How many miles have you driven and on what vehicles?
The million mile 5.4 thread got me started on this. So, what vehicles have you owned, when have you owned them, and how many miles have you driven them? I'll start:
'82 Jaguar XJ-S V12 - started driving in 4/02, took off the road in 6/04. First year drove 30,000 miles, second year drove 5,000 (35,000 total). The interior was made from particle board and vinyl, and the heater and AC box was made from cardboard. Literally. I made it.
'97 GMC C2500 diesel - bought in 9/03, engine threw a rod 8/04. 30,000 miles in one year.
'04.5 Dodge Ram 2500 diesel 6-speed - bought 9/10/04 with 24 miles on the odometer, sold 9/10/06 with a bit over 107,000 miles on the odometer (65,000 were in the first year!).
'84 Kawasaki KZ700 - bought 12/04 sold 5/05, only put about 500 miles on it
'97 Suzuki Bandit 1200S - bought 8/05 sold 5/06, put 3,000 miles on it. Rode it all over Indiana on my CMA rides and back and forth to Indianapolis from Terre Haute for work... in 20 degree weather!
'92 Lincoln Town Car - bought 2/06 sold 4/07, put 22,000 miles on it in that time
'97 Range Rover 4.6 HSE - bought 9/06, sold 1/08. Put 14,000 miles on it, about 3,000 of which were mine (rest were my ex's... hence the sale)
'89 Jeep Cherokee - bought 9/06, sold 6/07, put 3,000 miles on it
'00 Yamaha VMax - bought 10/06, sold 5/07, put 2,000 miles on it
'92 Jaguar XJS V12 - bought 10/06, still have, put 10k on it so far
'95 Suburban K2500 454 - bought with 198k on it 2/07, sold 11/07 with 214k (16k miles)
'00 Ford Excursion V10 Limited - bought 9/07, still have, put 7,000 miles on it so far
'01 Honda Interceptor - bought 12/07, only put about 200 miles on it
In addition, I put about 10,000 miles on my mom's Infiniti G35 when she had it, and about 10,000 miles on her Volvo S70 GLT that she had before the G35. Assorted mileage on other people's vehicles, too.
Comes out to a total of around 239,000 miles on my vehicles, and somewhere between 260,000 and 270,000 total miles driven... and I've been driving 7 years. In my college years alone I ended up doing somewhere around 175-200k miles.
Of course, I think I drive a lot, and then someone like the million miler goes and shows me what a lot of driving really is!
Mine:
84 Cavalier-36000 1st car Bikes
94 Eclipse-48000 purchase as salvaged 91 CBR Hurricane-2200
97 BMW 318-38000 BMW loaner 92 CBR F2-3000
99 Galant-11000 purch new 95 CBR F3-14000
94 Wrangler-15000 purch at 88000 98 CBR F3- 15000
01 Acura CL-29000 new 03 RC51- 13400 and still going
02 S2000-8000 purch with 4000 05 Kawi 250 (hers) 4000 and still own
03 Maxima-21000 purch with 4000
96 Bronco-25000 Totaled purch at 41000
03 X 41000 and going strong new
Ours
97 Eclipse-9000 (free gift)
93 Wrangler -27000 purch at 77000
04 Jetta TDI- 48000 new two $10k accidents in 3 months
06 Audi A4- 21000 -new -problem car
07 G6 Convertible 18000+ and going great
That puts me at about 320K miles in the 17 years I have owned cars. Plus a bunch of rental miles and a bunch in the vehicles I share with wife. I would say I am around 400K miles driven and totaled or nearly totaled 4. 2 were my fault, the Bronco was not my fault. One major crash every 100K is not bad.
__________________ 03 V10 Excursion Limited 2WD
3.73LS, 6" Fabtech Lift, 35" PC Xtreme ATs
Line X'd Brush Guard and running boards
FM Super 40 w/dual 3" pipes, RAS
11.5+ mpg in town, 13.5+ on the highway
Still miss my 96 Bronco
1956 jeep ? speedo didnt work
1981 Jeep CJ5 15k Stupid hard miles (high school)
1991 F150 4x4 65k miles (college)
1989 Taurus SHO 35k miles (college)
1992 F150 2wd 30k miles (college)
1995 F250 SC LB 4x4 psd 85k miles
1997 F250 SC LB 4x4 psd 105k miles
1999 F350 SC LB dually 4x4 psd 6spd 135k miles
2000 IH 4700LP DT530E 10spd 120k miles
1994 F250 SC LB 4x4 IDI Turbo 80k miles
2002 F350 CC LB SRW 4x4 psd 160k miles and counting
2002 Excursion limited 4x4 psd 4k miles so far (85k on the clock)
834k total for the ones I have owned. 250k of those miles are during a 2yr period when I had a hotshot business. Pretty much avg 35k to 40k a year w/ normal driving.
I have bought and owned way too many cars to even play this game. Including sheriff's office vehicles of course. Overall, I have probably averaged 50,000+ miles a year for most of my driving years (became a deputy sheriff at age 20 by the way). So 38 years x 50,000 miles equals almost 2 million miles in my life so far.
ps - in this 38 years I have never had a moving violation or a major accident of any type.
Marc, you've got me beat but the hot shot businesses sure add the miles up quickly. When I put 65k on my Dodge in a year, that included 30,000 over the course of 2.5 months when I was towing cars cross country. It was a hard way to make money, but the money was good!
Marc, you've got me beat but the hot shot businesses sure add the miles up quickly. When I put 65k on my Dodge in a year, that included 30,000 over the course of 2.5 months when I was towing cars cross country. It was a hard way to make money, but the money was good!
