advice needed can"t deicde what to do

Recently i"ve been turning down alot of HEAVY iron i can move up to 33k at a time but i am talking car carriers(13-16 car) pete 379 dump trucks semi tractor trailers and busses move than you can imagine. the couple we have doen took weeks with two guys and a ton of acytelene yet again today i turned down e fire enignes 1 hook& ladder 2 pumpers.

is it time to move up to a landoll??? my insurance would junmp about 30k a year and the 8 feet per gallon i get wouldn"t help on the other hand i move a lot of metals and i may be able to sublease it advice????

fwiw i hae a cdl class a all endorsements and my own operating authority so fmcsa and dot is a breeze

Its up to you brother. May be time to take the plunge. I definitely would if I had the cash. You might even hit a NICHE market that noone else can do. But stuff like the fire engine is WORTH the time to cut it up. I would have never passed it by. Hell I would give my left nut and right kidney for a pumper and fire truck. You know how much wire, copper, brass, and equipment like a genny is in there???? You talking 4x shred.

At least your in Jersey man. I have a class a cdl myself. According to federal regs need to maintain a dot physical or they gonna pull it. Some new bs they started. Think its nationwide, so might want to check that.

P.s Last thought. What about posting on USHIP or the load boards at the truckstops. Or even hit the TA at Columbia or the petro at bordentown and find a driver with his own truck to move it. Or maybe a company driver that likes to live on the wild side and use his company truck...lol.

I used to do that back in the day. Use the company truck...pull other drivers out in storms and what not. Back in the trailers in. I knew the risks and didnt care lol. Dinner money..lmao. And no never caught. And only reason Im not on the road is I wanted to be in my 3 year old son lifes and also cant pass a physical no more.

ozzy i have the valid medical card there really aren"t alot of truckstops by me and i would rather not consume my resources on one peice as the last couple of times it was a headache getting everything else done on top of it.

Uship and centraldispatch as well as load boards are a headaches hell uship by itself SUCKS. i used to do work for all 3 uship and cd could care less about the operators. my biggest fear is once i own it the calls stop coming

Even if you decided to go up to a land doll (and believe me I don't know much about them) and the calls for that big scrap stop coming would you still be able to use it to move larger loads of cars to the yard? I guess I'm asking more to the point would there be other uses that you can use the doll for to justify its purchase?

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDUwWDYwMA...6qWg~~60_3.JPG
landoll type trailer and tractor and moving cars on it would cost me money

The question is if you get this trailer will you still have plenty of reserve cash left for slower times..........I have not made the plunge to get bigger equipment due to this.........I have a nice cushion but that would be gobbled up quick if I moved up to that level.........If you can get it and not have to dip to much into your rainy day fund go for it...........Just remember what Puffy said "MO MONEY MO PROBLEMS"

mike i have a pretty big cash reserve i am more worried is there enough work for it my wife keeps encouraging me to go for it but i feel it"s not the smartest move based on area

so conflicted

I always found that when I bought equipment ("a" trailer; bigger trailer etc), the work followed to justify it. Funny how it worked, but I'd get calls I couldn't have handled before.

Time to listen to the wife. "Go big or go home" has been working for me so far.

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Originally Posted by Mick

I always found that when I bought equipment ("a" trailer; bigger trailer etc), the work followed to justify it. Funny how it worked, but I'd get calls I couldn't have handled before.

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I agree when I ran a larger operation in Nashville we started with one truck and ended up with 3 trucks and four trailers and found a use for all the equipment
Funny how it works if you've got space you will fill it with something!

i"ve been threw hell and back with go big or go home at one time i had a brand new 05 f650 21.5 rollback NEVER AGAIN when the price of metal dropped i lost my ass and then some. so i always look at costs several times before pulling a trigger

OK I want to make a few excellent suggestions.

1. When you are bidding on heavy iron and don't have the equipment to do it then don't attempt it. The only problem I see with your predicament is you have the equipment to do it it seems you just don't know how to utilize it effectively. You have a roll back or huge trailer. If you don't have a skid steer then buy one. You can get a cheap (Bobcat, Case, John Deere) big one with a 1000 hours on it or slightly more for around 15,000 not even close to the cost of a landall trailer.

2. Call the yard and get a price on unprepared HMS scrap picked up from wherever the location is at. Figure out the mileage between the yard and the job location and give it to the salesman. Tell him you want quoted a picked up price for you scrap and weather you are going to live load the container or have them drop one off load it then pick it up later. Always live load if its one load. You can save a few bucks if you live load this way the yards make one round trip instead of two. Multiple loads they should spot a container then pick it up once its full.

3. Cut the scrap up into pieces you can move with the bobcat. Should dramatically cut down on your oxy/prop use. My rules was if I could roll it I could load it into a container. load the larger bulky pieces first on the bottom of the container then fill in the holes in the container with scrap you can pick up and load over the side of the container.

4 Always get the largest roll off they offer. Have them spot it as close to your material as possible. Do the above steps and repeat until the job is done. Remember you can only load a high side 40, 50, 60, 80 yard roll off a foot above the dumpster or you will be over 13"6. Go over every option with the salesman. Its there job to know what you need and equip you with containers and give you a great price

You don't need a new huge trailer and all the headaches that come from it. Let the yard handle it. That is why they have 10 million plus of insurance. Keep in mind you are dealing with scrap and you can beat it up because it doesn't matter if you F it up its scrap. Ram it and cram it in there containers.

I hope this helps you out.

i can only imagine the possibilities for a used fire engine, id strip the bed off and part it out and make it a flatbed. Or just buy it at scrap price and resell it.

Quit being a sissy and drop the hammer and do the dam thing already. If you not willing to stick your neck out then your not willing to make money. Old boss man I use to work for once told me nothing worth having comes without effort or headaches. I don't know if that helps any but best of luck to ya bro

I've turned down bigger jobs to, not because we can't do it, but because of time. I've got a steady flow of cars from a few sources so I hate to put them off for a couple days worse thing I can do is to tick off one of my clients. I'm pretty sure you have the same situation except on a bigger scale. I agree with pistone on the roll offs if a job comes along you can't resist hire your scrap yard, with the loads you bring in on your pics they would probably do it free for you. Its all in your relationship with your yard. Also around here you can rent the skid steers for abou 800 a week

And you can't possibly think of other things to do with a trailer like this at times when you don't have large scrap metal?

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Originally Posted by Libertytow

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDUwWDYwMA...6qWg~~60_3.JPG
landoll type trailer and tractor and moving cars on it would cost me money

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not sure what your hauling with now, but if you already have a semi you may look into one of the 5th wheel wreckers. Welcome To ProTote - The World's Finest Fifth Wheel Semi-Truck Wrecker Or ya may look at getting hooked up with someone with a heavy duty wrecker already. In my area theres a lot of smaller wrecker guys with the capabilities of hauling for ya as long as their making a dime too.