Anyone Running A Tri-axle In The Northeast?

[linrick1]

I am kicking around the idea of buying a triaxle dump here in Mass. and was wondering what you all think. I'm looking at a 87 Superliner, fresh E9, well maintained for 34,000....the way I look at it is that I can get this rig and make the same hourly rate as the guys who are paying crazy monthly payments for their brand new rigs and I'll have a payment roughly the same as buying a new pickup truck, plus I can do all the work on the truck myself...let me know what you think, thanks, Rick

[twostickmutt]

go for it rick. there's probably a lot of work down your way. i live up in the berkshires and there seems to be a lot up here especially with all this good weather.(about to change) by the way i hauled all the steel into your town for the water treatment plant they put up a few years ago. gave the steel a good ride. back then i had a MH-613 with a E-9/500. good luck if you decide to try it. j.j.

[BKrois]

I'd take a look in truck trader, plenty of good looking trucks for less than $34k. I saw a clean R model tri-axle on the cover of this weeks Auto Hunter magazine. Around here, trucks are getting anywhere from $70-95 an hour, not sure what the rates are up in Mass though.

[MACKS]

Used is the way to go in the dump trucking business in fack I think its the only way unless you have some kind of great account, I work in new york, mostly asphalt I'm very lucky if can get 140 days a year. at 640 a day you do the math!!

[Truck1536]

Used is the way to go in the dump trucking business in fack I think its the only way unless you have some kind of great account, I work in new york, mostly asphalt I'm very lucky if can get 140 days a year. at 640 a day you do the math!!

Hi MACKS,

I also work construction on Long Island. Wonder if we ever worked together. Who do you do truck hire for?

John

my sig picture is not my current ride

[greg]

Deffinately the way to go. I bought an 86 r model 2 years ago. It isn't the prettiest thing you ever saw , but my payment including insurance is less than 400 a month. When you don't have work it is nice knowing that you don't have a 2500 dollar a month payment coming. I have only put about 4000 in repairs in the last 2 years.

greg

[77rmack]

Since you are from Mass. you must be familiar with the former H.W. Webster Stores, A.K.A Blue Seal Feeds, We ran R-600 tri-axels for a long time. Believe me those old top heavy tankers would humble you real quick, but they would go anywhere, give 'em h**l you won't have any trouble.

[twostickmutt]

god bless you guys that have to run that island day in and day out. you should be making 200.00 dollars an hour

[linrick1]

Thanks for all your input on this guys, I'll take all the advice I can get because to myself and my fiance this is a HUGE decision. This would be our first experience purchasing a truck and working for ourselves so it is extaordinarily important that we have as much information as possible, from as many different perspectives as possible, so that we are able to make an informed decision. Keep your opinions coming and thanks again, Rick

[BobsLandscaping]

I know this is an old, old, old post but I wanted to make a comment. If you think it's cool or fun to own your own business try this exercise. Get a 5lb mini sledge and an anvil. Smash your nuts using the mini sledge and anvil. Like it? Good, then you're ready to be your own boss. You're gonna have plenty of days that feel like that, especially in a service business. Customers, collecting money owed you, equipment breakdowns, taxes, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It is really rewarding though to finish a project, have it look great, and have a happy customer that actually pays the final bill on time.

[Maxville Truck]

I know this is an old, old, old post but I wanted to make a comment. If you think it's cool or fun to own your own business try this exercise. Get a 5lb mini sledge and an anvil. Smash your nuts using the mini sledge and anvil. Like it? Good, then you're ready to be your own boss. You're gonna have plenty of days that feel like that, especially in a service business. Customers, collecting money owed you, equipment breakdowns, taxes, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It is really rewarding though to finish a project, have it look great, and have a happy customer that actually pays the final bill on time.

I'm their right now with 9 trucks that get used heavilly for a very short time hauli'n the cow "pooh" collection this spring has been the best it has been for me for a while.... however i've got some old accounts recievable from last fall that suck terribly. Work'n like a dog the wifes bout ready to leave me....... bussiness owners take huge risks with little rewards in the beginning!!