Well, when I was doing the business a few years ago, I had an unenclosed trailer and generally tried to charge 60-70 cents per mile. Shorter trips had higher $/mile. I figured that my operating expenses at the time were something around 15-20 cents per mile (this is with a Dodge diesel that got 13-16 mpg with the trailer loaded, and 18-20 with the trailer empty, when I was paying $2-2.25/gallon for diesel). So, if you had no deadheading, you were making roughly 40 cents per mile. Drive 500 miles in a day, and you've made $200. That's better than I make now.
The problem was that you didn't always manage to work it like that. Frequently you were deadheading. Of course, if you're deadheading you're still making money, but it cuts away at your margins significantly. Plus if you're always eating take-out food and speding the night at a Motel 6, that eats into your daily earnings pretty significantly, like $50-60/day, depending.
Gas costs more now, but I think the demand still exists. The niche that I got into was I would tow mostly non-running cars for people, and I didn't care where they were coming from or going to. DAS and the like only want running cars taken from one big city to another. It didn't matter to me because I was just doing one car at a time, and I had a winch on the trailer. So I saved those people a significant sum of money and hassle. But the people who wanted to know why I wouldn't do a 1500 mile job for $300 ("DAS will do it for that!") didn't seem to get that my service was similar, but different.
I had a lot of personal expenses that summer, so a lot of what I made went straight back out to pay bills. Plus I was working completely off of my own advertising and word of mouth. I was good, reliable, and trustworthy, so I got calls from people with references and repeat business for about a year afterwards. Had I stuck at it, I'm sure I would have no problems making good money now. But I like being at home most of the time and being more stationary. It's a great job to do for a certain amount of time. You can see the country on someone else's dollar, and see all kinds of great places. I'd definitely recommend it as a summer job, but it helps if you can talk yourself up well (but not boast or be egotistical) and be a good negotiator.
Well, when I was doing the business a few years ago, I had an unenclosed trailer and generally tried to charge 60-70 cents per mile. Shorter trips had higher $/mile. I figured that my operating expenses at the time were something around 15-20 cents per mile (this is with a Dodge diesel that got 13-16 mpg with the trailer loaded, and 18-20 with the trailer empty, when I was paying $2-2.25/gallon for diesel). So, if you had no deadheading, you were making roughly 40 cents per mile. Drive 500 miles in a day, and you've made $200. That's better than I make now.
The problem was that you didn't always manage to work it like that. Frequently you were deadheading. Of course, if you're deadheading you're still making money, but it cuts away at your margins significantly. Plus if you're always eating take-out food and speding the night at a Motel 6, that eats into your daily earnings pretty significantly, like $50-60/day, depending.
Gas costs more now, but I think the demand still exists. The niche that I got into was I would tow mostly non-running cars for people, and I didn't care where they were coming from or going to. DAS and the like only want running cars taken from one big city to another. It didn't matter to me because I was just doing one car at a time, and I had a winch on the trailer. So I saved those people a significant sum of money and hassle. But the people who wanted to know why I wouldn't do a 1500 mile job for $300 ("DAS will do it for that!") didn't seem to get that my service was similar, but different.
I had a lot of personal expenses that summer, so a lot of what I made went straight back out to pay bills. Plus I was working completely off of my own advertising and word of mouth. I was good, reliable, and trustworthy, so I got calls from people with references and repeat business for about a year afterwards. Had I stuck at it, I'm sure I would have no problems making good money now. But I like being at home most of the time and being more stationary. It's a great job to do for a certain amount of time. You can see the country on someone else's dollar, and see all kinds of great places. I'd definitely recommend it as a summer job, but it helps if you can talk yourself up well (but not boast or be egotistical) and be a good negotiator.
If you want more info, Matt, PM me.
Theirs a guy in the 6.4 forum for the 08 superduty and he does this for a living. Everyday he posts on how his trips are and what he pulls. The gas i literally killing him. His 6.4 gets on avg 6.2 mpgs while towin and 9 with his flatbed empty. The thing i dont get and never understand, is how do these people market this type of business? And the reason i ask is because ur towin for people all over the country. Not just for the people in lets say ohio. Ive always thought about doin this (i love towing things, to me it never gets old). But i guess i just dont kno how u would keep a steady income in (unless u market) but then again it comes down to my first ques.
That's pretty awful if he's getting that kind of fuel economy, and it makes me wonder what he's doing.
I marketed myself primarily on eBay and through word of mouth. Once people know you're doing this and you build up a reputation, they'll start telling other people. And folks who have cars hauled frequently know other folks who need to have cars hauled. The income isn't steady (as with any freelancing job) and it's not guaranteed. The reality is the income isn't steady in any business, it's just that when you're an employee of the business then the business acts as a damper and pays you anyway. When you ARE the business, the only damper is your savings account.
How many miles have you driven and on what vehicles?
1979 Buick Regal Turbo (college) - 99,000
1989 Olds 98 Touring Sedan - 457,000 miles when the $$$$$$$
brake system died. $2500.00 for the part.
2001 Ford EX PSD - 227,000 and counting
You can make ton of money!! If only a guy could figure out how to keep it. Had a 4 car hauler for two years. It was fun, I was just out of college and didnt know what I wanted to do so I figured why not drive all over the country. Licensed to run all lower 48 states, hit all but Maine in two years.
You can make ton of money!! If only a guy could figure out how to keep it. Had a 4 car hauler for two years. It was fun, I was just out of college and didnt know what I wanted to do so I figured why not drive all over the country. Licensed to run all lower 48 states, hit all but Maine in two years.
If u dont mind me asking, how much did u make? And when u say "If only a guy could figure out how to keep it", do u mean keep the money and save it or keep the jobs and cash flowing?
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