machine rolling.

At least good enough for my current stress levels…

#staytrue