3 Car Hauling Business Income: Counting the Money First

Driving your vehicle and earning money - most of us can only dream about this after sitting in an office for a decade and earning just an average salary with no proper future career understanding. But what if you just give it up and start a car-hauling business? A 3 Car Hauler is not going to cost you a fortune and you may start hauling cars without a lot of preparations.

Today, we are going to tell you how much you can earn with a 3-car hauler and where you should start to succeed in this business. We won't only cover the good and bright sides of the business, but also tell you about some of the overlooked problems that may stop you from being successful as a car hauler.

Here's what exactly we are going to talk about:

• 3-car hauler - how much does it cost and what do you need to drive it?
• How much can you earn per mile and per day in a 3-car hauler?
• Where can you find the job for your 3-car hauler in the US?
• Is it worth your time? Should you change to hauling cars?

Let's get started!

Disclaimer: we are basing our article on the opinions of other car haulers we've spoken to, and also on open sources. This is not the instruction or guide for setting up your business. Just a helpful piece of information to add to your knowledge.

Where can you get a 3-car hauler?

You can get a used 3-car hauler or buy a new one from China for about $10,000 or a little more depending on the condition and quality. We don't recommend getting a cheap option because this will eventually bring lots of additional expenses. The new American-made hauler will cost approximately $15,000 depending on the model and manufacturer.

But this is just a trailer, and you will also need something to tow this trailer. For a 3-car hauler, you will need quite a simple truck. This can even be a heavy-duty F-Series truck. Buying a used one will not make you break the bank. But still, find a decent truck that can tow at least 15,000 lbs.

Let's take a $10,000 heavy-duty truck which will be pretty old and with high mileage on it. But it will still be able to go.

So, you can buy all the needed equipment for approximately $20,000. Going cheaper than that may be risky in terms of the quality and reliability of your equipment. You will not be allowed to haul cars with a truck from the 1980s and on a rusty hauler. So, your equipment should be reliable and look good.

What else do you need to start this business?

Figure out what type of license you need. This depends on the trailer GVWR and also the truck you are using. In most cases, you will need to upgrade your driving license to legally drive the 3-car hauler. Although the driving license will not cost you much to obtain, you will have to spend some time to get it.

You will also need to register your business. For this, we recommend you consult with a specialist. We won't give any advice on this because this would take a lot of time and the article aims at showing some calculations. So, we'll imagine that you have already registered your business and know how much you should pay as a tax from your earnings. On average, you will pay 20% to 40% of your overall income as tax.

You will obviously need a lot of time because your task will be to drive between different cities and carry vehicles. You may also hire a driver, but in this case, your revenue from just one 3-car hauler will be questionable. You will need a fleet of vehicles to hire drivers and still get some revenue.

How much can you earn for 3 cars in a 3-car hauler?

The earnings depend on so many factors that it's hard to even imagine some average prices. The rule of thumb is that to bring a vehicle from coast to coast costs about $1,200. This makes it $0.50 per mile, on average. But this price is for the 6-car or 8-car haulers that can take more vehicles and are not always flexible.

So, a 3-car hauler may get more money just because it's flexible enough and many companies will find it more appropriate to hire. We believe, in shorter routes up to 300 miles, you can charge about $1.5 or $2 for a mile while in coast-to-coast orders the price will be a little less than $1 per 1 mile.

So, your gross income for 1000 miles of car hauling for 3 cars should be about $3,000. Now, let's see how much you will spend:

• the optimistic estimation of taxes will make it about $600 that you will pay to the government (usually more than that);
• for driving a Ford F-Series Heavy Duty truck to 1000 miles, you will need about 65 gallons of fuel which makes $220 or so;
• also, driving 1000 for one day is just illegal, so you will spend about two working days for 1000 miles (sometimes, even more);
• for two working days, you will need to have at least 6 meals, which will cost you at least $100 when you are on the road;
• your truck is not eternal and it's going to need some maintenance and repairs, so at least $0.05 per mile should be seen as amortization, so add another $50 for repairs;
• you need to sleep somewhere and most truckers will choose to sleep in a truck for free, but some will choose a motel, so you should add more money if this is your choice.

Let's see how much money you will spend to drive your truck with a 3-car hauler. On average, you will spend $970 for 1000 miles in your truck. Also, you will spend two days on this journey, so add some money as your personal salary or the salary of a hired driver if you are going to build a business.

Now, you can charge, on average, about $1 a mile for one car. You have three cars on your hauler, so you will charge about $3 a mile making your total revenue $3,000 and total income - about $2,000 for 1000 miles or $2 a mile. Which is not bad at all. Lots of us will do anything to earn $1,000 a day. But things are a little more complicated. Let's see why.

Why can you usually earn much less?

Most dealers and manufacturers use big haulers to transport 6 to 8 cars at once. This helps them save some money and still get flexible service. But smaller dealers, car repair companies, elite car sellers, used car dealers will not have enough cars to load the big hauler, so they are your clients.

And still, they will always need to bring vehicles to different places. So, you load 3 cars but one vehicle should be driven to 100 miles, the other to 300 miles, and the third one to 500 miles. In this case, you will earn less but still drive 500 miles.

Given our previous calculations are true, you will spend about $500 for this journey and only earn $900 because the cars will be dropped off on the way and your employer is not going to pay you for all 3 cars for 500 miles. So, the real revenues will probably not be as cool as estimated in our previous section.

Where can you get the job for a 3-car hauler?

As we've already told you before, smaller dealers and used-car dealers will be your first priority in terms of clients. If you are lucky enough and you form a relationship with certain premium car dealers, you may get $3 or $4 per mile for one car but you will have to take more responsibility.

A lot of car hauler owners just look for some job in special forums. Your task is to find some clients that will regularly give you some work. Form relationships with your clients to get more work. You may offer them some discounts and special conditions. Because competing with hundreds and thousands of other car hauler owners and businesses is very hard.

Forming a proper relationship with different car dealers is important - this will support your business and let you earn more and more every month.

Also, sometimes, you will need to find cheap jobs to just pay for your petrol. Let's imagine, you just hauled three cars from New York to Dallas and earned good money. But now you need to go back to New York and this will cost you a lot if you don't have any cars to haul. You need to find a new job very fast, so you will have to agree to low-paid jobs just to get at least some money.

Our verdict - is this business actually good?

Car hauling business is great but in that case only if you have a fleet of trucks and professional equipment as well as a good relationship with car auctions, dealers, and manufacturers. Otherwise, you are likely to struggle to get a lot of work. Also, the job you can get will not pay good money. 

But if you have ideas on how you can scale this business and find a lot of orders, you can certainly risk and start this business. With the average starting cost of $20,000, your downpayment will be more than affordable.