Question on how make money renting my truck.

I’m not sure which forum this question belongs in. Admin feel free to move it or delete it if violates the rules. Apologies in advance

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I have 2017 truck with 50,000km on it. My weekends are free and I was thinking about providing hauling or moving services. Has anyone ever done this? How did you price the jobs? How much can one potentially make? Ideally I would want customer to load and unload and I would provide the driving. I’m just wondering if I can make a few extra bucks since my truck is just sitting there. I’ve never done anything like this for others. Wondering if anyone can chime in with experience. I live in Southern Ontario (Canada)

In the US you can't use a private vehicle for commercial purposes (except maybe Uber).
Liabilities, insurance, etc should be confirmed. What if they drop a load into your truck and damage it? What if you damage their cargo while driving?
What if their valuable antique clock gets destroyed if you're in an accident?

Doing favors for friends is completely different than dealing with customers.

There was a guy on here who was trying to do it, he hasn't been on in a couple years, but he did have a few posts about it. do a search for posts by JimsRamTruck2012, it was some of the more recent ones, not real far back

If you rent a trailer say at uhaul, you can then use that to haul stuff around and makes it a little easier ... but I would still get some kind of business insurance to cover any accidents ...

Then you don't have to worry about your truck much

NJMOPAR said:

In the US you can't use a private vehicle for commercial purposes (except maybe Uber).
Liabilities, insurance, etc should be confirmed. What if they drop a load into your truck and damage it? What if you damage their cargo while driving?
What if their valuable antique clock gets destroyed if you're in an accident?

Doing favors for friends is completely different than dealing with customers.

Click to expand...

You actually can ... you can use it to deliver for Amazon, moving companies, hauling ..just about anything as long as you carry business insurance ...

I guess laws vary by state but insurance definitely. Gotta have commercial plates/reg here too.

Here in California a lot of companies that need any kind of hauling, delivery, moving services use non commercial vehicles for economy reasons , the insurance just needs to cover what you are using the vehicle for ....

For example, my mobile detail van, I don't use it to haul anything but I use it for detailing services, I have to have small business insurance and commercial insurance ... I actually got a huge discount through my other vehicle's insurance to insure just my van commercially, but still need the small business insurance ...

If you are letting people load and unload items in the bed of your truck, get some bed caps to protect the top/sides of the bed. People are going to ding the crap out of it then say, "soooooorrry", and they're not going to really care. My fear is it would get all beat up after a while. Morons letting items slip from their hands, knocking bed frames against the outside, scratches, etc. A dented truck is going to be worth less. You could stand right there to 'police' people to be careful, but for some people, it wouldn't make any difference. Then you have more time invested, and do you really want to get involved with the drama of a wife leaving her obnoxious wife-beating (and armed) husband (??), etc (I've seen that stuff before and it aint pretty ..although they usually are just mouthy).

Investing in an enclosed trailer would make a lot more sense to me. You drop it off, and haul over to the new place when they let you know it's loaded. Items won't fall out onto the road, don't have to worry about strapping things down (like a pickup bed), a lot easier to load/unload. While they're loading you don't need to get drawn into any drama ...go grab some breakfast or whatever and come back ready to go. Let the customers trail in their own car (not in your cab).

Lastly, trailers hold their value really well. My brother buys a new trailer (gets a pretty good deal), and sells them 8 or so years later and he gets like 80% of what he pays. It's astonishing. Therefore he doesn't have to put much maintenance in them.

I have no idea how rideshare and food delivery apps exists. The pay is basically just puling equity out of the car. My wife did a food delivery thing for a while, and I calculated the pay to a tad more than paying for the miles.

For insurance, I use my personal vehicle as my comapnay vehicle. It's strictly for transporting me and occasional materials. It's like $40 per mo extra.

I am retired & now i work for myself.

My Ram is what makes me money
In my business, i am required to have carry the same insurance that every Commercial truck uses for business

You would not need anywhere near the Insurance Coverage that i need.

