I'm looking to buy a semi for moving all our junk from Denver to Kansas city but the catch is I need a place to store it once it gets here. So enclosed trailer it is. For about $10k I've been seeing semi's with dry van trailers that the owner swears up and down is road worthy, nothing new but one was an '89 L9000 with a 43' foot trailer. Theoritically I should have my CDL around when I've saved up enough PTO and cash for this project. But how much is the insurance going to cost? Ball park is fine but I've been told it could be $2000 to $5000, each insurance I call says I need a VIN and to sign up to get any more accurate.
Insurance and registration will be high, See if you could register it as an RV
I could write a very thick box on why you shouldnt do this. If its a one time deal i dont think it would be that bad my insurance on my little semi is not that high and i bet you could get a trip permit . I love a good adventure and this would be one . There is no way that truck and trailer is road worthy without spending some time and money on it. If I was you i would buy a trailer here and then rent a uhaul or buy a van truck. It will take more trips but getting that truck road worthy is going to take some time to. I have helped do what you want to do several times and been very lucky that we didnt have to pay a tow truck to get us home i also know what its like to do a major repair job in a parking lot and paying a taxi to run for parts.
Don't know if they're available in your area but have you considered PODS? Little storage containers they roll off on your lawn. You fill 'em, they move 'em then charge a fee for storage until you empty them. Have seen them used for extensive remodel jobs as well.
What about just getting a trailer together and then hiring a tractor as power only to move it for you?
That is a good ideal but it is almost impossible to get any one to do this . I have been moving storage trailers with my truck the miles start from my house and end back at my house. The last trailer i moved was 40 miles away so i got payed for almost 80 miles bobtailing . Even having to pay this they are always very happy . We have had to hire a wrecker in the past no owner operater wanted to unhook there trailer and make a buck.
Why not pay to have the trailer moved? I think R&L carriers will drop a semi trailer off for you, let you load it, they move it, and you then unload it. It might be a little spendy, but very little risk on your part!
I mean if it is a standard semi trailer what about just posting it on a load board to be moved as if it was any commercial trailer from point A to B? Has that been tried? How about posting it on uship, I always get lots of action if I want some piece of freight moved there.
I second the R&L Route. I have my own Semi currently, it is registered To Me, Insured as Mine and NOT FOR HIRE, that stated the MO License chart is almost debilitating as to how much for a weight tag, my 48BL is $710 for one year, 54 is over $800 the next step is over a grand, "L" Tags are only good for 150 miles from base NOT across state lines, F tags can only be used for FARM Products. CANNOT under any circumstance in MO Buy and Title a Semi as a RV unless prevent it from being able to pull commercial trailer(RV 5th wheel install), Caught using a RV toter as a Work Machine is $500 first incident and $5000 second. My KW is registered truck for a second reason, once titled in MO as RV is damned near impossible to reverse.
Buy a 40' conex (shipping container), have it dropped at your old place. Load it all up in denver, have it hauled and dropped where you can store it (most storage facilities have outdoor gravel storage). We've helped load and unload lots of loaded conex's for people moving like this. Most 40' ones run between 3-5,000. There's a big yard in Kansas City so there's usually boxes available there relatively cheaply. But it would be better if you could buy it in denver and then resell it in Kansas city when you're done with it. A conex will be much easier to resell when you're done with it, than selling some old truck and van trailer. Not to mention the troubles you could have trying to drive it back and forth in a weekend off of work.
