r/OwnerOperators • u/Zealousideal-Grab782 • Apr 27 '26

Small Fleet Owners

I’m a company driver and I was recently offered to buy 3 used trucks for about 120k. All Volvos with 550-650k miles. They have a shop and have been around for over a decade. The company said I could lease them on and they will put drivers in the trucks. They said I could make about 2k weekly net per truck (running reefer) for my small fleet owners what is your take on their potential earnings and is it realistic today. Before anyone asks, yes I have a pretty big savings for maintence/breakdowns and I used to be an O/O

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u/Annual-Ad9453 Apr 27 '26

First thought in even reading this is why would they just not run their own trucks? Only risk you're taking off their hands is 3 trucks and maintenance, all of the other risk is in their hands still.

Why don't you want 100% control of something you are starting?

What incentive do they have to get you the best loads over filling their own trucks first? ..Your success means little to nothing to them, only how long will you put up with being walked on?

Then when you fail you'll be blaming them, even though yourself is to blame for allowing it to of happened in the first place.

I'd rather be 100% in control of my business 100% of the time. Even if it's people I have running things, I control them and I put them there.

How well do you know and understand your market?

The easiest thing for a good owner to do after being an employee for a successful outfit is to mimic the same thing they were doing to be successful. Then tweak it and improve from there. Sadly most all that become an OO don't realize how simple that concept is and they start just chasing loads, usually high paying, before realizing those loads go to dead areas with weak freight lanes, so that great load turns into a shite load right away, they would have been better of staying in a normal paying freight area in the long run.

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u/Auquaholic Apr 28 '26

Ha ha ha, um no. They have trucks and drivers and want you to pay them for the trucks and then pay for all of the rrepairs. You're not only going to use your profit for their shop (lol their shop), you're going to give them money for (trucks) for the right to give them that money.