[BobsLandscaping]

I'm up at 3am this morning doing some accounting, need to get some equipment ready to move, meeting the truck at 6 to start loading my equipment, and I'll probably call it a day around 8pm tonight. All in a days work.

With 9 trucks you must be in a whole new circle of Hell called "employees". That can be even worse than non-paying customers. I had to switch insurance companies for my workmans comp, my last company required pre-hire drug tests. No joke, I tested over 200 applicants at $175 a test before I found 3 that were drug free. 1 never showed up, 1 quit after a week, and the last I fired for rolling my mini-excavator. This season I'm using a temp labor service, Express Personnel. I'm sick to death of employees. My new tactic is to spend money on attachments and equipment so I can be more productive on my own, hire subs for specialty work on big jobs (concrete and excavation companies mostly), for grunt work I'm just gonna pick up a few crackheads at Express. Rather than take on huge landscaping jobs that need a 10 man crew for a week. Like for a retaining wall I have going up in two weeks I subbed out the demo of the existing wall and the excavation of the site to another contractor. When I roll in the jobsites going to be prepped and I'll put up the new wall, plant the greenery, and go. I added 10% to the demo and excavation contractors bid when I presented it to my customer so I still make money on that part of the job. Not as much as if i had done it, but it works because I can be on another jobsite when that work is going on.

Unfortunately trucks don't drive themselves so I feel your pain.

[ThaddeusW]

I know this is an old, old, old post but I wanted to make a comment. If you think it's cool or fun to own your own business try this exercise. Get a 5lb mini sledge and an anvil. Smash your nuts using the mini sledge and anvil. Like it? Good, then you're ready to be your own boss. You're gonna have plenty of days that feel like that, especially in a service business. Customers, collecting money owed you, equipment breakdowns, taxes, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It is really rewarding though to finish a project, have it look great, and have a happy customer that actually pays the final bill on time.

Bob its tough running a business isn't it . We aren't in trucking but we run a casino and carnival entertainment company that my grandfather founded in 1952. As for employees, I wish we could turn people into zombies who work for food to keep them alive and never question you. That's about the only reliable employee I can think of . That or a robot (then again they might try to kill us off once they become smart enough). My whole life has been the family business and not only is it seven days a week but it also used to strain relationships. I had a girlfriend dump me because I had to cancel allot of our weekend plans. And me and my mother used to fight allot. Shame it got like that but it was a tough time. Nowadays things are much better but now the economy is in the toilet so its slooooow. On the bright side though, you are in control and get to call the shots. And at the end of the year you brought home the bacon and get to live a little better than most others.

The best employee F@ UP? We sent out a guy with a van loaded with some casino tables for a surprise 50th birthday at some ritzy yacht club. Well the asshole calls his mother for directions instead of us and winds up taking the George Washington Bridge which bridges I95 from the top of Manhattan & The Bronx with New Jersey. He then calls us saying he was lost and was next to Giants Stadium. WHAT! Well needless to say we missed the surprise and the client was so irate that the casino themed party was ruined they sued us. They lost but it cost us allot of money to pay a lawyer over 200 hun an hour to write letters.

As for the rest of our expenses, I don't even want to think about them .

[BobsLandscaping]

This is kind of funny actually. Everything went good until an hour ago, then I got rained out. If I had kept going my CTL was going to tear up the yard bad and I'd be replacing sod at my own expense. So now rather than having my equipment trucked to the next job tonight I have to reschedule everything. It never ends.

How is the casino business anyway? I see you're in the Northeast, you gotta tell me some cool mob stories. Casino operator, NYC, come on, I know you have at least 5 good mobster stories. I've seen every episode of CSI:NY and Law & Order. Never been to NYC but it's on my life list.