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When I built my house in 1990 I bought a 6 wheel dump damn near as old as I am to haul materials to the house. I hadn't shopped for insurance prior to buying the truck and the best I could do back then was $2500/annual. It was based on the maximum gross weight of the truck. I can only imagine it's a lot higher today and your talking a much higher gross, I was 36,000. I'm surprised no one mentioned DOT experiences. My area was very rural back then and I ran weekends and back roads to avoid encounters with the DOT. With you planning to run interstate you have a very high probability of encountering them and with an old questionable truck it won't be pleasant. There's so many things that can result in a deadline and you won't be able to move the truck until repaired or towed to a repair facility. I don't know if this is still a thing but I also had to keep fuel records, log laden and unladen miles to pay the fuel tax. And by the way, you'll need to do this for every state you pass through in addition to getting a fuel tag for each state. Lots of headaches to face for casual use! I do love your spirit of adventure though, this is something I'd have dreamed up 30 years ago!
Next door neighbour tried to buy a con ex last year to move his shop, prices here were through the roof. At the end he bought a 48’ dry van, had it loaded and moved to a storage yard. When he got his new place, a towing company hauled it 300 miles to his new home. Sold it when he was unloaded a few months later. Cam
The price of con-ex have gone up, depending on the dry van those have gone up too.
Too much stuff for a pod. I was needing to keep what ever I haul the crap in for storage. I'd prefer the conex but the place I stored with has a horrible parking lot, I'm not sure a semi coould fit in for a timely loading not to mention all the heavy sh** that can't be lifted up that high. I was thinking my having own so I can load at my pace. I also really don't like road side break downs so I wanted to make sure I wasn't forgetting something. Hadn't considered tags and such.
Just like Crane op said, get a shipping container, and have an owner operator haul it. I would count on paying $2.50 per mile. You might be able to get a hotshot to haul it with a 40ft gooseneck?
Arizona and Texas have bought all the shipping containers up for border wall, market has gone either dry or too high now. Only 600 miles, you might want to just Uhaul it or Uship it. Wow that should be a easy move without buying any equipment, if you buy a rig it better be for more than this little trip. I speak from experience I moved 6 loads 1200 miles across 4 mountain passes to be where I am.
If you google "power only trucking" there are many companies that specialize in providing a tractor only for one-way moves of trailers, loaded or empty. It is a lot cheaper than finding an owner-operator in your area to dead head back. I have bought trailers in Michigan, Illinois, and closer states. I owned several tractors and already had them insured with drivers in them. In every case, I got my trailer brought to me for less than the trip permits and fuel tax permits for the states I wasn't registered for.
That is what I was trying to say in post #5. Freight broker, power only, maybe uship has a way to request power only, seems like it would be a breeze if there were no other hangups.
PODs as plural will be a better choice, be smaller and more easily removed with a Forklift or Forks on a Tractor.
I had to make a move in the early '90's. Way to much stuff, wife wouldn't part with anything, 1,000 miles, across 5 states. I bought a 22' box truck, made 4 trips. The cheapest place to insure it was the state Farm Bureau. Farm insurance was about 1/5 the price of any place that offered commercial insurance. There are no scales across US 36, and its shorter anyway. KC KS or KC MO?
Conex’s 20’s, 40’s, highcubes, junk or one-trippers have been unobtainable in clown world. I gave up trying to locate one. Has the market recently changed?
And easier to get at your crap in the smaller can than a 40 ft container or dry van.
Just came past a lot last weekend with a bunch of them, how many do you want? My understanding was that rolling chassis are in short supply, more than the conex's themselves.
Yard in KC is supposed to have Mountains of them, but have also adjusted their pricing for elsewhere scarcity.
Containers in short supply is normally a coastal port issue. Midwest/interior have more of a tendency to set.
KC Kansas. I like the conex idea, would prefer it really. But who can pick up a loaded conex? What type of truck do I ask for?
Roll off truck or loboy trailer
Dumb question but how would they get a conex off the ground and on the low boy?
Crane or wrecker. There are some trailers that can winch them right on, and have chain drives to shove them off. That's how they usually deliver empty ones. Once they are loaded, then its wrecker or crane time.
Buying or leasing a trailer and having it hauled starts to look cheaper when you factor in a crane at each end to put a container on/off a trailer. Cam
Chain it to a tree and yank the trailer out from underneath it onto a pile of tires, there problem solved Been there done that!
