I suggest you run real numbers before you get taken advantage of by one of the RV hauler brokers. A few make a go at it and many discover it doesn't pay ending up with a 1 year old truck that has 100K+ miles on it with a huge payment. Buying a new truck to get into the business is by far the worst way to go about it. Get as old of a truck as they will let you to save monthly payment costs. IMO the 5500 trucks are cheaper than 'everyone wants a Daily Driver diesel pickup' class. 50% loaded or less is BS! You got to drive out and pick up the RV to ship. Backhauls are a joke and if you do get a rare one it generally will have rotten tires costing you time. There is a lot to learn in Hot-Shot. RV hauling is flooded with cheap freight that retirees haul for fuel money to go somewhere. You will want to know your monthly cost: truck payment, insurance, tags, etc. to get a cost per day wheels rolling or not. Then you want your CPM, Cost per mile: loaded and unloaded. You can figure out if a trip is profitable or not when you know these numbers. A quick and dirty way to discourage you is look at what you earn in 100,000 miles ASSuming 50% loaded: $1.50 mile loaded for 50,000 miles is $75,000. That's the cost of a truck equipped. The truck burns fuel, lots of it! 50,000 miles unloaded at 18 MPG is 2777.8 Gal at $2.69 is $7472. Plus 50K miles loaded at 8MPG is 6250 gal at $2.69 is $16,812.50. That's $50,715 left over after just fuel. Take off insurance, meals, Comdata card fees (that you get paid on), hotels or sleep in the trailer when you got one hooked and the weather lets you (against the rules), 2 sets of tires $4000.00, ten oil changes $1000.00, $8400.00 in truck payments... You see where we just went below what a underpaid school teacher earns and you are working your butt off? Assuming nothing major breaks, the roof that pealed off due to shoddy workmanship didn't come out of your $1000 damage deposit, rolling target for DOT harassment didn't cost you a mint... You might ask about Hook and Tow where you load a trailer on a flatbed truck and tow another one behind you delivering 2 trailers at once. No they don't publish the profitable areas of RV hauling, but, IMO Hot Shot or hauling cars has more promise.[/QUOTE
I totally agree!!!
I don't know anything about all the costs stated above, but I know you do not want or need a new truck.
I own a 2003 2500 4x4 with a 3.74 rear end. I bought it to pull a 34 foot Airstream trailer. It had more than enough power to pull that trailer even in the mountains. It gets between 21 to 26 mpg on the road when not pulling a trailer It now has over 240,000 miles on it. I sold the trailer, but I kept the truck. I plan to keep it until the wheels fall off. I remember a Turbo Register article years ago about a guy who put 1,000,000 on a 1995 Dodge Ram and he did it pulling trailers for Airstream. It was a hell of a commercial for the Ram Diesel. He never overhauled the engine. I would have gotten the higher rear end if it were available. Bottom line, my truck has enough power to pull any trailer out there. A Ram with 150,000 miles on it is just broken in. I would look for one with the smaller engine and the high speed rear end. You don't need more than a 2500 either. I intended to buy a 3500, but I did not want a dually. In 2003 it cost extra to buy a 3500 without the dual rear wheels. Sounds dumb, but after looking at the fact that there was no difference in rated capacity, I went with the 2500.
Getting a Ram is the right decision. It is an incredible truck.
Dave
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