You wanna talk about unexpected and catastrophic expenses? Install an irrigation system and hit an unmarked fiber optic bundle with a Ditch Witch. The company that marked the utilities picked up part of the cost but my insurance company was still billed $458,323.25 and I had to pay a $9,000 fine out of my own pocket. All this to install $5,000 worth of lawn irrigation.

Edited May 11, 2009 by BobsLandscaping

[ThaddeusW]

How is the casino business anyway? I see you're in the Northeast, you gotta tell me some cool mob stories. Casino operator, NYC, come on, I know you have at least 5 good mobster stories. I've seen every episode of CSI:NY and Law & Order. Never been to NYC but it's on my life list.

.

Ha, Yea well living in Ozone Park, the home of mob boss John Gotti's "hunting and fishing club" you hear allot of stuff. Not to mention the fact that Ozone Park is next to Howard Beach, a short trip down Crossbay Blvd. Sometimes you see a guy zipping around in a Ferrari and you wonder how he bought it .

As for the business its going ok. Very slow for a while but thankfully picking up with the warm weather coming a little early. Me and my mother pretty much manage the whole thing and have only one full time employee. The rest work as we need them for events but they are a damn pain to deal with. Some don't show, some get drunk at events by sneaking booz, some piss off hosts when they sneak food for the guests when they are told not to. But that's life in this business. You just deal with it and keep moving.

You wanna talk about unexpected and catastrophic expenses? Install an irrigation system and hit an unmarked fiber optic bundle with a Ditch Witch. The company that marked the utilities picked up part of the cost but my insurance company was still billed $458,323.25 and I had to pay a $9,000 fine out of my own pocket. All this to install $5,000 worth of lawn irrigation.

OUCH

[Maxville Truck]

Well heres how my day went yesterday.........

We have a job that we have to transfer manure to a "fraq" tank, so I have special off load booms on three trucks and off shoot elbows on the rest. I had 2 small jobs that 4 of my trucks had to go to whilst I prepped and repaired on the rest. got the rest of the off shoot elbows welded on, had a clutch go out last friday on a 95 DM E7 300. the pilot bearing hole was worn I had an e-6 flywheel sitting around, took both to CATCO had the e-6 one machined. got a new clutch mechanic put it on bolted tranny on put the whole truck together motor wouldnt turn over....... pulled it all back apart (we figured the flywheel was different) here a piece of metal (which he didn't see) was wedged between flywheel housing tan d the flywheel.) needless to say when 5 pm came along he had to punch out so he could work on his "race car"

in the morning while airing up a "flat" at a bout 50 psi the tire exploded scared the living sh&* out of everyone in the shop. thank god it was the inside dual. I then left with another employee we went to my "solid manure job site. Farmer land stacked sand laden manure on a clay field for the last 1.5 years, with wheel ruts under the manure mile I have a 544 john deere payloader I load with, slimmy as hell under the manure pile. I t was a one man job but we were going to finish and move to the next job so we had 2 of us their. after the second load blew a hydraulic line on the loader....... after 1.5 hours we got that going finished what we could. loaded up..... farmers fuel tank went dry.... Fine we took off got about 2 miles up the road and my injection pump coupler somehow decided to come loose and lost time.... pull off the road and park the truck, head for home (7:30 PM) crew chief with the liquid crew calls me he was about to drive my tractor (case IH 7120) home when the steering cylinder end pulls out of the tie rod. HE cant figure it out so I drop the one guy off head for his location, calls me again and said the BLUE WHALE (1995 blue in color MR) over heated and quit. come to find out the belts whent to hell. I got their we fixed the tractor, I got one of the belts back on and limped it home..........

Besides the fact that i have a yard full of "customer trucks" to work on, WHERE THE HELL IS MY PROZACK!!!!

i'M WASTING TIME WITH ALL THIS TYPING I REALIZE, BUT I GOTTA VENT SOMEWHERE.

PS The wifes probabbly gonna leave me...