The pods has a vertical winch system, it's pretty cool, no crane needed
Are quite a few levels of these including Landoll and Trail King models where the rolling gear moves forward and the trailer drops to a shallow angle. Not cheap yet are companies specializing in use of Rollback Trailers.
Just be sure to double wrap your knick knacks.
and don't set a 250 lb. genset head on top of a MEP-803A generator, they are flimsy bodies to them
Hope you had better luck luck insuring your truck for personal use than I did in Ontario Canada. These insurance companies are idiotic. Back story: I bought an F550 with a flatbed. Why? Because it was cheaper than all the pickup trucks I could find, it had a Boss vee plow and a V-Mac underhood air compressor and it looked good with the polished aluminum rims, etc. I go to insure it for personal use (I had got a "maybe not so accurate" scale ticket showing it was under 4500KG meaning it did not require an annual safety here.) Insurance company calls me back...."we ran VIN number and it shows commercial vehicle because it came from factory with no body" I argued it was a flat bed and I am only using it to pull my travel trailer twice a year. Called every insurance broker in town, same response. So then I finally blew up and said "you insure my dump truck and highway tractor.....just give me commercial insurance then and I'll pay the higher rate on it. Their next response "sorry, we can't insure it as commercial" I asked why not??? "because you are using it for personal use" I **** you not!!! Anyway after calling and fighting every insurance company in Ontario I finally found one that insured it.
Double speak of the Insurance void. They play kick the can as know nothing better. I own a KW W900 personally, the Missouri Farm Bureau just noted as a truck and moved on. Is cheaper to insure than my F250 that is six years older.
Yes, so many differences from region to region also. One of the biggest problems I see now is none of the brokers use common sense or LOOK at the situation any more. All they want to do is plug the VIN number into their computer system then it tells them what it is and what they can do. Like last summer when I went to put OFF ROAD insurance on my new dirt bike. They take the VIN number and tell me "it's a motorcycle" Well yes. "does it go on water?" Not unless I've had a horrible accident "okay, but you need to have a motorcycle license because it says it's a motorcycle" After many, many of these transactions I finally tell them....look at the bill of sale!! It says RR RACE EDITION Does that sound street legal to you??!! Never mind the damn VIN number. Look at the vehicle you are insuring!!!
Standard rule these days, Parts: 'Oh we do not have that, cannot find in the Computer'. Service: What year did you say? Mechanical injection, no techs here understand that. Anything requiring a brain: My Laptop does not cover that, I cannot help with that!!
Insurance companies keep merging as well. I have been with the same agent since I was 16 years old. Brian used to call me up with better deals, and change my policy to save me money. Then it became Tozer/Jones, Not long after that, Brian retired, but Paula took up the cause with the same service, then it became Miramichi Insurance Brokers, then Paula moved on, and now no one there even knows my name
No different that a doctor visit, name, rank and serial#, have seat.
I have looked into having three of mine insured. All are older but in good condition and I'm going to run with farm plates licensed to 73,280 on the three axle tractor, 54K on the tandem water truck with pusher axle, and 26K with the single axle B-61T. About $2400.00 annual premium for all w/$100 deductible on collision and/or comprehensive. The federal 2290 heavy use tax is waived if operating below 7500 miles annual mileage which would apply for me. These quotations are in addition to my commercial insurance policy's already in place, but are added to it. There is no cargo coverage as that is taken from my shop liability policy.
There was a company called "Trailer Transit" that used to haul our tv mobile units before we got drivers and tractors. They would show up with a tractor and driver, hook up and go to the next show. Don't know what they charge but it would be worth a Google search.
I remember that company as we used them a couple of times "shagging" our work trailers from one jobsite to another. I don't know if they were only in the southeast part of the country or not as we were working both Pensacola, and Jacksonville airfields at the time.
Trailer Transit dragged our trailers all over the country.