In the infancy of my becoming an independent motor carrier, it was no surprise that a lot of money would have to be shelled out to make the transition from “leased owner-op” to that of being completely self-reliant. With all the money being shelled out for things such as insurances, permits, apportioned plates, and various other programs I didn’t have to worry about prior to this journey, not a lot of money was left over after general operating expenses for a new trailer. This was one of the reasons I opted for the first few months to haul power-only moves here locally in the Los Angeles area. Being independent but pulling the broker’s equipment, allowed me to save money for the eventual purchase of a dry van to call my own.
After running a couple months of power-only loads to “get my feet wet”, I had saved up a little bit of business capital to purchase a trailer for myself. Although it was not much of a “looker”, in a time when used trailers were in short supply, I was not about to discount a trailer based on looks alone. Though the purchase price was great on that 1999 Great Dane 53-foot air-ride dry van, I would eventually have to dump a bit of money into it to
get it up to par with how I like my equipment to be. Through the natural progression of business, it was only a matter of time before my freight would dictate what equipment I run with in order to make my life a little easier. Although it was a good trailer, the time was upon me to purchase something a little more my style.
Since I was not in a hurry to sell my Great Dane, I decided to take a shot in the dark and put a quick little ad up on Craigslist. Of course, I got the usual scam artists right away trying to offer wire transfers because they were “out of the area”, but I saw right through the two days of that I had to deal with. Then on the third day, I landed the offer for full asking price that would pave the road to a smooth sale transaction. Not being prepared for such a quick sale, I found myself with loads for the following week booked and no trailer to haul them…yikes!
Upon calling to a couple truck/trailer outfits I have rental accounts with, I learned that nothing was available, as many large fleets use up all their inventory for the holiday rush. With that disappointing news, it was time to scour truckpaper.com, and commercialtrucktrader.com online. I guess used trailers are still a hot commodity with a scarce supply, since every time I would call on a trailer, it would only be the same “it’s already sold” story one after another.
I decided to try my luck on Craigslist, the very online marketplace where I have had a lot of luck in the past for various different things. After nearly an hour of searching I was lucky enough to stumble across a set of trailers for sale with a familiar company logo on them. There sitting in front of me were a matched set of eight 2010 and 2011 Wabash Duraplate trailers that the owner of the trucking school where I started my career at all those years ago owned. I had always known he owned a medium-sized trucking company as well, which he was now retiring these trailers from. I jumped at the phone to call him and
was happy he remembered who I was. He agreed to let me come look at them and gave me first dibs on whichever one I wanted, should I decide I wanted one of them. Early the next morning I took a few hours to comb over each with a fine-toothed comb, including hooking up and driving them around, to decide finally on the beauty pictured here. With a great price and a new set of rubber I threw on that day, it is as good as new. It may not be brand new, but it’s definitely new to me!
The path I took to a new trailer may not have been the easiest way to go about it, but in my eyes, it was better than burying my infant independent authority in debt just to have a shiny new trailer in tow. As my customer’s needs changed and I wanted to provide more reliable service to them, the age and condition of my older trailer started to weigh on my mind a bit. When the plywood walls would get snagged or there was another crack I would have to weld, it was just another stone in the bridge I had to cross in my business decision to replace the older trailer with something newer. Although some would beg to differ, in most cases, newer equipment will generally give you more uptime and reliability. Investing in equipment is the responsibility of a good business owner and the decision can be a hard one sometimes. There is no doubt, by feedback from my customers and the feeling of pride I have in it, that this trailer purchase was the perfect addition to my “business toolbox”!