In California, every pickup truck has Commercial Plates
( Rancheros, El Caminos & similar vehicles, can not carry anything, even fishing boots in the open bed, unless they have Commercial Plates, they can put a shell over the bed to avoid it )

I have to have a minimum of $750,000 Commercial Auto Insurance & $750,000 Professional Liability Insurance, even then, i can not work in some States, like New Mexico or Pennsylvania, because they require $1,000,000 of each insurance.
I pay about $5,600 annually, i would pay $7,200 for a million dollar policy.

I work approximately 3 1/2 months, just to pay for the insurance

If i was not ill at this time, i would be working a minimum of 3 days a week.
There are many truck companies that need my business, i ESC0RT trucks with loads of material that are too wide to fit in a single lane of a Highway

Like this tree



this Mining Truck Bed
There was 5 Highway Patrol cars & trucks with us
It took up more than 2 lanes on a major highway



This specially made box, that was made for a training facility, it will go to Universities & similar places, this was preparation for a test run with the Highway Patrol



my Ram is behind this Yacht

Ya can't compete with the illegal's on craigslist, and to be honest you shouldnt want to. I had a guy with his truck show up to my house (at the time I didnt have a truck) and started loading ice plant, he was so mad at himself for taking this stupid pay nothing job we literally almost got in a fight over it, lmoa? I also attempted to do this on CR with my truck and I can tell you not one job worked out, I didnt give it much of a chance, I could tell this wasnt for me. Trust me you wont get paid near the headache of dealing with people one and one with no company behind you.

I'd try something on the books like goshare, ubber or similar, doordash or similar if you dont like people in your truck, I think u ship or similar but there you have long distance loads. If you want to make some real good scratch, have another service that goes with it, something like tree trimming, or tree planting. Ask your local nurseries if they have something? The bad news around here, the dump is closed on the weekend, which makes it real hard to have your truck ready for work on monday morning. good luck, let us know what you end up with, I'd like to know of good options myself.

You might consider Turo. It's like Air BnB for cars - you rent your personal vehicle to a person thru the Turo app. Here's an ad for a 2019 RAM and the owner of the truck gets CA$144 per day. Set up the rental schedule to make the truck available only on the weekends.

Goshare is an app that's like uber but for local delivery via truck or van. No idea if it's in your area or how likely you are to make any money at it.

I net about $20/hr delivering pizza, although I use my 30mpg Beetle. Not really practical in a truck and not what you're looking for, just throwing it out there.

I would really need money to do this, I can see nothing but headaches
Rent it out? You would need cc service deposits
But I am a old guy and my truck sits most days in the garage looking like new ,2014 .
Around here almost everyone has a truck . Large city would be different

Gmack said:

I’m not sure which forum this question belongs in. Admin feel free to move it or delete it if violates the rules. Apologies in advance

Thread
I have 2017 truck with 50,000km on it. My weekends are free and I was thinking about providing hauling or moving services. Has anyone ever done this? How did you price the jobs? How much can one potentially make? Ideally I would want customer to load and unload and I would provide the driving. I’m just wondering if I can make a few extra bucks since my truck is just sitting there. I’ve never done anything like this for others. Wondering if anyone can chime in with experience. I live in Southern Ontario (Canada)

Click to expand...

Dont do it, no one will ever take care of your truck like you do. We had a 30ft camper we wanted to rent and let the renting pay the payments - sounded like a good Idea, the very first rented did $11,000 worth of damage, they did have insurance and Insurance eventually paid for it but the camper was out of commission for the remainder of the year. We will never again rent something that we did not buy specifically to be a rental

Just a reminder that a) people suck; and b) they will never take care of your stuff like you expect; and finally c) nothing parties like a rental.

Look up "hot shot" towing or hauling. The site I found (didn't save the link) explained it and what you would need to do it.
No way I'd have patience to let strangers near any vehicle I have. Good luck.

Only time to hand the keys to a stranger is after he's bought the truck.

When I picked up this yard of topsoil, some guy asked if I'd come back and haul a yard for him for $20. I said "No, I ain't too happy about how this looks and....this place delivers for less than that any way".